On Jesus' Resurrection

[Perplexity]

He actually admits that there was an empty tomb known to have been the correct tomb, that there were appearances of the risen Christ, and the Origin of Christian belief. What he doubts if the best explanation of these facts.

Where 1 = post-mortem apearances, and 2 = the empty tomb, my OP came to the following conclusions:

So, my conclusion is that if we grant 1, we’re committed to some highly implausible thesis, be that hallucination, delusion, or veridicality. Therefore, we shouldn’t grant that they had these experiences until we have good reason to independent of their testimony.

So, look at what you have to commit to if you concede 2. It’s crazy to me, I can’t accept any of these options, yet at least. So, I shouldn’t concede 2.

Perplexity’s lays out a couple objections, but it boils down to the following. He claims that: All possible explanations of the data are highly improbable including the Resurrection, wrong tomb hypothesis, hallucination hypothesis etc. Hence we can have no confidence in any of them. Despite his claim in his OP, this then is not an argument that the Resurrection did not occur, only that we cannot reasonably conclude it did on the basis of the evidence.

I stated in the OP that I wanted “to argue that if these [1 & 2] were the only two pieces of evidence being proffered, we should conclude that Jesus probably did not resurrect. This in turn would mean that if there are other pieces of evidence, they must bare an enormously more amount of pressure than before.”

My reasoning is basically that if we were to accept 1 or 2, we’d be committed to some highly improbable positions, and therefore, we shouldn’t accept either 1 or 2 as evidence to be accounted for.

Since the claim that Jesus resurrected is initially improbable (for everyone) consequently requiring evidence to overcome this initial improbability, and there’d be no evidence to do this, we’d conclude that Jesus probably didn’t resurrect.

Also, even if the resurrection hypothesis was a better explanation for the data than any other individual competitor, it could still be less probable than the hypothesis that Jesus did not resurrect.

We’re talking about two mutually exclusive hypotheses: Jesus resurrected v. Jesus did not resurrect.

The latter is the conjunction of things like hoax, swoon, hallucination etc. So, it may be the case that each of these is improbable, but their conjunction is more probable than the resurrection.

As far as your Bayesian calculations go, I can’t imagine assigning P(E|~R & k) something like 0.01.

But, granting that P(Resurrection|Empty Tomb & Post-Mortem Appearances & Rise of Christianity & k) = 0.93, I still argue that we shouldn’t grant the empty tomb or the post-mortem appearances. Thus, my OP might reverse your Bayesian calculations.

See, if you’re right, and we ought to expect these things given that Jesus resurrected, then if these things didn’t obtain, we have evidence that Jesus did not resurrect.

 

[MarkInOregon]

If someone told you they saw, talked with, and ate with a relative of theirs whom you both knew had recently died, you’d sooner think they weren’t coping with their grief healthily or some such than that they really did this. You’d need a lot more evidence than their testimony to believe them. And this brief example would provide you with much stronger testimony than we have for the 1. Other than Paul, there were no contemporary eyewitnesses to the “post-resurrection” appearances of Jesus, in all the other cases of post-resurrection appearances we have at best second- or perhaps third-hand reports of what eyewitnesses claimed to see, recorded decades after the crucifixion.

What if 500 people told you this–some of whom were not related to the relative? (We are not talking about one person wearing a tin foil hat and living under a bridge). People spend years in prison on just such eye witness testimony.
What you dismiss is precisely the same evidence we have for many historical events that I am sure you readily accept and consider to be true–simply because you find it easy to believe they could have happened.

Those of us who believe in the resurrection–look at the testimony of the witnesses and the nature of the experience they describe and find the testimony credible–even if it is hard to believe–we believe the the resurrection best fits the evidence. It seems to me that basically what you are saying is that someone cannot be raised from the dead–and you’ll accept any explanation–even if it is unlikely because it fits with what you believe based on your experience–i.e. something like mass halucination by many people at different times is more likely than the resurrection of Christ (who is God).

These discussions usually seem to be futile because nothing believers in the resurrection can put forward will satisfy those who don’t believe someone can be raised from the dead–that God does not pocess that power. It seems to me that even if these people (and I speak generically here not of you specifically) were faced with someone who had been declared dead by the medical profession–who suddenly sat up later in the morgue–would except any unproven medical hypothosis for what ocurred (i.e. that somehow he wasn’t really dead) rather than accept even the possibilty that God performed a miracle–because regardless of the evidence they refuse to believe in “miracles”–there is always some other explanation–even if we don’t know what it is.

If you are truly searching I wish you luck and pray that God send you wisdom and understanding.

Peace,
Mark

 

[danserr]

My reasoning is basically that if we were to accept 1 or 2, we’d be committed to some highly improbable positions, and therefore, we shouldn’t accept either 1 or 2 as evidence to be accounted for.

Since the claim that Jesus resurrected is initially improbable (for everyone) consequently requiring evidence to overcome this initial improbability, and there’d be no evidence to do this, we’d conclude that Jesus probably didn’t resurrect.

Got it. I think I understand you better now.

Your argument if that if accepting a piece of evidence would commit us to a highly implausible position, then we should deny that piece of evidence. Hence since accepting the empty tomb and appearances of the risen Christ would commit us to the position that God raised Jesus from the dead, which (at least according to your argument) is highly implausible, then we should deny the empty tomb and appearances of the risen Christ.

An inventive argument, but I think it suffers from some severe drawbacks.

1. It is not the case the everyone admits the Resurrection to be highly implausible.

• The plausibility of the Resurrection will depend on 1. the probability that God exists (G), and 2. the probability that God would raise Jesus from the dead (J). To someone who held G. at 90% certainty (based on Natural theology) and J. at 50% certainty, this would put the Resurrection Hypothesis at 45%. This would tend toward the lower side of 50%, but is hardly low enough to call it “highly implausible.” So, it seems like at most your argument would apply to an atheist who held the Pr (R on background info.) to be low, but would not apply to someone who was already a theist.
• But would it do that? Suppose an atheist who hold G at 0.25 and J at 0.5. This would lead to a 12.5% probability on background info that God would raise Jesus. This is certainly low, but I’m not sure low enough for your argument to hold. This last may be disputable though.

1. Your argument does not account for the fact that rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would itself commit us to highly implausible (and perhaps highly absurd) conclusions.

If rejecting the evidence we have would commit us to a highly implausible conclusion (as rejecting the evidence for the empty tomb, appearances of risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief), then it seems by your own logic, we should refuse to reject this evidence.

It seems that at the very least the competing implausibilities of accepting or rejecting the evidence would balance each other out and lead us to reject your argument.

1. Examples can demonstrate the falsity of your argument.
   Let H (our hypothesis) be: the number 10,18,24,45,33,24 was drawn in the lottery last night.
   Let E (our evidence) be: the morning news reported that the number 10,18,24,45,33,24 was drawn as the winning lottery number last night.

Now, H is highly improbable. From what we know of odds, it is highly unlikely that that number would actually be drawn. Yet accepting E would force us to accept that highly improbable hypothesis. Hence, your argument requires that we reject E and deny that the morning news actually reported that number, which is clearly absurd.

We could construct similar examples where implausible or improbable conclusions would require us to reject persuasive evidence for them. This seems problematic for your argument.

1. Your argument would make it impossible for us to ever accept an argument for an implausible conclusion. You would automatically force us to deny otherwise well-grounded evidence for an implausible conclusion. This by itself is problematic (to use an overly vague term). Yet, worse, it would prevent us from ever accepting a conclusion that was implausible or improbable (on out background information), on the basis of evidence. This seems absurd and ignores that historians are generally regarded as having demonstrated implausible conclusions to be probable on the basis of evidence.
2. (not sure this is an independent point) A hypothesis may be highly improbable on background information, but not highly improbable on the evidence. I think we normally accept this in our daily lives, but if I follow you right, you would force us to deny this.

 

[danserr]

Also, even if the resurrection hypothesis was a better explanation for the data than any other individual competitor, it could still be less probable than the hypothesis that Jesus did not resurrect.
…
The latter is the conjunction of things like hoax, swoon, hallucination etc. So, it may be the case that each of these is improbable, but their conjunction is more probable than the resurrection.

Not all competing hypotheses would be weighed together against the Resurrection hypothesis. Some of them are incompatible (like the conspiracy theory and wrong tomb theory). Even the ones that are compatible (wrong tomb and hallucination, for instance), still suffer from many drawbacks that make them inferior explanations to the Resurrection hypothesis when considered according to rules for inference to best explanation

For instance, take a combination of wrong tomb with hallucination. Well, the wrong tomb theory would still suffer from serious drawbacks, the arguments against the hallucination hypothesis would still apply and neither would account for the origin of Christian belief.

As far as your Bayesian calculations go, I can’t imagine assigning P(E|~R & k) something like 0.01.

I was fairly generous in assuming a bias toward atheism in my other assigning probabilities and I think it highly improbable that we should have those three facts if the Resurrection did not occur. But if I change that number to ).05 (which strikes me as absurdly high) and keep the rest, this still results in 73% likelihood of the Resurrection. Lower certainly, but still pretty good considering all I granted.

See, if you’re right, and we ought to expect these things given that Jesus resurrected, then if these things didn’t obtain, we have evidence that Jesus did not resurrect.

Cheerfully granted.

If Jesus rose from the dead, we should strongly expect the evidence that we do have (empty tomb, appearances of risen Christ origin of Christian belief). If, on the other hand, the tomb was not empty, there were no appearances, and the disciples did not believe that Jesus rose, then this would be good evidence that he did not rise. Though of course, I think our evidence for those three facts is remarkably good.

 

[Perplexity]

What if 500 people told you this–some of whom were not related to the relative? (We are not talking about one person wearing a tin foil hat and living under a bridge). People spend years in prison on just such eye witness testimony.
What you dismiss is precisely the same evidence we have for many historical events that I am sure you readily accept and consider to be true–simply because you find it easy to believe they could have happened.

Those of us who believe in the resurrection–look at the testimony of the witnesses and the nature of the experience they describe and find the testimony credible–even if it is hard to believe–we believe the the resurrection best fits the evidence. It seems to me that basically what you are saying is that someone cannot be raised from the dead–and you’ll accept any explanation–even if it is unlikely because it fits with what you believe based on your experience–i.e. something like mass halucination by many people at different times is more likely than the resurrection of Christ (who is God).

These discussions usually seem to be futile because nothing believers in the resurrection can put forward will satisfy those who don’t believe someone can be raised from the dead–that God does not pocess that power. It seems to me that even if these people (and I speak generically here not of you specifically) were faced with someone who had been declared dead by the medical profession–who suddenly sat up later in the morgue–would except any unproven medical hypothosis for what ocurred (i.e. that somehow he wasn’t really dead) rather than accept even the possibilty that God performed a miracle–because regardless of the evidence they refuse to believe in “miracles”–there is always some other explanation–even if we don’t know what it is.

If you are truly searching I wish you luck and pray that God send you wisdom and understanding.

Peace,
Mark

It may well be that things like the empty tomb, and the post-mortem appearances [from now on [E & P] meet some, commonly used, historical criteria, such that the amount of evidence we have for E & P is equal or greater than the amount of evidence we have for other historical events we find unobjectionable. But because of the uniquely improbable things which are entailed by E & P (the resurrection or one of a number of very improbable naturalistic hypotheses), the evidence we have isn’t enough to provide the level of certainty in E & P as we might have for equally evidenced historical events which do not have such improbable implications.

Your argument seems to hinge on there having been 500 individuals claiming to have had experienced the risen Jesus.

Millions have claimed to be alien abductees. Do we therefore believe aliens exist and abduct lots of humans? No.

And the case for aliens is far greater for the 500 witnesses. We have no multiple, independent attestation of them, we know of them only through at least a second hand source and have no idea where Paul got the info from (although no one else mentions it, so perhaps it wasn’t widely known?). Further, we don’t know the nature of their alleged experiences, are like Paul’s for instance? And all of this is aside from the fact that it’s incredibly unlikely that 500 people experienced the risen Jesus, whether hallucanitorily or not.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

But because of the uniquely improbable things which are entailed by E & P (the resurrection or one of a number of very improbable naturalistic hypotheses), the evidence we have isn’t enough to provide the level of certainty in E & P as we might have for equally evidenced historical events which do not have such improbable implications.

For those who might be similarly tempted by this line of thought I recommend the book Fooled by Randomness by Nic Taleb. Although Taleb is focused on financial investment, his observations apply well to historical analysis such as we are discussing here. In particular, Taleb notes the human tendency to discount improbable events (in preference for predictable, linear expectations and normal distributions) and the very dire cosequences that result from giving in to that temptation.

 

[Perplexity]

1. It is not the case the everyone admits the Resurrection to be highly implausible.

This is true, but it’s also true that not everyone admits Hallucination (etc.) is highly implausible, including guys like Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, and John Dominic Crossan. My argument would be similarly unconvincing to them for comparable reasons. But, this wouldn’t bother me since I think they’re wrong.

• But would it do that? Suppose an atheist who hold G at 0.25 and J at 0.5. This would lead to a 12.5% probability on background info that God would raise Jesus. This is certainly low, but I’m not sure low enough for your argument to hold. This last may be disputable though.

I think we could only assign J something as high as 0.5. if our background knowledge included certain details about Jesus that would significantly raise that likelihood. The Jesus dwelling in my background knowledge isn’t anyone God would likely raise though. So, my honest assignment wouldn’t be anywhere near 0.5. Similarly, G would be very low for me.

1. Your argument does not account for the fact that rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would itself commit us to highly implausible (and perhaps highly absurd) conclusions.

You don’t specify which implausible conclusions denying the empty tomb or the appearances of the risen Christ would commit us to. The texts we have are our evidences, the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances are hypotheses attempting to explain these texts.

1. Examples can demonstrate the falsity of your argument.
   Let H (our hypothesis) be: the number 10,18,24,45,33,24 was drawn in the lottery last night.
   Let E (our evidence) be: the morning news reported that the number 10,18,24,45,33,24 was drawn as the winning lottery number last night.

Now, H is highly improbable. From what we know of odds, it is highly unlikely that that number would actually be drawn. Yet accepting E would force us to accept that highly improbable hypothesis. Hence, your argument requires that we reject E and deny that the morning news actually reported that number, which is clearly absurd.

If we did deny E, it wouldn’t be that the anchor actually reported that number, it’d mean that we’d regard his testimony as false. But, I don’t think we should reject E in light of H’s improbability because this move would in fact commit us to even more improbable hypotheses than H. That is, sure, it’s pretty improbable that the lotto numbers are actually 10,18,24,45,33,24, but it’s even more improbable that they aren’t (given that the anchor announces them as such).

1. Your argument would make it impossible for us to ever accept an argument for an implausible conclusion. You would automatically force us to deny otherwise well-grounded evidence for an implausible conclusion. This by itself is problematic (to use an overly vague term). Yet, worse, it would prevent us from ever accepting a conclusion that was implausible or improbable (on out background information), on the basis of evidence. This seems absurd and ignores that historians are generally regarded as having demonstrated implausible conclusions to be probable on the basis of evidence.

As my reply to 3 indicated, rejecting x as evidence because of the improbable hypotheses it’d commit us to also involves considering those hypotheses we’d be committed to by rejecting x. If these are more improbable, then we shouldn’t reject x as evidence. I believe this is how we work on a day-to-day basis, and this is a part of the probability theory (Bayesianism) that scientists and philosophers utilize.

 

[MarkInOregon]

It may well be that things like the empty tomb, and the post-mortem appearances [from now on [E & P] meet some, commonly used, historical criteria, such that the amount of evidence we have for E & P is equal or greater than the amount of evidence we have for other historical events we find unobjectionable. But because of the uniquely improbable things which are entailed by E & P (the resurrection or one of a number of very improbable naturalistic hypotheses), the evidence we have isn’t enough to provide the level of certainty in E & P as we might have for equally evidenced historical events which do not have such improbable implications.

Your argument seems to hinge on there having been 500 individuals claiming to have had experienced the risen Jesus.

I don’t think it hinges on a particular number. Your argument, seemed to me, to always posit the appearance of Christ to a single individual at a time – I simply threw out a number – rather unclearly indicating that Christ appeared to multiple individuals at the same time. Positing the appearances only to single individuals–makes it easier to dismiss the appearance than if the appearance were to many individuals at once.

 

[danserr]

This is true, but it’s also true that not everyone admits Hallucination (etc.) is highly implausible, including guys like Michael Goulder, Gerd Ludemann, and John Dominic Crossan. My argument would be similarly unconvincing to them for comparable reasons. But, this wouldn’t bother me since I think they’re wrong.

So, (to assess where we stand now), your main point in this thread has been to argue that if accepting certain"facts" as historically probable would commit us to a highly improbable conclusion, then we should deny those facts.

I raised several reasons in my last post (43) for denying your principle argument, which you responded to. I am going to try to defend the ideas I expressed pointing out why your central argument is problematic. My argument will focus on two main points:

1. Even on your own terms (if I granted your argument) this does not give us sufficient reason to deny the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief.
2. Your own terms contain a highly implausible consequence, demonstrated by examples, and we can use Bayesian terminology to explain why we should reject your argument.

A preliminary consideration: A first objection that I made included that it is not clear, as you hold in your OP, that everyone agrees that the Resurrection is highly improbable.

The probability of the Resurrection on our background knowledge will be dependent on the probability that: 1. God exists (G) and 2. that God would raise Jesus from the dead (J).

• Now a theist might hold G. to be high on reasons of natural theology and J to be at least neutral when considering Jesus’ life and teaching. Hence, a theist might reasonably deny that the Probability of the Resurrection on our background knowledge, that is, Pr (R on B), is very low.
• Likewise an agnostic, who would hold G. at 0.5 and J at 0.5, resulting in Pr (R on B) of 0.25.
• Even an atheist of certain degree of conviction (G. at 0.25 and J at 0.5), would hold Pr (R on B) to be improbable, but maybe not sufficiently so to commit him to rejecting evidence for the empty tomb, appearance, and origin of Christian belief if he accepted your argument.

The reason I am beating what might seem to you to be a dead horse is that in your OP, you suggested that your argument would apply to everyone because we all agree that the Pr (R on B) is highly improbable. Actually, we don’t.

Hence, not only should your argument not phase someone who is already a theist or even agnostic on other grounds. It seems that at most your argument, even if successful, would apply only to someone who was a very committed atheist on his background information. So, this might be a good reason that you should not accept the evidence for the Resurrection, but would not apply more broadly. That being said, I will try to challenge your argument and show that even if you hold Pr (R on B) to be very improbable, that on historical investigation, if you grant certain historical facts, then you should accept the Resurrection hypothesis.

One note: I have not ignored your objection to my listing Pr (J) as 0.5. I will address it later, but for now just say that I am inclined to be stubborn on this one, since I think that when you consider Jesus’ life and teaching, it’s hard to say that it’s improbable that God would raise Jesus. So, I pick 0.5 as being reasonable to plug into the equations.

 

[danserr]

My first main objection:
1. Rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would itself commit us to highly implausible and improbable conclusions, hence by your own argument, we should refuse to reject them and instead accept those three facts.

• Now you grant this in principle, but challenge me to name some improbable consequences. I list some below:

You don’t specify which implausible conclusions denying the empty tomb or the appearances of the risen Christ would commit us to…

By the numbers (not meant to be complete, but give a sufficient sample to illustrate my point):

1. Most obviously, we would committing to hold that The tomb was not empty.
2. That Jesus’ followers did not experience appearances of the risen Christ.
3. That the earliest disciples did not come to believe in the Resurrection.

• the denial of each of these facts is widely admitted to be highly improbable. (See my summary of evidence in their favor) For instance, even Ludemann accepts 2, he just differs on the best explanation of it, while 3 is nearly universally accepted.

1. We would be committed to believing either that Jesus’ followers did not believe that he was the Messiah or that they came to believe that he was the Messiah in the absence of those 3 facts. Both of these possibilities are absurd.
2. We would have to believe either that Jesus’ disciples did not die for their beliefs or that they were put to death independent of their belief in Jesus’ Resurrection. Both of these are highly improbable.

• In defense of this point. Skeptics sometimes question this, but few deny the persecution of Christians under Nero. They are testified by Tacitus at the end of the 1st century. For simplicity, let us primarily take Peter, Paul, James, and Stephen. Their suffering and death for their belief in Jesus’ Resurrection is admitted by all hands. Hence to claim that they did not suffer or die or that this was independent of their belief in Jesus’ Resurrection is a highly implausible and improbable conclusion. Yet, one to which the denial of the three facts would force us.

1. If we rejected the three facts, the disciples transformation from cowards to stern witnesses of Christianity becomes impossible to explain. We would have to either deny that they had this transformation, or else that they had this personal transformation independent of their belief in the three facts, which is so improbable as to be absurd.
2. The same applies to Paul. To deny the three facts would force us either to deny his personal abandonment of his persecution of Christianity and comfortable position for a life of suffering and toil, or else to explain it in the absence of those three facts. Either possibility is absurdly improbable.
3. If the tomb was not empty and there were no risen appearances, then the gospel’s agreement that a group of women found the empty tomb becomes hard to account for. The most plausible explanation of the gospel writers putting women as discoverers of the empty tomb, is that the tomb was really found empty. If we deny the empty tomb, then we are automatically forced to a less plausible explanation of why the gospels record women as having discovered the empty tomb.
4. The best explanation of early Jewish polemic explaining that the tomb was really empty, is that there really way an empty tomb. Denying the empty tomb would force us to a less plausible explanation.
5. Denying the appearance of the risen Christ would force us into some absurd position to explain why St. Paul (in an early letter everyone admits to be authentic) claimed that those appearances occurred.

These examples could be multiplied several times over. For every piece of evidence that supports the three facts, we would be forced to take some less plausible position (and in many cases an outright absurd position).

Hence, since rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would commit us to highly improbable conclusions (which are multiplied as each are taken together), by your own principles, we should refuse to reject the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief.

Actually, we might even have to go further. even if you held the probability that God exists as 0.05 and the probability that He would raise Jesus as 0.25, the compounded improbability of all the improbable conclusions we should be forced to accept by denying the three facts would easily be far more improbable than the resurrection on your background knowledge Pr (R on B).

At the very least, I think it is plain that rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would force us to hold to some highly improbable conclusions. Hence, by your argument, we should accept those three facts.

 

[danserr]

2. Second, I want to object that examples can clearly demonstrate the falsity of your main argument, which if accepted, would have highly implausible consequences.

I proposed the example of the lottery:

Let H (our hypothesis) be: the number 10,18,24,45,33,24 was drawn in the lottery last night.
Let E (our evidence) be: the morning news reported that the number 10,18,24,45,33,24 was drawn as the winning lottery number last night.

danserr:

Now, H is highly improbable. From what we know of odds, it is highly unlikely that that number would actually be drawn. Yet accepting E would force us to accept that highly improbable hypothesis. Hence, your argument requires that we reject E and deny that the morning news actually reported that number, which is clearly absurd.
PerplexityIf we did deny E, it wouldn’t be that the anchor actually reported that number, it’d mean that we’d regard his testimony as false. But, I don’t think we should reject E in light of H’s improbability because this move would in fact commit us to even more improbable hypotheses than H. That is, sure, it’s pretty improbable that the lotto numbers are actually 10,18,24,45,33,24, but it’s even more improbable that they aren’t (given that the anchor announces them as such).

I think my initial example still works, so let me see if i a can successfully argue that.

Now, you maintain that if accepting certain facts as evidence would force us to accept a highly implausible conclusion, then we should deny those facts. Now you modify this to “we should deny those facts, unless doing so would force us into an even more improbable conclusion.”

Even on those terms though, my argument succeeds. The odds of the winning lottery number being 10,18,24,45,33,24 (with the bonus number of 12) would be something like one in 175 million.

Now even if I trusted the news media with 99.99% accuracy, it is still overwhelmingly more improbable that the lottery number called is not the winning number. It would still be more probable that the news media were lying. Hence, your argument would force us to reject the trustworthiness of the report. Yet, we both agree that this is wrong.

So, I would disagree with your claim that the media lying or being mistaken is more improbable than the winning number being 10,18,24,45,33,24 (with the bonus number of 12 for good measure).

As my reply to 3 indicated, rejecting x as evidence because of the improbable hypotheses it’d commit us to also involves considering those hypotheses we’d be committed to by rejecting x. If these are more improbable, then we shouldn’t reject x as evidence. I believe this is how we work on a day-to-day basis, and this is a part of the probability theory (Bayesianism) that scientists and philosophers utilize.

So, this should make it obvious why i object to your above statement. I don’t think that is how use probability theory. On the contrary, we accept the winning lottery number not by weighing the probability of that number being drawn vs. the probability that the media are lying or mistaken. this would be to ignore an important part of Bayes theorem.

Instead, we consider not primarily those two factors you mention, but besides the explanatory power of the hypothesis, the probability that the evidence would be what it is, if the event did not occur. So, we accept the winning lottery number as the winning number not because of a straight weighing of the improbability of the number on our background information against the probability of the media lying or being wrong, but because we also consider the probability that the news media would report that number as the winning number if it were not actually the winning number

Pr(H on E) = Pr (H) x Pr (E on H)
--------------------------------
Pr (H) x Pr (E on H) + Pr(not H) x Pr(E on not H)

That would be the Pr (not H) x Pr (E on not H).

You seem to be asking us only to weigh Pr (H on B) against Pr (E on H). But this won’t work, you also have to factor in Pr (not H) x Pr (E on not H). This last number may be sufficient to outweigh even a very improbable hypothesis, which is why we trust that when the media reports a winning lottery number as the winning number, it actually is.

So for the lottery: despite the high improbability of a certain lottery number being drawn, we accept that it is the lottery number because the hypothesis that that number was drawn has great explanatory power of the evidence (the media report that it was drawn), and also because it is highly improbable that the media would report that number as the winning number if it were not the winning number.

Compare to the Resurrection: Even to a person who thinks the Resurrection to be highly improbable, such a person could still accept the Resurrection if he thinks that the Resurrection hypothesis has great explanatory power, and thinks that it is very improbable that we should have things like the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief if the Resurrection did not occur.

So, this does not allow us to say as you want us to: well, if accepting certain evidence would force us to an implausible conclusion, then we should deny the evidence. In Bayesian calculations, we don’t deny evidence because of a low Pr (H on B), rather we consider that probability that the evidence should be what it is if the hypothesis is false. Hence, even granted that Pr (H on B) is low, one could still be forced by the evidence to accept the hypothesis.

 

[danserr]

Why you should accept the Resurrection hypothesis

Pr(H on E) = Pr (H) x Pr (E on H)
--------------------------------
Pr (H) x Pr (E on H) + Pr(not H) x Pr(E on not H)

Assume Pr (H on B): 0.025 (95% probability God does not exist, 50% probability He would raise Jesus.

Assume Pr (E on H): 0.99 (frankly, if the Resurrection occurred, then things like the empty tomb, appearances, and origin of Christian belief are virtually certain.

Assume Pr (E on not H): 0.01

Results in probability of the Resurrection as: 72%, even granted an incredibly low Pr (R on B).

Now I don’t think you will object to Pr (E on H) since it is widely accepted that the great strength of the Resurrection hypothesis is its explanatory power.

You might question my assigning a 0.50 probability that God would raise Jesus. But I think that considered in the context of Jesus’ life and teaching, this is not implausible. You might be more willing to accept it given further consideration of Jesus’ life and teaching.

Most likely, you would question Pr (E on not H). But, this is determined by historical investigation. So, if you considered the evidence, weakness of competing theories, and decided on the basis on that consideration that it is highly improbable (as I think it clearly is) that we should have things like the empty tomb, appearance, and origin of Christian belief if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then you should accept Resurrection hypothesis. (And you already seem to admit in your OP that apologists do a good job pointing to the weakness of competing theories).

At the very least, I think that this shows that you cannot dismiss the empty tomb, appearances, origin of belief, simply because of the supposed improbability of R on B. You do have to do this historical work, and if the evidence is good enough, should be moved to accept the Resurrection even granting that Pr (R on B) is very low.

Sorry for the length. I need to work on brevity.

 

[Perplexity]

1. Even on your own terms (if I granted your argument) this does not give us sufficient reason to deny the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief.

My argument concludes that we do have sufficient reason to deny the empty tomb and the post-mortem appearances, so how could you grant this, and still say we don’t have sufficient reason to deny these?

A preliminary consideration: A first objection that I made included that it is not clear, as you hold in your OP, that everyone agrees that the Resurrection is highly improbable.

Your argument here seems to be that many folks have a number of beliefs that wouldn’t allow them to calculate as my argument needs them to. I completely agree with you, and as mentioned in my last response, it’s not just folks who don’t find the resurrection implausible, it’s also people who think hallucination is probable, the wrong tomb, cognitive dissonance or whatever else is probable. None of this effects my argument though.

I’d simply say their beliefs, which allow them to evade my calculations, are wrong. e.g., if someone sincerely believes it’s probable that God exists, and that he’d likely raise Jesus, I’d simply say they’re wrong. (To make good on this claim would require a good deal of argumentation on my part though).

So, what’s important here isn’t how people actually do apportion their beliefs to the evidence, it’s how they should.

Your First Main Objection:

Thanks for the list, this greatly helps.

I feel like I can grant your first objection without any damage being dealt to my argument. That is, it appears to me that I can grant that it’s highly implausible to deny any one of those items on your list, but still maintain that it’s even more implausible to accept them. What’s important isn’t just that their denial commits one to highly improbable hypotheses, but also whether their acceptance commits one to even more improbable hypotheses. Having said that, I’d like to note that I haven’t denied the rise of Christianity, my argument only addresses the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances.

Your Second Main Objection:

Funnily enough, I think we’ve been saying the same thing here. My claim, in Bayesian terminology, is that if the prior for H is sufficiently low, it doesn’t really matter how much more likely E is on H than on ~H. A sufficiently low prior is enough to nullify a hypothesis’ explanatory power.

Every Bayesian must accept this, it’s simply a consequence of The Theorem. (which is why I said my argument was “a part of the probability theory (Bayesianism) that scientists and philosophers utilize.”)

I assign such priors to the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances, inter alia, because of what they’d entail.

Does this phenomenon occur within your lottery example? No, because as you said, “This last number may be sufficient to outweigh even a very improbable hypothesis, which is why we trust that when the media reports a winning lottery number as the winning number, it actually is.” I said this in my last response: “sure, it’s pretty improbable that the lotto numbers are actually 10,18,24,45,33,24, but it’s even more improbable that they aren’t (given that the anchor announces them as such).”

Your Concluding Bayesian Calculation:

You didn’t define what E is but I’m guessing it’s the conjunction of the Empty Tomb, Post-Mortem Appearances, and the Rise of Christianity.

Now, I could completely grant your calculations, and still maintain that Jesus probably did not resurrect. This is because you’re calculating the probability of Jesus’ resurrection given the Empty Tomb, and Post-Mortem Appearances. That is, we assume these things are true, momentarily, in order to discern how they’d effect the resurrection’s probability. Fair enough. But, this does not give us reason to believe in the Empty Tomb or Post-Mortem Appearances, it just tells us that if they are true, then Jesus probably resurrected.

That said, I don’t think we should agree with your calculations. I think we should place P(Resurrection|k) somewhere around 0.0001. This is because, even if we’re certain God exists, there’s practically nothing at all about the most historically probable description of Jesus that would incline God to raise him from the dead. Was he morally outstanding? Sure. Was he regarded as a miracle worker? Sure, let’s just grant that. Did he even predict his own death and resurrection? Sure, grant that as well (though I don’t actually believe these things). Etc. etc. How many others have properties like these but weren’t raised by God? Why would these incline God to raise him? I’m just at a loss.

Further, P(E|Resurrection & k) is far from 0.99. Why should we expect post-mortem appearances, for example, if Jesus rose from the dead? There are literally an infinite amount of things Jesus could’ve done from here that wouldn’t involve any such appearances. Would he have wanted to comfort his disciples? There are a million ways he could’ve done that without so appearing. Why wouldn’t he simply ascend, testing their faith? etc. etc.

 

[snarflemike]

Typically, when someone says they see dead people, what they’re saying is false.

Apples to oranges. Can you assert that “Typically, when someone says they have seen God incarnate resurrected from the dead, what they are saying is false”? If so, give reasons for that assertion.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

Apples to oranges. Can you assert that “Typically, when someone says they have seen God incarnate resurrected from the dead, what they are saying is false”? If so, give reasons for that assertion.

The whole problem with much of the argument is that it rests on a barely disguised circularity and an implicit assumption that improbable events are unusual. Both of these errors, in turn, rest on a facile underestimation of the complexity of the world we live in and an overestimation of our mastery of it. While I’ve enjoyed danserr’s mathematical excursions, he’s really pulling numbers out of thin air to argue against numbers that Perplexity has pulled ouf of thin air.

 

[Perplexity]

Apples to oranges. Can you assert that “Typically, when someone says they have seen God incarnate resurrected from the dead, what they are saying is false”? If so, give reasons for that assertion.

How is my claim ‘apples to oranges’? Are you suggesting they didn’t really claim to see Jesus after he’d died?

 

[MarkInOregon]

That said, I don’t think we should agree with your calculations. I think we should place P(Resurrection|k) somewhere around 0.0001. This is because, even if we’re certain God exists, there’s practically nothing at all about the most historically probable description of Jesus that would incline God to raise him from the dead. Was he morally outstanding? Sure. Was he regarded as a miracle worker? Sure, let’s just grant that. Did he even predict his own death and resurrection? Sure, grant that as well (though I don’t actually believe these things). Etc. etc. How many others have properties like these but weren’t raised by God? Why would these incline God to raise him? I’m just at a loss.

How about the fact the Jesus and God are one? You are treating Jesus as simply a man and that is not what Christians believe–but I guess thats a whole other thread.

I am not sure this is really about probability. I am sorry but I think there is no amount of evidence short of time travel and the resurrected Christ appearing to you personally that would be sufficient for you and even then if, like Thomas, Christ appeared to you and you stuck your finger in his wounds–I get the feeling you’d chalk it up to the bad lamb you had for dinner or the ill affects of time travel, or sun stroke or something else. I am not convinced you simply find it highly improbable–I think you find it impossible.

What is it you hope to gain from the discussion you are having with danser? Is it simply to enlighten all of us foolish Christians? Or if you are truly searching–just what kind of evidence are you looking for?

Peace of Christ,
Mark

 

[snarflemike]

How is my claim ‘apples to oranges’? Are you suggesting they didn’t really claim to see Jesus after he’d died?

Oh c’mon. Are you saying that God incarnate is the same as “dead people”? My response was quite clear. We have no great body of experience regarding people who claim they have physically seen and touched and spoken with God incarnate resurrected from the dead. Certainly we have no reason to take the position, as you did, that this happens all the time, and they are always, or almost always, proven wrong.

You attempt to take a singular claim and throw it in to a vast pot of dissimilar claims and you say “See how rare it is that those dissimilar claims are true? Therefore the singular claim is most likely untrue as well.”

Apples and oranges.

 

[danserr]

My argument concludes that we do have sufficient reason to deny the empty tomb and the post-mortem appearances, so how could you grant this, and still say we don’t have sufficient reason to deny these?

Sorry, my mistake, I was unclear. I am distinguishing what I am calling your “argument” and your “conclusion.”
By your “argument”- I mean that claim that if accepting certain evidence would entail accepting a highly improbable conclusion, then we should deny that evidence.
By your conclusion, I mean you application of this principle to the Resurrection, ie that since the Resurrection is so improbable on our background info, we should deny the evidence for it (empty tomb, appearances of risen Christ, origin of Christian belief).

I’d simply say their beliefs, which allow them to evade my calculations, are wrong. e.g., if someone sincerely believes it’s probable that God exists, and that he’d likely raise Jesus, I’d simply say they’re wrong. (To make good on this claim would require a good deal of argumentation on my part though).

So, what’s important here isn’t how people actually do apportion their beliefs to the evidence, it’s how they should.

Sure, but I would say that their beliefs (including theists, agnostic, and even atheists of a certain stripe) that allow them to evade your calculations are correct (with those of the theist being most correct, of course )

As for how people should proportion their beliefs to the evidence, I think this is consistent with what I have said. Theists, agnostics, and even many atheists, on their background information, should not find your argument for rejecting the empty tomb, appearances of the Risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief persuasive.

Now, as you say, maybe they and we are wrong in our background information (which would require another thread), but on that background information, we should not accept your conclusion.

Again, the reason I mention this is that some Catholics following the thread are under the opinion that you have presented a reason that they should deny the evidence for the Resurrection. But without their background information having been shown to be wrong (as I think it is not), there is no reason for them (or anyone but a very, very committed atheist) to deny either the Resurrection or evidence for it.

Your First Main Objection: Denying the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief would commit us to highly absurd hypotheses, hence we should not reject them

Thanks for the list, this greatly helps.

I feel like I can grant your first objection without any damage being dealt to my argument. That is, it appears to me that I can grant that it’s highly implausible to deny any one of those items on your list, but still maintain that it’s even more implausible to accept them. What’s important isn’t just that their denial commits one to highly improbable hypotheses, but also whether their acceptance commits one to even more improbable hypotheses. Having said that, I’d like to note that I haven’t denied the rise of Christianity, my argument only addresses the empty tomb and post-mortem appearances

The reason I insist on adding the origin of Christian belief as the third point is that your argument (reject evidence for a highly improbable conclusion) would entail also rejecting the origin of Christian belief since that itself is evidence for the same supposedly improbable conclusion.

Yes, you could indeed in theory maintain that though it’s highly implausible to deny any one of the items on my list that it is more improbable and implausible to accept them (since it would mean accepting something as (supposedly) improbable as the Resurrection.

But remember, this would require a remarkable degree of certainty about the improbability of the Resurrection, both of the non-existence of God and the improbability that He would raise Jesus from the dead. I don’t see how you get that far.

Second, Remember, it is not just the improbability of any one item on the list, as you say. Denying the empty tomb, risen appearances, and origin of Christian belief, would entail you being forced to accept every item on that list. Hence, the improbabilities multiply considerably. Assume that each of the first five has a probability of 0.05 and each of the last five a probability of 0.1. Both of these strike me as far higher than is actually probable, but let’s take it for the sake of argument. All 10 taken together results in a probability of: 0.00000000000000015625.

Now, this could easily be increased because we could easily double or triple that list with another 10-20 improbable propositions to which rejecting the empty tomb, appearances, and origin of Christian belief would commit us. It might still in theory be possible to hold that the intrinsic probability of the Resurrection is even more improbable than this, but that strikes me as a remarkable claim to argue that the probability that God exists combined with the probability that He would raise Jesus is that low. And you yourself don’t even seem to think it is that low when you say:

I think we should place P(Resurrection|k) somewhere around 0.0001.

Now, I disagree with this, but even if I granted it, it is far dwarfed by the improbabilities that rejecting the empty tomb, appearances, and origin of belief would commit us to (and as I say, those improbabilities could easily be multiplied).

So, I think that establishing that denying the fact of the empty tomb, appearances of the risen Christ, and origin of Christian belief commits us to highly improbable conclusions can easily outweigh any supposed improbability of the Resurrection on our background information.

 

[danserr]

**Your Second Main Objection: Bayesian Probability Calculations show the error of your claim that if accepting certain facts as evidence would commit us to an improbable conclusion, we should deny that evidence **

Funnily enough, I think we’ve been saying the same thing here. My claim, in Bayesian terminology, is that if the prior for H is sufficiently low, it doesn’t really matter how much more likely E is on H than on ~H. A sufficiently low prior is enough to nullify a hypothesis’ explanatory power.
.

I actually, thought we might have been close to saying the same thing too, but I think we are not quite.

The reason, I am not sure we do agree yet, is that you are arguing that if accepting certain facts as evidence would commit us to a highly improbable conclusion, that we should deny not only the conclusion, but the evidence for it. (Let H be hypothesis)

So, it seems to me you are saying: if Pr(H on B) is very low, then we should reject E, hence we should reject H.

But what Bayesian probability actually says is: Pr (H on B) is very low, we should reject H. It does not entail necessarily rejecting E. On the contrary, we might still accept E, but simply posit come other explanation of it. So, I don’t think your argument that if Pr (H on B) is sufficiently low then we should reject E, is supported by probability theory.

Let me go further. You want to argue that if Pr (H on B) is sufficiently low, then not only should we deny H, but we should even deny E. In fact, I may be wrong here, but it seem to me that you think that it is in theory possible that Pr (H on B) could be low enough that we should deny H no matter Pr (E on H) and Pr (E on not H).

But this seems wrong. No matter how low Pr (H on B) is, we cannot rationally reject it without considering Pr (E on H) and Pr (E on not H). No matter how low Pr (H on B) is, it could still be outweighed by those two factors. So, we cannot simply conclude that because the intrinsic probability of the hypothesis is low, that we should deny the evidence, and hence the hypothesis, because there would then be no evidence for the conclusion!

It seems like it would be more reasonable and direct so say that if Pr (H on B) is too low, then we deny H no matter what, but this is obvious fallacious consider Bayes theorem’s requirement to also consider Pr (E on H) and Pr (E on not H). So it seems odd to me that you try to justify this by denying on the basis on Pr (H on B) being very low, not the hypothesis, but the evidence for it.

I feel as if I have not been as clear as I should, but I’ll post anyway and see what you make of it.

Your Concluding Bayesian Calculation:
That said, I don’t think we should agree with your calculations. I think we should place P(Resurrection|k) somewhere around 0.0001.

For this, you need to argue that it is for some reason very improbable that God would raise Jesus. The only argument of this you offer to point to other people who were “like Jesus” and assert that God did not raise them, hence we should expect that He would not raise Jesus.

The over-riding weakness of this argument is that there were not many figures who were like Jesus. Taking into context not only everything He did, but the people to whom he belonged (the Jews), their beliefs on prophecy, messiah-ship, God, the Old Testament etc. and Jesus himself, there is simply no comparison to anyone else.

He was not just a great moral teacher who was executed (a sort of Jewish Socrates). He claimed that the kingdom of God had come with him, believed that he had the power to work cures and expel demons (whether he actually did or not), claimed to forgive sins something that (to a 1st century Jew) only God could do, and claimed personal divine authority.

It is sometimes said that Jesus was only one of many miracles workers. This is not true. The actual number of recorded miracles workers is very small. Next, remember the Jewish context, the belief in only one God, where Jesus fits into the Old Testament, prophecy, and God’s long plan to redeem Israel. This easily defeats your claim that the probability that God would raise Jesus is low based on comparison to other similar people who God did not raise. On the contrary, there is no one similar enough in the same context to make that comparison to Jesus. Hence, I do not think we can say that it is very improbable that God would raise Jesus, and I would give that probability as 0.5.

Further, P(E|Resurrection & k) is far from 0.99. Why should we expect post-mortem appearances, for example, if Jesus rose from the dead? There are literally an infinite amount of things Jesus could’ve done from here that wouldn’t involve any such appearances. Would he have wanted to comfort his disciples? There are a million ways he could’ve done that without so appearing. Why wouldn’t he simply ascend, testing their faith? etc. etc.

I am surprised that you deny this, since the explanatory power of the Resurrection hypothesis is admitted by all hands. But since you ask… Now, the empty tomb we at least must admit is certain. Why appearances? Because He would have wanted his disciples to know he rose (not just comfort them). This requires appearances. An empty tomb alone would have convinced them of nothing. But with no empty tomb, they would have never believed that Jesus rose either. Both were needed. And as for the origin of Christian belief, there would have been no point to Jesus rising and having that lead to nothing. This argument could easily be extended, but it does seem clear that the empty tomb, appearances, and origin of belief is virtually certain if Jesus rose.