Proving The Resurrection By the "Minimal Facts" Approach

[pocaracas]

There are rational arguments in classical theism and Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics) for the immortality of the soul.

The three-part blog post (Some Questions on the Soul) on Feser’s site might provide a starting point.

All three are found here (along with other relevant articles.)

edwardfeser.blogspot.ca/search?q=Some+questions+on+the+soul

I admit, I mostly skimmed them… but I also went for the introduction on the soul.
It seems to me that his views fail to take into account some relatively new information (understandable, since he’s using two thinkers from antiquity)

• Physical alterations to the brain (missing some bits) can result in a different personality.
• Chemical alterations to the brain (drugs - particularly the ones for depression) can lead to different personalities… although, this is usually temporary.
• Electro-magnetic pulses directed at the brain can alter your perceptions…

Basically, it’s pretty obvious that a person’s personality, not just her intellect, is grounded in the brain itself… It’s not some extra feature, which people call the soul.
Unless you wish to posit that this soul interacts with the brain in a faulty manner, if the brain is defective, leading to our perceived changes in that person’s personality… The soul itself retains the personality, it just can’t convey it…

Considering that it is ever more apparent that a human’s personality, feelings, reasoning skills, memories, etc are rooted in the brain, I return to my original question “How can we tell “if people are made for much more than limited biological existence in space and time”?”

 

[pocaracas]

Was that the earthquake (tremblement de terre) which Voltaire speaks of to illustrate the unsolvable problem of evil?

Seems to be…
I didn’t know Voltaire mentioned this. thanks!

For Judaism, it does not really matter whether our souls and/or bodies have immortality or not although many Jews do believe in a World to Come. G-d has provided us through His Law with the means to lead a meaningful life of substance and purpose right here on earth, in which we can help others as well as ourselves. This kind of life is its own reward.

Live for this life. You can’t be sure of any other!

Tiny question: why did you write “G-d”, instead of what we all do… God, god, gods?

 

[PRmerger]

Take all the snot nosed kids out of our group …

But I thought you were claiming them.

The default position and all that.

Didn’t you say that?

You still want to claim all the ones by default? The snot nosed kids would be in that group. As well as the dumb dumbs who don’t care to look at reality.

 

[pocaracas]

Oh, but of course.

thank you!

Using logic and reason, hon.

Care to share them?

If God is the creator of the universe, of all that is material…then he cannot be material and have created it.

That makes him…

immaterial.

Ok… that is contingent on defining “material” as that which is included in the Universe.
It need not be that way…
Our Universe could have been created from a model… of which god could himself be a part.
Can we rule out this possibility?

Outside the universe. Existing apart from, or beyond, the universe.

Got it => Transcendent == outside, beyond, apart from our Universe.

That would be true until the Incarnation happened.

Incarnation?
You know, around here, this word comes from “carne”, which means “meat”… the body… incarnation would be going into some meaty body… a material body… how would people become transcendent then?
Is it because there is material beyond the Universe?

That is, he cannot fail to exist.

So, Necessary is “cannot fail to exist”?
Must be a pre-condition for the existence of this Universe, as he’s the one that creates it.

That’s nonsense, poca.

An entity that creates time but is bound by time?

Did he really create time?
I thought we agreed that he created the Universe.

If the Universe is in a sub-sample of the infinite space-time (not even restricting this to the usual 3+1D… could be any dimensionality in here), then he may have just used the time that was already available.

Am I wrong to admit the possibility that some form of space and time exists beyond the Universe?

##############

Er…no.

If an argument can be refuted, it is refuted.

When an argument can’t be refuted, and the poster doesn’t want to acknowledge this, he simply says, “Well, your argument fails”.

You know I meant discussion about religion… they tend to end in a friendly disagreement… sometimes not so friendly… but I can only hope for the friendly outcome!

If you say so.

And the time period under discussion is modern day western civilization.

For that’s what you live in. That’s what I live in.

ok.

We are talking about Truth here. Reality.

And even one miracle—just one–is proof of God’s existence.

So if there’s one miracle–reported…OR unreported, it matters not—God exists.

One act of non-technological magic. I await…

 

[PRmerger]

The fact of the matter is that someone WROTE that 500 people saw him.

So when he wrote that, where were all the folks who said, “Hey, you said people in my community saw him. Where are these people? I don’t know of a single person who’s actually said he’s seen the risen Jesus.”

This text occurred within a generation of the event.

Most of the folks who could have proven the writer to be mistaken would have still been around.

Where’s* their *testimony that this author was mistaken?

 

[PRmerger]

Did he really create time?

Well, do you believe in magic?

Do you believe time just appeared, magically, without a cause?

 

[PRmerger]

Did Josephus believe in Jesus’ Resurrection based on the oral testimony of 500 people according to Paul? If so, did he convert to Christianity? If not, why not?

Nothing is written about his conversion.

If he didn’t, I suppose it’s because he was like the majority of folks who saw Him and didn’t believe.

Heck, even one of His Apostles, Judas, ended up not being a believer.

So go figure.

People have a myriad of reasons for not believing–its too hard to change your life, it means leaving your anti-believing community, it means leaving behind a sinful life, it means deferring to an authority, etc etc etc

 

[PRmerger]

Were these people not familiar with all the miracles Jesus performed, including the raising of Lazarus from the dead?

Not sure if you’re implying that Jews believed folks could be resurrected because Lazarus was resurrected. If so, let me offer a correction: Lazarus was resuscitated, not resurrected.

Also, Jews (correct me if I’m wrong), understood resurrection to mean “on the last day”, not as Christ did.

So there was no expectation among the Jews for Christ to resurrect.

When your messiah was killed, you went home, lamented over your allegiance to a false messiah, and then waited for the next messiah.

 

[PRmerger]

Tiny question: why did you write “G-d”, instead of what we all do… God, god, gods?

Of course, meltzer can answer on his own, but it is an indication of profound, deep respect for the Numinous. You don’t say God’s name. You don’t write God’s name.

It’s too holy.

 

[PRmerger]

Care to share them?

Already did.

Something that creates material cannot…by logic and reason…be material.

If God created matter, time, space, energy, God cannot be made of matter, time, space and energy.

He has to transcend MTSE.

It’s just common sense, poca.

 

[pocaracas]

Egg-zactly!

So we can agree that the fact that Jesus rose from the dead doesn’t ever have to have been written down! (The fact that it is…by at least 6 different authors…is just icing on the cake).

Certainly…
And the fact that thousands of hadiths exist detailing Mohamed’s life and sayings and witnessing the miracles he did is just… what? another whole cake on top of that icing?

Indeed.

So if I know of at least 1 person who would never lie about seeing her teacher, her master, her beloved rise from the dead…we can …*.extrapolate *…from that to…

there are people in history also who would never lie about such a thing.

Are you saying that it’s normal for people to tell a story exactly as it was told to them by someone else?
Isn’t there an old saying about this?.. who tells a tale adds a tail.

That rule was written by a…man. Newton, right?

That makes it man-made.

It’s so man-made that a man’s name is attached to it.

How about you try again to give us an example of something that doesn’t sound like a man-made rule?

The “rule” is a description of the actual rule observed to be at work in Nature.
I thought you could tell the two apart…

##########

poca? Did you read this?

I suppose, then, that poca needs to dramatically decrease his 10% statistic, to exclude these snot-nosed teenagers who are “no more an atheist”.

There’s always more teenagers!
Some stick with it… it’s usually not “just a phase”, you know?

Think about it, when this happens to a teen in a muslim country… if he speaks up and declares he’s an atheist… he gets killed. What do you think that does for the numbers of atheists in those regions’ statistics?

############

I’ve never seen one instance of mass hallucination to be credible.

That’s a curious statement, considering how popular such expressions seem to have become in certain locations:

• Lourdes
• Fátima
• Medjugorje

##############

Let’s look at it mathematically.

The Christian world view:

A minimal amount of suffering + infinite amount of joy in eternity = a really great deal.

The atheistic world view:

A whole lot of suffering (because that’s all you have in proportion to your 70 or so years of life) + NOTHING after you die = a really bad deal

No one said it’s easy. That’s why some people become depressed upon realizing this.
But it does give you a better appreciation of the one life you have… and of everyone else’s lives.

If it makes little to no difference between dying at age 20 or 80, then why hang around here? there’s an eternity of bliss on the other side, huh?
Then you need to impose special cases such that suicide is a sin and you wouldn’t be welcomed on the other side…

According to Bart Ehrman, there was an early (heretical, of course) christianity sect that explored this detail that this life is ultimately worthless.
Luckily, most people are rather fond of their own lives… a little thing that comes from evolution - stay alive for as long as you can! (unless some altruistic reason comes up, in which things become difficult to judge)

############

Well, then, this is no more a solution than what Believers have.

In fact, it’s a horrifically dismal solution.

Essentially, you have to tell your child that his cousin died “for no reason. Things are as they are.”

So the Problem of Evil is not only a problem for Believers, but for Atheists as well.

I’d disagree. Believers claim that there is an all-powerful, all-loving, all-good being out there.
This being cares about them, loves them, wants all good, has the power to do all good… yet seems to allow some evil.
It seems to be a paradox.

If no such entity exists, then things are as they are.
Earthquakes are a reality of our dynamic planet. We evolved on this planet and are not going anywhere else, soon. We must hang on to it, deal with it, accept it.

 

[Gorgias]

• Physical alterations to the brain (missing some bits) can result in a different personality.
• Chemical alterations to the brain (drugs - particularly the ones for depression) can lead to different personalities… although, this is usually temporary.
• Electro-magnetic pulses directed at the brain can alter your perceptions…

Basically, it’s pretty obvious that a person’s personality, not just her intellect, is grounded in the brain itself

Why are you conflating ‘personality’ with ‘soul’? They’re not the same thing at all! (In fact, if we want to assent to the ‘nature/nurture’ spectrum, then by definition, personality must be dependent (at least in part) to our physical, embodied experiences!)

Unless you wish to posit that this soul interacts with the brain in a faulty manner, if the brain is defective, leading to our perceived changes in that person’s personality… The soul itself retains the personality, it just can’t convey it…

Again, you’re adding the ‘personality’ strawman to the argument. I double-checked the Feser citation you provided; nowhere does he use the word ‘personality’ in that mind-body essay …

Considering that it is ever more apparent that a human’s personality, feelings, reasoning skills, memories, etc are rooted in the brain, I return to my original question “How can we tell “if people are made for much more than limited biological existence in space and time”?”

For a believer, it’s obvious.

For a non-believer, there’s still the sense of ‘transcendent purpose’ – that is, of doing something that will persist long after the body dies – that says that “limited biological existence” is only a portion of what we feel drawn to and made for…!

 

[pocaracas]

So when he wrote that, where were all the folks who said, “Hey, you said people in my community saw him. Where are these people? I don’t know of a single person who’s actually said he’s seen the risen Jesus.”

This text occurred within a generation of the event.

Most of the folks who could have proven the writer to be mistaken would have still been around.

Where’s* their *testimony that this author was mistaken?

When did he write that thing about the 500?
And to whom? Who would have read it? Who heard it?

Details!
If no one from the original community of “witnesses” ever heard about this text, how would they step up and say “hang on a minute…”?

################

Well, do you believe in magic?

Do you believe time just appeared, magically, without a cause?

Could have just always been there… it’s a simple enough assumption.
At least simpler than your alternative.

 

[PRmerger]

Our Universe could have been created from a model… of which god could himself be a part.
Can we rule out this possibility?

What? Huh?

God didn’t exist, and then creates himself?

What the what???

Incarnation?
You know, around here, this word comes from “carne”, which means “meat”… the body…

Around here, too.

incarnation would be going into some meaty body… a material body…

Yep.

how would people become transcendent then?

What makes you think people become transcendent?

So, Necessary is “cannot fail to exist”?
Must be a pre-condition for the existence of this Universe, as he’s the one that creates it.

Your first comment is correct.
Your second is a nonsequitur.
The Universe does not have to exist.

And since it does, it needs an explanation.

Am I wrong to admit the possibility that some form of space and time exists beyond the Universe?

Yes. Because the Universe, by definition, is all space, time, matter and energy.

You know I meant discussion about religion… they tend to end in a friendly disagreement… sometimes not so friendly… but I can only hope for the friendly outcome!

Well, if you can refute the 20 Arguments for God’s existence, let’s hear them out!

 

[PRmerger]

Could have just always been there… it’s a simple enough assumption.
At least simpler than your alternative.

Time has always existed?

Think about this, poca.

Mathematically.

If time exists in the infinite in the past, then we would never be able to get to the present moment.

However, we exist in the present moment.

Therefore, time cannot be infinitely in the past.

#logicagain

 

[PRmerger]

Could have just always been there… it’s a simple enough assumption.
At least simpler than your alternative.

Here’s someone from your team who states that anyone who believes that time has “just always been there” has a “corrupted judgement” (his words, not mine )–

“An infinite number of real parts of time, passing in succession, and exhausted one after another, appears so evident a contradiction, that no man, one should think, whose judgement is not corrupted, instead of being improved, by the sciences, would ever be able to admit of it.”–David Hume
genius.com/David-hume-an-enquiry-concerning-human-understanding-chap-122-annotated

 

[Gorgias]

The “rule” is a description of the actual rule observed to be at work in Nature.

What a shame. I thought you were giving us something that we could work with. You’ve got a problem, though: either your definition of ‘rule’ is something that only works in Nature (which, due to God’s transcendence, can never apply to Him), or you’ve just proven our case (and blown your case to bits): after all, what we’ve done is exactly analogous to what you’ve done – provided a man-made description of an actual state at work (that is, the state of God’s existence).

I thought you could tell the two apart…

We can. I’m left wondering whether you can, too, since you walked right into that one…

Think about it, when this happens to a teen in a muslim country… if he speaks up and declares he’s an atheist… he gets killed. What do you think that does for the numbers of atheists in those regions’ statistics?

It drives them underground or convinces them to lie about what they truly believe (or disbelieve, as it were).

No one said it’s easy. That’s why some people become depressed upon realizing this.

Wait – so, what you’re trying to sell us is a worldview that is just as unproven and unprovable (empirically, that is!) as Christianity, but which is terribly depressing and holds out no hope, and leads to despair? Umm… no thanks.

But it does give you a better appreciation of the one life you have… and of everyone else’s lives.

If it makes little to no difference between dying at age 20 or 80, then why hang around here? there’s an eternity of bliss on the other side, huh?

No, that’s not it at all. Instead, from a Christian’s perspective, life is a gift from God, and it’s not something that we should arbitrarily take or throw away. You’re not the only one who realizes the value of the life we live, you know…

Then you need to impose special cases such that suicide is a sin and you wouldn’t be welcomed on the other side…

Not what the Church teaches, but hey… keep showing us your strawmen – this is entertaining! :sad_yes:

According to Bart Ehrman

You’re talking about the Bart Ehrman who started off believing in the fundamentalist literalist interpretation of the Bible, and then, when he discovered that it wasn’t a science book / history book / 100% literalistic work, threw the whole thing away? Yeah… that’s good scholarship…

I’d disagree. Believers claim that there is an all-powerful, all-loving, all-good being out there.
This being cares about them, loves them, wants all good, has the power to do all good… yet seems to allow some evil.
It seems to be a paradox.

It isn’t, really, once you realize that He values free will above all as the means that enable us to freely accept and love Him. Without free will, you can have your ‘perfect’ universe, filled with ‘perfect’ robots who cannot act in any way as moral agents. Again, you can have that construct; it’s not in the least appealing or persuasive.

 

[pocaracas]

Of course, meltzer can answer on his own, but it is an indication of profound, deep respect for the Numinous. You don’t say God’s name. You don’t write God’s name.

It’s too holy.

And yet… you don’t consider it as holy… interesting…

################

Already did.

Something that creates material cannot…by logic and reason…be material.

If God created matter, time, space, energy, God cannot be made of matter, time, space and energy.

He has to transcend MTSE.

It’s just common sense, poca.

Oh… no… I meant the other things, the “all-powerful, all-good, all-loving” part that was never explained.

Why can’t a material thing create material?
A human can create another human.
A tree can create more trees.
A crystal can create more crystals, just like the original one.

How can you say anything about the materialness of something beyond our Universe?

 

[PRmerger]

Could have just always been there… it’s a simple enough assumption.
At least simpler than your alternative.

Another way to show that time having an infinite past is a logical contradiction is this, borrowing from Apologist Trent Horn:

Imagine that you want to display your marble collection. You want to display them when you’ve counted all of them.

So if you have 12 marbles, you will display them pretty quickly.

If you have a million marbles, it will take quite a long time to get to the day when you can display them. But you would, eventually, get to the day.

But if you have an infinite number of marbles, you will never get to the day when you display your marbles. There will always be one more marble to count.

But I see your marble display. (That is, in this parallel, equal to “TODAY”. Today is happening, therefore that means you’ve displayed your marbles).

Therefore, I can conclude that you didn’t have an infinite number of marbles.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Were these people not familiar with all the miracles Jesus performed, including the raising of Lazarus from the dead?

Coming back to life after being dead isn’t what the Resurrection means, essentially speaking. Jesus didn’t merely have his old mortal body and biological life back.

In Judaism at the time, the Pharisees believed in the final resurrection - life AFTER death but not until the end of the time. The Sadducees didn’t believe in life after death at all. Therefore, for Jesus not merely to come back from the dead but exhibit the kind of life expected by Pharisees – we’re not sure where common sentiment was – ONLY at the end of the world was unexpected.

Even Jesus’ words to the Apostles that he would rise again in three days would have been understood in the same sense that Lazarus was raised from the dead, not resurrected in the final sense of taking on an immortal body, which is what happened.

Given what Jesus went through in the crucifixion and scourging that preceded it, I think the little hope the disciples had that Jesus would be raised from the dead – in the same sense that Lazarus had been – would have been dashed.