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I was raised as one of Jehovah's Witnesses. However, I came to doubt my Witness beliefs, rejecting many of them, and the doctrinal autho...

Sunday, December 23, 2018

When Shall We Be With the Lord? A Seventh-day Adventist Perspective

A friend of mine, David Waltz, brought the work of a certain F. D. Nichol to my attention in connection to my post I'm Naked! - NSFW, specifically his Answers to Objections: An Examination of the Major Objections Raised Against the Teachings of Seventh-day Adventists (1932). And, since his argument deserves to be heard by itself, apart from any commentary or response, I've typed up the relevant passage thereof, namely, pp. 100-107 here. We'll respond next week, but let's let our friend Mr. Nichol speak for himself[1]: 

Objection V
Did not Paul declare that when he died he would go immediately to be with Christ? (See Phil. 1:21-23.)

The passage reads thus: 'For to me to life is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.' Phil. 1:21-23

If there were no other text in the Bible that dealt with the question of the final reward of the righteous, the reader might be pardoned for concluding that Paul expected, immediately at death, to enter heaven. This much we freely grant. But we would add at once that if a lone phrase in some one text of Scripture is to be viewed by itself, the Bible would seem to teach salvation by works, prayers for the dead, and other doctrines that Protestants consider unscriptural.

We cannot agree with the interpretation of Paul's words as given in the objection before us. Why? Because it would make the apostle contradict himself. Paul wrote much on the subject of being with Christ. Let us examine at least a part of his writings before drawing a conclusion concerning this passage.

In another of his letters, Paul goes into details as to when the righteous will go to 'be with the Lord:' 'The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.' 1 Thess. 4:16-18

This states very plainly that the righteous dead and the righteous living will go 'to meet the Lord' at the same time, for they are to be 'caught up together.' The time is when 'the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven,' that is, at the second advent. 'And so [in this way, or by this means] shall we ever be with the Lord.' Why should Paul teach here most emphatically that it was to be by means of the second advent that all the righteous, including himself, would go to be with the Lord, if he really believed that he would go at death?

The apostle made this statement to the Thessalonians because, said he, 'I would not have you be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not.' Verse 13. He assured them in the next verse that if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, then we may be confident that the God who 'brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus' (Heb. 13:20) will also bring from the dead those who sleep in Jesus.

It is impossible to think that Paul believed that the righteous go to be with the Lord at death, since he specifically told the Thessalonians that the righteous, both living and dead, go 'together' to 'be with the Lord' at the second advent. He declared that he was writing them so that they would not be 'ignorant.' It is incredible that he would leave them in ignorance as to begin with Christ at death, if he thus believed. In fact, he told them the very opposite, - that the righteous dead do not go to be with the Lord at death, but await the resurrection morn. If he believe that he we go to be with the Lord at death, why did he fail to mention this fact when he was writing specifically to 'comfort' them? He exhorted them to find their 'comfort' in a future event - the resurrection.

Those ministers today who believe in immortal souls, 'comfort' the bereaved with the assurance that the love done has already gone to be with the Lord, and they declare that we who hold a contrary view deprive a sorrowing one of the greatest comfort possible. Do they therefore indict Paul also?

Again, if Paul believe that the righteous go to God at death, why did he tell the Corinthian church that the change from mortality to immortality will not take place until the 'last trump'? (See 1 Cor. 15:51-54.)

Or why did he tell the Colossians that when Christ appears, 'then shall ye also appear with Him in glory'? Col. 3:4.

Or why should he have said, as the time of his own 'departure,' by the executioner's sword, was at hand, 'Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them that love His appearing'? 2 Tim. 4:8

Yes, and why should Christ Himself tell His disciples that they would once more be with Him when He fulfilled His promise: 'I will come again, and receive you unto Myself'?

Yes, why should Christ have focused the attention of the troubled disciples wholly on His second advent if it were really true all of them would go to be with their Lord immediately at death?

These, and other passages we could quote, are in hopeless contradiction to the interpretation placed on the words of Paul in the objection before us. Are we to conclude, therefore, that Scripture contradicts itself? No. Paul in his statement to the Philippians does not say when he expects to be with Christ. He states briefly his weariness of life's struggle, his desire to rest from the conflict, if that would Christ to be 'magnified.' But to this veteran apostle, who had so constantly preached the glorious return of Christ as the one great event beyond the grave, the falling asleep in death was immediately connected with what would occur at the awakening of the resurrection, - the being 'caught up' 'to meet the Lord.' 

It is not an unusual thing for a Bible writer to couple events that are separated by a long span of time. The Bible does not generally go into details, but concerns itself with the setting forth the really important points of God's dealing with man along the course of centuries. For example, Isaiah 61:1,2 contains a prophecy of the work that Christ would do at His first advent. In Luke 4:17-19 is the account of Christ's reading this prophecy to the people, informing them: 'This day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.' Verse 21. But a close examination will reveal that Christ did not read all the prophecy from Isaiah, though apparently it is one connected statement. He ended with the phrase: 'To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.' But the very next phrase in the sentence is: 'And the day of vengeance of our God.' He did not read this, because it was not yet fulfilled. The whole span of Christian era was to pass before the day of God's vengeance was to come. This long period of time is not even suggested in the prophecy, but other Bible passages indicate this fact clearly, and it is by examining all these other passages that we learn how to understand a brief, compressed prophecy like that of Isaiah 61.

Or take the prophecy of the second advent as given in 2 Peter 3:3-13. If no other Bible passage was compared with this one, the conclusion might easily be reached that the second advent of Christ results immediately in the destruction of this earth by fire. Yet when we compare 2 Peter 3 with Revelation 20, we learn that a thousand years intervene between the second advent and the fiery destruction of this earth. Peter was giving only a brief summary of the outstanding events impending. He passed immediately from the great fact of the second advent over to the next great act in the drama of God's dealing with this earth, its destruction by fire. But with Peter's prophecy, as with that of Isaiah, there is no need for confusion if we follow the Bible plan of comparing scripture with scripture to fill in the details.

Now if Peter could place in one sentence (2 Peter 3:10) two great events separated by a thousand years, and Isaiah could couple in another sentence (Isa. 61:2) two mighty events separated by more than nineteen hundred years, why should it be thought strange if Paul followed this plan, and coupled together in one sentence (Phil. 1:23) the sad event of his dying with the glorious event of being 'with Christ' at the second advent? In the other passages we have quoted from Paul, the death of the Christian is directly connected with the resurrection at Christ's advent, events we know are separated by a long span of time. Therefore the mere fact of the coupling together of the event of dying with the event of being with the Lord, does not necessarily mean that these two events are immediately related. And when we follow the Bible rule of comparing scripture with scripture, we discover that the two events are widely separated. (pp. 100-104)

Objection VI
Paul said that he was "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." 2 Cor. 5:8.

If the reader will open his Bible to this fifth chapter of Second Corinthians, he will discover that Paul is dealing with three possible states. Let us classify his statements regarding them:

1. 'Our earthly house.' 'At home in the body.' 'Absent from the Lord.' This house can be 'dissolved.' 'In this we groan.'

2. 'Unclothed.' 'Naked.'

3. 'A building of God.' 'House not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' 'Our house which is from heaven.' 'Clothed upon.' 'Present with the Lord.' 'Absent from the body.'

If the 'earthly house' means our present, mortal body, as all agree, then unless there is clear proof to the contrary, it would logically follow that our heavenly house is the immortal body. And thus be a process of elimination the 'unclothed,' 'naked' state can mean none other than that state of dissolution known as death.

We are assured of the desired third state because we have 'the earnest [pledge] of the Spirit.' Verse 5. But how will God's Spirit finally insure our reaching this desired state? Paul answers: 'If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.' Rom. 8:11.

The learned Dr. H. C. G. Moule well says: 'The same Spirit, who, by uniting us to Christ, made actual our redemption, shall surely, in ways to us unknown, carry the process to its glorious crown, and be somehow the efficient cause of 'the redemption of our Body.' ' - The Expositor's Bible, comment on Romans 8:11

Now, if the fulfilling to us of that pledge of the Spirit is the change that takes place in our mortal bodies at the resurrection, then we must conclude that the change to the third state, that of being 'clohted upon' with the heavenly house, comes at the resurrection, and consists of the change in our bodies from mortal to immortal.

Paul declares further: 'We know that the whole creation groaneth and travaleth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.' Rom. 8:22,23. The he is here dealing with the same problem as in 2 Corinthians 5, is evident:

Romans 8;22,23     2 Corinthians 5:1-8
'Groan within ourselves.'     'We groan.'
'First fruits of the Spirit.'     'Earnest of the Spirit.'
'Waiting for.'     'Earnestly desiring.'
'Redemption of our body.'     'Clothed upon' with heavenly house.

Thus we conclude again that the change from the 'earthly house' to the 'house which is from heaven' is an event that involves the 'redemption of our body,' which 'redemption,' all agree, occurs at the resurrection day. (See also Phil. 3:20,21.)

The apostle states that he longs to be 'clothed upon' with the heavenly house, 'that mortality might be swallowed up of life,' or, as the American Revised Version states, 'that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life.' Verse 4. In other words, 'what is mortal' loses its mortality by this change.

According to the immortal-soul doctrine, 'what is mortal' is the body only, which at death dissolves in the grave; while the soul simply continues on in its immortal state, freed from the mortal body. But Paul longs to be 'clothed' with the heavenly house, 'that what is mortal bay be swallowed up of life.' Thus by their own tenets, the immortal-soul advocates must agree that Paul in this passage is not dealing with an experience that takes place at death. We might therefore close the discussion.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul declared: 'We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.' When? 'At the last trump.' And what will take place? 'The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.' And what will result from this? 'When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.' 1 Cor. 15:51-54. This last phrase parallels the language in 2 Corinthians 5: 'What is mortal [or subject to death] may be swallowed up of life.' The swallowing up of death, or mortality, is still a future event.

That Paul expected to be 'clothed upon' with the heavenly house at the resurrection day, is the certain conclusion from all his statements. Being 'present with the Lord' is contingent upon being 'clothed' with the heavenly house. Therefore the being 'present with the Lord' awaits the resurrection day. How beautifully this agrees with the apostle's statement to the Thessalonians, that at the resurrection we are caught up 'to meet the Lord,' and 'so shall we ever be with the Lord.' 1 Thess. 4:16,17

If it seems strange to some that Paul should speak of putting off one 'house' and putting on another when he meant simply the change in our bodies from mortal to immortal, we would remind them that he uses a similar figure of speech when describing the change that takes place in the heart at conversion. He declares that we should 'put off . . . the old man,' and 'put on the new man.' Eph. 4:22-24.

The fact that Paul coupled together the being freedom from the earthly house and the being clothed upon with the heavenly, does not prove that he expected an immediate transfer from one to the other. He makes specific reference to an 'unclothed,' a 'naked' state. On the question of immediate transfer, the reader is referred to the discussion of Philippians 1:21-23 in the preceding chapter.

With propriety might Paul 'groan' for the day when he could put off this mortal body, with all the evils suggests by it, and could put on, be 'clothed upon,' with the promised immortal body, in which body he would be ready 'to meet' and to 'ever be with the Lord.'

[1] As it happens, this book can be found here, as can a revision (1952, evidently): here. Also, I expect to revisit his work, and those like it from time to time.

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Word Choice

Word Choice
August 28th, 2018

For one of my classes, Exploring Vocations and Callings, I received a syllabus. Most of it was run of the mill stuff - really common sense, which you would hope need not be said - or an outline of work for the class, as well as when it will be due. However, someone, perhaps the professor, decided to add the follow:
Probably the most difficult for respectful, accurate language in English is gender. Use words that refer to both men and women unless men or women are specifically meant. Often the best way to use gender accurate language is to use generic plural subjects. For example: "Wesley had strong beliefs about people in general, and about the individual person specifically. He believed that everyone is created in the image of God, and that all can be renewed in that image."
Despite the claim of the poorly worded first sentence, it is not, in fact, difficult to be respectful or accurate in one's choice of generic expression for mixed-company groups, or the average member of such groups. More specifically, use of "Man" or "mankind" in reference to humankind, or "he" or "him" for an average member of a mixed-group is not inaccurate, nor disrespectful. Concerning the first point, it is hard to see what the inaccuracy would be, unless one misunderstood these terms to be taken as masculine terms or pronouns; such a mistake overlooks their generic and gender-neutral usage, and this is hardly the fault of he who uses such language (particularly since such usage is ancient, and yet not uncommon today). Concerning the second point, such language is no more disrespectful than the generic use of "she", though it does have the advantage of being less political than this the generic use of "she"; nor is it connotative of social and religious liberalism, which is (at least) decidedly more bad than good, as the generic use of "she" is: witness the remains of the semi-apostate, Episcopal church, among others, and the sexual revolution. If someone takes offense at generic "he" terms, he must aggrieve himself, since offense is not given merely by their use. Let the innovator innovate if he must, but it's not his concern to tell me what words I can use.

I saw another syllabus from a religion class, Introduction to Biblical Studies, perhaps, which contained a section similar to the above, though, a bit more forceful in wording: I believe it said that such "he or she" sort of language is required. Moreover, it suggested focusing on motherly imagery for God. Denied, denied, denied. I will update this post when I found out, or if I do (perhaps only some classes make that inane suggestion / prescription.). 

And, from someone else, I know the Greek professor quasi-requires (urges, is perhaps the better term) students to not use "He" of God. Fortunately, I don't have Greek this semester. 

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Wordpress?

I think that I'll take this blog down and move my posts over to Wordpress; I'll decide by Friday.

Is Political Neutrality Required of Christians?

Is Political Neutrality Required of Christians?
July 28th, 2018

This is what some groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, teach, and it is at least superficially compelling and heeding it to some degree is not without some practical advantage; but that doesn’t suffice for us to suppose it a requirement for Christians pure and simple. Scripture doesn’t command us to be politically neutral, and there is good reason to think that it permits at least some involvement in the political sphere, contingent on the particular circumstances one finds himself in.

In defense of the supposed prohibition on political involvement it might be pointed out that Christ told his followers to be “no part of the world, even as I am no part of the world.” (John 17:16) Political involvement would seem to be off limits as something paradigmatically worldly, or so it will be argued. However, what must be recognized is that nowhere in Scripture is this made explicit. Further, the suggestion that politics is essentially worldly, which seems to be the motivating belief behind the view of groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, is not justified by merely pointing out the corruptness that infests much of politics; if that were not so, then nearly every human endeavor would have to be counted worldly and so off limits for Christians. Nothing would remain but for us all to be hermits.

More importantly, the Scriptural evidence slants the other way. I'm not referring to the Old Testament at all, which can be considered as much a slip of permission for political involvement as it is a warning against God's people being so involved (of necessity, in case of the OT) in politics. Rather, I have in mind the words of John the Baptist to the soldiers who came to him for instruction, and the similar cases of the what Philip said to the Ethiopian eunuch and what Peter said to Cornelius the Centurion. Rather, I should say, what these men did not say, and what the biblical account does not record any of them doing or having to do. Moreover, the words of Paul show that political power is not per se suspect, since it derives from God, ultimately; this suggests that it is something best exercised by Christians.

John the Baptist
Luke 3:14: "And persons engaged in military service also asked him saying, And we, what should we do? And he said to them, Oppress no one, nor accuse falsely, and be satisfied with your pay."
John the Baptist's was permissive of serving as a solider (and in the previous verse, of being a tax collector, which was not exactly a politically neutral office in those days, provided one discharge that service faithfully), so we see no reason to object to various kinds of political service in his teaching. 

Some suggest that he did, in fact, forbid work as a solider on the basis that he told the soldiers who came to him (likely Jewish auxiliaries) that they should not διασείσητε anyone, where διασείσητε  we are told means "violence." The upshot being that he was indirectly telling them to get another line of work: after all, part of being a soldier is the capacity to do violence. If true, it might incline us to think that other politically involved offices would also be suspect, but that conclusion wouldn't be forced on us. In any event, even that much can't be justified, for that objection blurs the percise meaning of the word in question. It doesn't mean or connote all actions that can be called violent, but specifically oppressive or intimidating actions against those that (the context suggests) are innocent.

A better objection is that John was still under the Mosaic dispensation and that his warfare tolerant position might, as far as we've shown, be inconsistent with the Gospel. So stated, this doesn't so much prove the neutral-cum-pacifist position as it only slightly weakens the position that political involvement and warfare are not per se objectionable from a Christian perspective. And it is not clear that the transition from Moses to Christ does away with John's teaching to the soldiers anymore than it does to his words to the tax collectors, which is surely just if anything is: "Collect no more than you are authorized." (v. 13) Furthermore, it should be conceded that John's words (at least once διασείσητε is properly understood) would be a natural place for Christians to justify involvement in warfare and politics, even if such isn't their actual force. If Luke wished to avoid this implication, he could have not included this story in his gospel. That he did, suggests (but, by itself, isn't conclusive) that he believes the same principle holds for Christians as well.

The Ethiopian Eunuch
Acts 8:27: "And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure."
The entire account of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch can be found in Acts 8:26-40. What is most interesting is that he is clearly a government official of some importance, and is converted as such. We are not given any indication that Philip instructed the eunuch to step aside from his position as treasurer, nor any indication that he did so of his own accord (and certainly not because being a high-ranking government official was intrinsically at odds with being a Christian). As the account appears, it is good evidence that a Christian can be a government official or politically involved.

Cornelius the Centurion
Acts 10:1: "At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment."
The entire account of the conversation of Cornelius can be found at Acts 10:1-11:18. What is relevant here is that he converted as an officer of some power in the Roman army; he was not, as far as the account reveals, instructed to step down. Nor do any of those who were already Christian object that a solider was converted, but that a gentile was, in any even those who objected, after being reassured by Peter praised God over the conversion of our Italian friend and what it signified. Cornelius is not mentioned as resigning from his position as a condition of his conversion; perhaps he did later - perhaps Catholic tradition is correct that he accompanied Peter as Peter preached, and that Cornelius eventually became bishop of Skepsis - but even if so, that does not indicate that it was strict necessity for him to do so that he might live faithfully as a Christian.

Paul on the Power of the Sword
Romans 13:1-6: "Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God. 2 Consequently, the one who resists authority is opposing what God has set in place, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the one in authority? Then do what is right, and you will have his approval. 4 For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not carry the sword in vain. He is God’s servant, an agent of retribution to the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to authority, not only to avoid punishment, but also as a matter of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes. For the authorities are God’s servants, who devote themselves to their work."
The import of this passage is that the political authorities derive their power from God. Of course, they can go beyond (or fall short) of their obligations, rights, and authority, but as such their power is constituted by God. How can it as such be bad? Further, we notice that the authority granted by God extends to the power to kill, such as in executions or dare I say, in a just war. This is a good indication that involvement in the political order is not intrinsically impermissible for Christians. (Indeed, why would we want only unbelievers, who are not bound by the righteousness of Christ, to have exclusive control in government and warfare?)

Common Sense and Conclusion
Beyond the scriptural evidence, we can apply common sense to the issue at hand. Concerning warfare, we can legitimately see it as an extension of self-defense; and very few would consider self-defense as immoral; hence it follows that just warfare (warfare that is relevantly like self-defense extended to a national level) is likewise permissible. Further, even groups like Jehovah's Witnesses believe that it is permissible to use the courts to defend themselves; but the courts can't be neatly partitioned off from the rest of the political order. If Christians can involve themselves in the courts, why not other aspects of the political order, seeing as these other aspects are intrinsically permissible? At worst, New Testament Scripture is silent; I suggest it gives permission, even if it is not particularly focused with informing us of these matters.

So we can be involved in politics, and even go to war, without doing violence to our separateness from the world. But this isn't to say that there aren't dangers involved in this, or cases where a Christian would have to abstain from politics or going to war. Like all things that are permissible as such, we have to ascertain whether they are permissible to engage in given the particular circumstances we are in. Further, just as it is wrong to dogmatically proscribe political involvement, it is foolish to have our hopes and energies too tied to the going-ons of the political scene. We must remain focused on preaching the gospel, and as in all things, be as cautious as serpents and innocent as doves.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

You've Got No Clue!

You've Got No Clue!
October 1st, 2017
1 John 3:2 - Beloved ones, we are now children of God, but it has not yet been made manifest what we will be. We do know that when he is made manifest we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. 
It is suggested by some that this shows that Jesus couldn't have been raised up as a man. We know what it is like to be a human being, but we don't know what we shall be like, and we will be like Jesus. Therefore he, and the resurrection body generally, must not be human.

However, this argument - proclaimed by some as 'near irrefutable' - fails to attend to the distinction between the human body we presently have and that which we will receive. What we have now is merely a manifestation of fallen, mortal, weak and corruptible human nature; however, what we shall receive shall be glorified, immortal, power and incorruptible human nature.

While we have some indication as to what this will be like, partly because of what is recorded about what Jesus did after his resurrection, this hardly constitutes our knowing what a glorified human body is like. Thus it still makes sense for us to say 'but it has not yet been made manifest what we will be like.'

Monday, July 16, 2018

New Blog Address, and Only One Blogger Account

The blog address is now witnessseekingorthodoxy.blogspot.com. However, the links between posts still point to the old address; to ensure that the links aren't broken, I mirrored my blog with the old address. I'll get rid of this blog once all the links are updated.

Also, I've switched to the blogger account associated with my new personal / blogging email, not the one associated with my earlier pen name, or my other, work email.

Update: It actually looks like the links still don't work. So I'll be updating them over the next few days.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

'God Subjected All Things to Him'

'God Subjected All Things to Him'
December 12th, 2017 
Revised: July 15th, 2018

I happened to be reading Body, Soul, and Human Life by Joel B. Green in my study of biblical anthropology. In his work, Hebrews 2:5-9 was quoted:
For it is not to angels that He has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But somewhere it is testified in these words:
'What is man, that You are mindful of him, or the son of man, that You care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor and placed everything under his feet.'
When God subjected all things to him, He left nothing outside of his control. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
Now, Green has his own purposes in mind in appealing to this passage, but they need not concern us here. What interests me presently is that this seems a good proof of Christ's present humanity and the eternal humanity of his saints, even if not as clear as the resurrection accounts in the Gospel or Acts 2 and 13. How so?

Notice that the promise, which Paul quotes from the Psalm 8:4-6, is given to men. It is not yet fulfilled, but will be ultimately. And Christ is seen as the paradigmatic recipetient or the promise, exalted because he suffered suffering death as the Messiah, and so presently enjoys much glory and power. He sits enthroned at the right hand of God, awaiting the last of his enemies to be made a stool for his feet. (See, for example: Ephesians 1:20-23.) But we, too, are not left out, for we shall reign with him. (See, for example: 1 Corinthians 6:3; Ephesians 2:6.) And in this way shall the promise be fulfilled.

But if it is given to men, doesn't it follow that men must be the ones to receive its fulfillment? It does. Hence, it follows that Christ is and forever shall be a human; and it is this way with us as well. Thus the doctrine of, among others, Witnesses is wrong; the teaching that all or some Christians shall be raised up as non-human angel-like spirit beings doesn't seem supported in Scripture.

Lower Than the Angels for a Little While
An alternative and somewhat popular translation is that Christ was made 'lower than the angels for a little while', which might be said to indicate that he was human only for a short time. However, this doesn't follow. For one thing, this promise was made to men, and hence it follows that all things will be subjected to men. Second, and flowing from the first, this would include angels. Indeed, the passages cited above show that Christ's exaltation included having dominion over the angels; and we too shall judge or rule over the angels in some fashion. So man is in his present state lower than the angels, but we shall be set up, even as Christ presently is, over them. And hence, humans will be, only for a little while, a little lower than the angels.

Monday, July 9, 2018

7.9.2018

I might be switching my blog over to a new address: WitnessSeekingOrthodoxy.blogspot.com. I'm also probably going to switch my blog over to my new blogger account; presently my blog is linked to it, but I'll make the full switch by August 1st, 2018.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted

Here is an excellent hymn, suitable for close listening and meditation. It should also be sung more often. It clearly takes a great deal of inspiration from Isaiah 53, which is also one of the best passages in Scripture.


Sunday, July 1, 2018

Family Matters, Christ Matters

Family Matters, Christ Matters 
December 10th, 2017

Let me introduce you to my siblings. I have a brother, Aidan. He's my identical twin, I being the original (or so I say). He's an atheist or agnostic, though, apatheist is probably the better label.[1] I also have a sister, though, I often forget that I do. Horrible, I know. However, she died several years before I was conceived, and even before she was to be born, for my mother suffered a miscarriage. And I could count on one hand how many times anyone told me about her (two, I think).

The point of this post is not to introduce you to my family quick and dead, but to use the misfortune of my sister to introduce a philosophic point. See, it's not that I used to have a sister, but that I have one; for she still exists. So let me speculate about her, first in a way that is incidental to my main point, then as she relates the the point which moved me to write this post.

Is she saved? Obviously she couldn't have come to faith in this life. But she could have been saved after her death. Indeed, many Christians think that those who die in the womb, in infancy, or generally before the age of reason are certainly saved. This is a possibility, but I tend to think that God enlightens such ones upon their deaths. Then, they, now having actualized powers of reason and volition, either come to faith or reject Him. If the former they are saved, if the latter they are damned. Maybe the choice is instantaneous or occurs in short order after death, but it's certainly prior to the Judgment. So there is a chance she is destined for eternal punishment, but there is also a good chance that she 'though asleep lives with Christ' and has the everlasting life ahead of her. Time will tell.[2]

Anyway, as I thought about my sister, my mind returned philosophical anthropology, specifically to the issue of personal identity; I asked myself: what is it that makes it the case that she is the selfsame person now that she was while alive? In her case it can't be psychological properties, or a relationship with Christ, since she had neither before death. It's not physical or bodily continuity, since she lacks a body presently. The only remaining option is that she had / was something immaterial - call it spirit or soul - and that this was the basis for all her psychological and biologic powers, and the source of all her material and immaterial operations. This, then, persisted after her death, and so constituted who she is in the truncated state following her death.

And this led me to consider Jesus' incarnation. In this regard, here's a question for Jehovah's Witnesses: what made it the case that the embryo that came into being in Mary's womb was the same as person as Michael the Archangel?

The answer, I think, is going to be found in the notion of hypostatic union. For, if he pre-existed his earthly advent, whether as angel or God, he took on human nature in his incarnation, not to the exclusion of, but in addition to his first nature. If we reject the notion of hypostatic union, we are forced to accept the Socinian claim that Christ did not pre-exist his being a human. But there are good reasons to affirm his pre-existence, and among these would be any evidence we might adduce for his deity.

But what could a Witness say? It can't be physical or bodily continuity. It can't be in possessing certain memories or engaging in any conscious activity, or, indeed, in any activity. For nothing is held in common between an angel and a zygotic human. There is nothing, unless divine fiat counts - but I don't think it does. For one might as well suggest that God could could call me you and that I'd be the selfsame person as you. God's will is limited in this regard by the divine intellect (as to what is logically possible). 

The heterodox Witness might suggest that humans and angels have the same kind of spirit/soul that enlivens them in their respective bodies. However, this is not permitted for the orthodox Witness, for he will be an anti-dualist. In any event, this idea seems untenable, since it seems to imply that men and angels are only contingently respective bodies. This by itself isn't problematic from a Witness perspective, given their view on 'the Anointed', but for us it should be. Moreover, it might imply that angels and humans are the same kind of being, which is incorrect.

Well, those are my thoughts, what are yours?

[1] Apatheism is apathy (hence the prefix 'apa') toward God and religion.

[2] It seems to me that it is a real possibility that the unevangelized will be handled in the same way. My tentative belief is that upon death God more fully reveals himself. To the extent that one loves God in response to what they know of him (from natural reason or special revelation) in his life he will love God's revelation of himself to him then. If he hated God and loved sin in this life, he will loathe God and reject Him. All we can say for certain is that the Judge of all the earth will not act unjustly.

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Watchtower Online Library

You can access the service here. It has recently been expanded to include all the publications that the stand-alone Windows program does (Watchtowers since 1950, Awake! and other materials since 1970).

Sunday, June 24, 2018

His Flesh Saw Not Corruption

His Flesh Saw Not Corruption
October 2nd, 2017
[Edited: January 12, 2018]
Acts 2:24-31 – God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him [at Psalm 16:8-11], ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; my flesh also will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ 
Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
Acts 13:35-37 - Therefore he says also in [Psalm 16:10], 'You will not let your Holy One see corruption.' For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption, but he whom God raised up did not see corruption. 
This plainly shows that the resurrection body of Christ is human and is the self-same physical body that he died in. For only if he rose up in it could it not see corruption. How do those who, like Witnesses, deny the humanity of Christ's resurrection handle this passage? Poorly, I think. All they can say is that it was not permitted to smell and to slowly waste away - why? Because, they say, God dissolved it himself. But, in fact, this only hastens the corruption process that the Holy Spirit promised that Christ would not see. Thus, t was the body that was put to death that was raised anew.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

Evolution in Service of God

Evolution in Service of God
December 19, 2017
[Slight Revisions June 2, 2018]

Evolution is a boogeyman to many, a foe that threatens faith in God or even belief in His existence. To many it just doesn't jibe with what the Genesis creation account teaches. However, I don't think it is as potent a threat as it is presented to be; its bark is worse than its bite. As to whether it is true, and as to what we should make of the Genesis account, these are secondary concerns relative to this fact. I mean, theism (and Christianity in particular) can survive evolution as such. This much should be obvious concerning the former: it is logically possible that God used evolution, at least in part, to create mankind.[1] And so, if He did, this hardly can count against His existence. True, it is a bit harder to reconcile evolution and Christianity, but given the truth of theism, and the evidence for Christ's ministry, death and resurrection, I maintain that we'd have good reason to suppose that somehow they can be harmonized.

In any event, this isn't my present concern. Instead, I want to defend the following proposition: if evolution is true, we'd have good reason to think that there is some intellectual agency (ultimately God) behind it, given the reliability of our cognitive faculties. Or, more modestly, materialism /  naturalism must be false, and to suppose it true is self-defeating.

It's been a while since I've read Alvin Plantinga's exposition of this argument (in, inter alia, Where the Conflict Really Lies) and I haven't finished Jim Slagle's The Epistemological Skyhook, so this presentation will not be as detailed as it could be. Perhaps I should just wait until after I read these and other works. However, I didn't, though, I intend to return to this subject in greater depth later.

This argument is of interest to me, for it shows still another way that theism gets the upper hand; from every imagined defeat it suffers, it sows the demise of its detractors. Before I get into the main focus of the essay, I want to elaborate on this claim a bit. Consider the problem of evil. One can argue for God's existence using a moral argument which takes as its basis the existence of evil. There would be no such thing as evil (or good) if God (as paradigm of Good) doesn't exist. There is evil and good. Therefore, God exists. To them that say that God is too hidden for Him to exist, we can point out that God's being hidden would be news to many. He might be hidden from you (or, you might have turned your back on him and closed your eyes to his works) but not from me or countless millions!). And, just as one can bypass evolutionary arguments against God's existence by appealing to the fine-tuning of the universe (see here), or to the existence of contingent or composite reality (as Feser does), one can appeal to evolution as an evidence that God exists (or, again, more modestly, that naturalism is false). Now, to the argument.

Supposing that evolution - taken to be the theory that all present species evolved from prior species according to random mutation and natural selection - is true, is it probable that we should have cognitive faculties that are generally reliable? The Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN) maintains that it isn't likely given naturalism. The implication being that, for us to have a belief in naturalistic evolution is just for us to have a reason to doubt our ability to form beliefs that correspond to reality, which is just a reason for us to doubt our belief in naturalistic evolution. Hence, naturalistic evolution ultimately turns out to be self-defeating.

As a syllogism, we can express this, as Plantinga (as interpreted by William Lane Craig) does:[2]
(P1) The probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, given evolutionary naturalism, is low. 
(P2) Anyone who believes evolutionary naturalism and sees that (1) is true has a defeater for believing that our cognitive faculties are reliable. 
(P3) Anyone who has a defeater for the belief that his cognitive faculties are reliable has a defeater for any other belief that he has. 
(P4) If anyone who believes evolutionary naturalism thereby acquires a defeater for evolutionary naturalism, then evolutionary naturalism is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed. 
(C1) Therefore, evolutionary naturalism cannot be rationally believed.
(By defeater what is meant is that one has a reason to not believe X.)

The crux of the matter is (P1). True, some say that even if our own cognitive faculties are not reliable, we are, as a species, or groups thereof, able to come to reliable beliefs, and hence, would dispute (P2). But this doesn't seem to work: if my cognitive faculties are that bad, I'd have reason to doubt that there are really any other people to begin with, or that they say what I think they say, or whatever. So this line of reasoning doesn't seem to even get off the ground. So, (P1) is what is at issue, for everything else follows from it or is uncontroversial in its own right. Why, then, think that naturalistic evolution implies that it is likely that our cognitive faculties are unreliable?

First, it is clear that evolution doesn't select for true beliefs (except, perhaps, in a derivative way). It selects for whatever makes a species better at persisting - survival of the fittest and all that. Now, 'beliefs that aid in the persistence of a species that holds them' is different than 'beliefs that are formed by generally reliable cognitive faculties'; the two concepts are not coextensive, even if, as a matter of fact, beliefs of the second kind often are often beliefs of the former, that is, even if well-formed beliefs are also beliefs that aid in the survival of the species that can form them. Evolution doesn't 'seek' truth, but that which aids the persistence of a species.

But this won't justify (P1) by itself. As said, the two - survival-aiding beliefs / cognitive faculties are sometimes the same as true beliefs / reliable cognitive faculties. (Our evidence for this is that our cognitive faculties seem to be pretty reliable and help us survive.) However, that reliable cognitive faculties are also survival-aiding cognitive faculties doesn't mean that naturalistic evolution doesn't face any threat. If there can be a large number of ways faulty beliefs formed by unreliable cognitive faculties can be functionally equivalent to (or, just as survival-aiding as) well-formed beliefs produced by reliable cognitive faculties, that gives us good reason to believe (P1). So, are there? Consider the following.

I live in a forest. Now, when I see fire, I recognize it as such and know that it can gravely wound me, if not also kill me. Hence, I know that if I want to live, I must flee. My cognitive faculties, which are capable of forming concepts and beliefs that correspond to the reality of the situation help me survive. 

You, also live in the same forest. When you see fire, you think that it is an army of demons, and believe that they want to eat your body and take your soul down to Hell and throw darts at it. You don't want this to happen, so you flee. Your cognitive faculties were not able to form beliefs that corresponded to the situation, yet they still aided your ability to survive as much as my well-formed beliefs and reliable cognitive faculties did.

We can imagine numerous other ways faulty beliefs and unreliable cognitive faculties could produce the same survival-advantageous behavior result as my well-formed beliefs and reliable cognitive faculties. Maybe I instead believe that the fire is the start signal for a 10 mile race I want to run, and thus run out of the forest. Maybe I believe it is my in-laws coming to visit, and hence, not wanting to see them, I run out of the forest. Maybe I think it is an invitation to go to breakfast, and, wanting waffles, I leave the forest. I could go on. Between these, evolution has no preference. They all result in the right behavior. Since there are more ways a belief could be false and yet survival-friendly than it could be true and survival-friendly, this should give us pause: perhaps (P1) is right.

Now, a naturalist might grant this much. It should give us pause - but only for a moment. It is one thing for a false belief formed by unreliable cognitive faculties to be just as survival-friendly as a true belief formed by reliable cognitive faculties, but that isn't to say that a species that possesses unreliable cognitive faculties is as well equipped for survival as if they possessed more reliable cognitive faculties. Unreliable cognitive faculties would produce mostly false beliefs, and many (if not most) of these are likely to be inimical to survival, even if not always. Thus, the survival value of faulty cognitive faculties for a species is less than the survival value of possessing more reliable cognitive faculties.

Now, what can the anti-naturalistic challenger say? Has he been defeated. I don't think so. What needs to be done is to demonstrate that it is plausible that there are belief schemes that are wrong and yet are functionally equivalent (survival-wise) as well-formed beliefs schemes. One way to do so is to give a somewhat detailed sketch of such a hypothetical belief system.

I believe Alvin Plantinga tries to show just that by giving one that piggy-backs off of our belief scheme. We believe that Earth revolves around the sun, that rain comes from clouds, that grass grows because of water, that cows can eat grass, that we can eat cows . . . . Now, imagine that there is a species that held beliefs that resembled ours save that they thought most things were really witches. They believe that the witch Earth revolves around the witch sun, that witch rain comes from their homes to have intercourse with the witches that make up the dirt to produce witch grass as offspring, which evil cows eat. These beliefs are all false, but it isn't obvious that this would make them behave in ways inimical to their survival as a species.

Some might object that, these are still truth-tracking, and so are not unreliable in a relevant sense. I'm not a fan of this objection. But perhaps we should try to imagine a less truth-tracking belief system that is as survival friendly as a well-formed belief system. Maybe I'll do so in the future.

The naturalist might be tempted to object that naturalistic evolution clearly did result in human beings with cognitive faculties that are capable of forming generally true beliefs, so the EAAN doesn't even make sense. But this just ignores the argument instead of refuting it. It doesn't do anything to make it likely that naturalistic evolution would produce reliable cognitive faculties in us. At most it is the bare assertion that it happened to, but this is perfectly consistent with the claim that it likely wouldn't have, which just is the basis for the EAAN.

Myself, I see no reason to suppose that reliable cognitive powers (or cognitive powers of any kind) could emerge on and a materialistic conception of reality. For one thing, the laws of physics would govern the mind in that case, and these are just different from the laws of logic. Why think that a mind that is governed by the laws of physics could arrive at logically valid conclusions? But now I'm slipping into another reason to reject naturalism. (A more fundamental argument, I think, and for that reason more persuasive; I'll develop it when I write on the philosophy of mind.)

In any event, the EAAN is interesting. It think that it can ultimately be shown to be to sound, an thus yet another powerful reason to reject naturalism. However, this requires further argumentation, which requires further research and argumentation on my part. Until I take the time to do this, we shall let the subject rest. Well, partly. I am interested in what you think of this argument, especially if you know more about it than I. Comment below.

[1] I think that our intellect - that aspect of the mind, that power of the soul - that is able to abstract, understand concept and reason formally (mathematically, logically) - is immaterial and can't be accounted for in a purely materialistic way. Hence, evolution, if true, can't be the full picture. But for now, let's ignore this and suppose that some kind of evolution is able to fully account for the appearance of human beings (given that there is a universe and life at the start of the process).

[2] Where the Conflict Really Lies, pp. 344-345; see this as well.

[3] I also think that a similar, if more modest, argument can be made. That is, we need only claim that it is considerably more likely that our cognitive faculties would be reliable if they are the creations of a Supreme Intellect. Say, it is only 60% likely that we have reliable cognitive faculties if naturalistic evolution is true, but 90% if a Supreme Intellect stands behind them. To point out that our cognitive faculties are reliable does nothing to undermine this argument; indeed, to refute the original EAAN doesn't necessarily undermine this more modest version of the argument.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

If I Had a Dime for Every Universe

If I Had a Dime for Every Universe
December 17th, 2017

I'd probably only have a dime, despite the strong claims of some that there are many universes; and this they often claim as a way to avoid the theist-friendly implications of the fine-tuning argument.[1] The fine-tuning argument makes much of the minuscule odds that the the universe would have constants that it does if it were not designed. 'It sure seems designed!' says they. But the multiverse response, one of several made by atheists, argues that there could be a multiverse - countless, perhaps ever-increasing number of universes, hence sooner or later you'd expect a winner to be found, a universe where life could form and exist. We just happen to be in the right one. And in this way they surmise that the design implication of fine-tuning can be successfully routed.

All is not lost for the theist, however; here are two slightly sardonic summations of two responses they can give: (1) Oh, sure there's a multiverse! If you have to take such an outlandish claim to escape the fine-tuning argument, you've conceded its power. (2) Given the vicissitudes of the quantum realm and all the stuff, you'd expect brains to form every once in a while in some of these universes, even if they last only for a moment or two before dissolving. These would outnumber actual observers, and hence, you'd have to embrace the strange conclusion that you're probably a brain that came into being thinking it had a past, and suffering the illusion that the external world is as it appears to you. Also, you'll probably pass out of existence in about a second, so that's too bad.

Parachutes are for chumps
Both responses are interesting and worth pursuing, but neither interest me here. Instead, there is a third option available. It grants for the sake of argument that the multiverse hypothesis is able to account for the existence of life-hospitable universe. If you get enough universes that vary in the values of the constants, you'll get one whose constants all fall within the narrow life-hospitable range. The third response begins by noting that, even then odds of any given universe being life-hospitable is bound to be astonishingly small. Then it notes that, if the Christian God exists, we'd be more likely to find universes with life. Thus, this hypothesis better accounts for the fact that we, living beings, exist in a universe that is hospitable for life.

I first found this argument in Taking Pascal's Wager: Faith, Evidence and the Abundant Life (2016) by Michael Rota (from which I will quote, using Kindle pagination). I'll likely write review of this book after I reread it (or most of it) again. But for now, I'll just summarize this argument. Rota makes his fine-tuning case in chapters 6 - 8 of his book, the last of which will be of most interest to us today.

His argument is in the form of a constructive dilemma  - (1) A or B; (2) If A, then C. (3) If B, then C. (4) So C. (Loc. 2137-2144). It can be summed up thus:
(1) Either our universe is the only universe, or there are multiple universes.  
(2) If ours is the only universe, it is more probable that our universe was designed than that it was not. 
(3) If there are multiple universes, it is more probable that our universe was designed than that it was not. 
(4) Therefore, it is more probable that our universe was designed than that it was not.
He argues for (2) in the first two chapters, so we will take it for granted here. Indeed, if it is disputed, the atheist need not appeal to the multiverse hypothesis. So we will assume that the atheist who appeals to the multiverse concedes (2). Now, it is rather uncontroversial to say that "either theism or atheism may be true" if the multiverse hypothesis is true, or "God and the multiverse aren’t incompatible". (Loc. 2148-2149, 2169) However, this is more modest than what (3) claims. Why think that it is true? After all, as Rota notes:
If you were at a physics or astronomy conference discussing fine-tuning with the scholars there, you wouldn’t hear much about God or design, but you would hear the term “multiverse". (Loc. 2098-2100)
Rota gets to the heart of matters by noting that by saying that 'eventually you'd find a life-permitting universe' concedes that these universes make up an insignificant portion (of an insignificant portion . . .) of all universes. There is nothing favoring life-permitting universes over non-life-permitting universes, and the kinds of non-life-permitting universes vastly outnumber life-permitting universes, so we should expect only very few universe (like 1 to 10^40 small) to be life permitting. Now, the Christian God would have reason to favor life-permitting universes, and hence we should expect that the percentage of life-permitting universes to be much, much higher. Michael writes:
If we exist in an atheistic multiverse, then the proportion of life-permitting universes will be very small. But if we exist in a multiverse created by God, we should expect the proportion of life-permitting universes to be not nearly so small. (Since life is a good, any intelligent being has a reason to value it, and thus God would have some reason to create more of it.) So the proportion of life-permitting universes will be much higher in a theistic multiverse than in an atheistic multiverse. This in turn implies that the epistemic probability that our universe would be life permitting is much higher on a theistic version of the multiverse hypothesis than on an atheistic version. So if there are many universes, the evidence of fine-tuning favors theism over atheism. Either way, considerations of fine-tuning strongly favor the existence of a universe designer. (Loc. 2149-2155)
What supports the contention that the theistic multiverse hypothesis makes life-permitting universes (generally and our own in particular) more probable? 
First, God might very well want to create many universes. Second, the reasons to create many universes that God would have are also reasons to think that a significant proportion of universes created by God would be life-permitting universes. Third, this fact about proportions implies that it is much more likely that the universe we are in fact in would have a life-permitting cosmological constant given a theistic multiverse hypothesis than given an atheistic multiverse hypothesis. (Loc. 2157-2160)
And:
So But would God have any reason to create many universes? The existence of more individual living beings would be a good thing for those individuals, and hence there is always some reason for God to make more individuals. Furthermore, the existence of different kinds of creatures adds value to creation, and the number of possible kinds of creatures is so large that the existence of many universes would be a suitable way to allow for their realization. Finally, consider this argument: for any single universe God creates, there’s probably a better single universe God could’ve created. So if God creates only a single universe, he must necessarily forgo creating a vast, possibly infinite number of better universes he could have created. A theistic multiverse would allow him fuller scope to share the goodness of existence. (Loc. 2169-2176)
And:
For each given physical universe that God creates, that universe would exhibit more value if it contained living beings (especially living rational beings) than if it contained no life at all. So God would have some reason to make an appreciable proportion of the universes life permitting. On the other side, there doesn’t seem to be any very strong reason God would have to create many lifeless universes. So the expected proportion of life-permitting universes should not be very low. (Loc. 2181-2184)
Michael Rota gives this good illustration.
Compare: suppose one learned of the existence of a thousand oil “paintings” all produced by the same cause, and suppose one was told that that cause was either a blind, chance process or an artist believed to value paintings of flowers. One should surely expect many, many more paintings of flowers on the artist hypothesis than on the chance hypothesis. (Loc. 2191-2194)
He also gives an illustration of how to understand the probabilities that his argument deals in, under the subheading "The Deadly Blue Widget". (Loc. 2202) I'll summarize. There are two companies: Redy's and Bluey's. The former makes one blue widget for every ninety-nine red ones. The latter makes ninety-nine blue widgets for every one red widget. You orders a widget from one of these companies, forgetting which one. In any event, each select one widget at random and ship to their customers. As it happens, you gets a red widget. Which one should you think sent you the widget?

Our evidence (E) is that you received a red widget. Our background information (K) is that no attention was paid to color by whichever company sent it, and we have two hypothesis. The R-Hypothesis (HR): it was sent by Redy's; and B-Hypothesis (BH): it was sent by Bluey's. In probability theory this can be expressed in the following notation: P(E | HR& K) [the probability of the evidence on the R-Hypothesis given our background information] & P(E | HB& K) [the probability of the evidence on the B-Hypothesis given our background information]. We know the odds of receiving a red widget from each, and hence know that:
P(E | HR& K) = 0.99
P(E | HB& K) = 0.01
Thus, we should believe that you ordered from Redy's.

Now, we can modfiy this illustration to more closely attend to the multiverse hypothesis. Since we would not be here if, say, the cosmological constant was even slightly different, we can say that, if we  received a blue widget (most likely from Bluey's), flawless assassins would have killed you before you could have opened the package containing the widget. Now, you've opened his package, and have read a note note explaining this. Does this change anything? Who should we think sent you the widget?

Things have not changed. Your having the red widget and not having died before you were able to open the package are both equally evidence of R-Hypothesis. It is still, given the evidence you have available to you, 99 percent likely that you ordered and received the widget from Redy's.

Now, bringing things back to the multiverse. B-Hypothesis is the atheist-multiverse hypothesis, since we are more likely to not exist (which is parallel to being killed) on it, and R-Hypothesis is the theist-multiverse hypothesis, since we are more likely to find a universe that supports life (which is parallel with getting a red widget and not being killed), such as the one we exist in. Given this, we should accept (3).

Not so fast! As Rota himself notes:
These considerations aren’t by any stretch decisive; God could very well have other, stronger reasons not to create many universes. (Loc. 2176-2177)
And, to the overall question of God's existence we still have more evidence to consider. There is still further positive considerations.
On the one hand, there’s counterevidence— maybe some things we know count strongly against the idea of an intelligent creator. (Loc. 2265-2266)
So, what should we say about the Rota Response? I think it should give the atheist considerable pause. If it fails, it only means that we can't tell one way or the other whether the fine-tuning of the universe favors theism or no. At worst, it is a draw. I don't think the atheist can give an argument that the fine-tuning of the universe favor atheism. That is, I'm not aware of any fact about the fine-tuning of the universe that would argue against God's existence; if anything it supports theism. But if a draw, as I said, we should not fret. There are better, more fundamental arguments for God's existence, which I briefly touch upon in my review of Five Proofs of the Existence of God and to which I hope to have occasion to touch upon in the future.

[1] "Fine-tuning" should be understood in a neutral way, not as something that presupposes a fine-tuner. Basically by tuning what is meant is that the constants or quantities of the universe are such that life could exist, and by fine what is indicated is that the life-supporting range of values is minuscule. The question is, how do we account for this: change, physical necessity or design?

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Lydia McGrew v. Craig Evans

Lydia McGrew v. Craig Evans on the Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel (May 18th, 2018)

[[The podcast can be found here. The transcript is my typing. I only went back through the podcast once after I typed the first draft. I corrected some inaccuracies in the transcript. I'm sure some remain, and I might eventually get around to fixing those. Also, see here for some of her comments on this discussion, and also other posts over there for more thoughts on the subject matter itself. Ellipses (". . .") don't indicate that I abbreviated anything, but rather moving from one incomplete sentence or thought to start another one, or the like. Lastly, I think Lydia has the better case. Evans makes way to much out of his tendentious interpretation of the term "chreia" and Matthew 13:52.]]

Justin: Well, today on the program we’re asking, Does John’s gospel present a historically accurate picture of Jesus? Craig Evans is a distinguished New Testament scholar currently serving as professor of Christian origins at Houston Baptist University. His books include: Jesus, The Final Days: What Really Happened (with N. T. Wright), and most recently Jesus and the Remains of His Day: Studies in Jesus and the Evidence of Material Culture. You can find out more about Craig, his many books, articles and activities in historical biblical studies at CraigAEvans.com. 
Now Craig has been involved in a number of dialogue events over the years. And back in 2012 he debated skeptical New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman on the question of whether the Gospels provide a historically reliable portrait of Jesus. However, it is only recently that some of the statements Craig made in that dialogue have provoked consternation in some quarters of the evangelical Church. Critics claim that Craig questioned the fundamental historical reliability of John’s Gospel. Well, one of those critics is Lydia McGrew.
Lydia is a widely published analytic philosopher, blogger, and wife of philosopher and apologist Tim McGrew, whose also been on this show in the past. And recently Lydia has also focused on issues around New Testament reliability. In fact, she and Tim cowrote the article on the resurrection of Jesus for the “Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology”. And last year she published “Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts”. She was on this program talking about it. And that defends the reliability of the New Testament using a long-neglected argument from incidental details. More about Lydia and her books at LydiaMcGrew.com.
And in the context of this program, Lydia believes that Craig has given away too much ground to skeptical views of the historicity of the Gospel of John. So, today we’re going to be allowing Craig to lay out what exactly he does and doesn’t think we can take from the gospel of John when it comes to the historical Jesus. And Lydia will be responding. So, a very warm welcome to you both, Lydia and Craig.

Lydia: Thanks for having us, Justin.

Craig: Thank you.

Justin: It’s great to have you both join me on the show today. Craig, I think, the second time you joined me on the show (it was some time back, now) that you were doing a discussion on Islam and Jesus and Isis and that kind of thing. But coming on to debate something and to talk about something quite different today. You’ve been involved a long time now in historical studies on Jesus, particularly recently I know a lot of your focus has been on the Dead Sea Scrolls; you’ve been involved in a number of exciting finds and things like that. There are some interesting things going on at the moment in that area, aren’t there?

Craig: Oh, yes. We continue to make discoveries and continue to publish this very rich trove of material from the Dead Sea. And its, what’s been so good about it is it clarifies everything in the New Testament. That’s not really an exaggeration. And so it sheds light on James, Hebrews, Paul’s letters (especially "works of the Law," for example), and a number of important teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. One of the Dead Sea scrolls, I think, decisively shows that Jesus did indeed have a Messianic self-understanding in his reply to John the Baptist. Another scroll shows, I think – again, decisively with respect to the annunciation in Luke 1 that the expectation of a Messiah who would be called Son of God is indeed a pre-Christian idea. It is not something that occurred to the Church later when they were preaching Jesus as the Messiah and encountered the Graeco-Roman world, which talked about ‘sons of god’. So it is just things like that. And the scrolls, like archeology, over and over again show that the Gospel writers knew what they were talking about. They were describing the real Jesus of the first century Jewish Palestine, and not some later fiction.

Justin: And from everything you've just said there it’s evident that you have a lot of confidence in the Gospels, in their historical provenance and so on. But just give us a sense of what transpired, in your view, in this debate you had with Bart Ehrman several years ago, now. Because I know a number of people flagged up concerns with some of what you said around the Gospel of John. We’ll get to the specifics of that, but do you want to give us the context of what this debate was, or what exactly you were discussing, and what it is you pointed out when it comes to the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, compared to the Ggospel of John.

Craig: Well, I think the backdrop of that debate with Bart Ehrman . . . I think the title had something to do with, Are the Gospels Reliable? And he was arguing, No, they're not; and I was arguing, Yes, yes, they are. But what I find in debating Bart is that he likes to take a very fundamentalist pose, which he of course rejects, and Bart likes to keep it as black and white as possible. And so, either you have a very naïve and uncritical understanding of the Gospels: as if to say it’s videographed, audio-recorded history of what Jesus said and did. And if that’s true, then when you find these discrepancies where the wording is not identical, and sometimes even the locations appear to be different, when you compare the parallels, then you have a big problem. And that was the tack he was taking, trying to make it sound like either you embrace everything word for word and don’t see any contradictions or discrepancies or anything at all, or you concede that the Gospels are not reliable, that they’re full of contradictions, mistakes, dubious history and so on. That was his tactic, and in my debates with him since, I think he’s nuanced it a little better. He knows it’s difficult to get away with that, at least when, you know, he’s debating with me.
And what I’m coming from . . . how I’m responding to that . . . and this is where some Christians, I don’t' think, quite get it . . .but Bart should know, and I think he in private probably does know, that the way history was written 2,000 years was a bit different, and the pedagogical goals of Jesus were not the same as ours today. And that’s just not well understood. But we’re not guessing here. We actually have the educational handbooks from antiquity. We know how people were taught, how people would take the teachings of the great ones, the philosophers, the great teachers, and memorize their teaching and package it, so to speak, in a way that could communicate effectively with diverse audiences, perhaps even in different languages. And that is what I was dealing with. And I think the Gospel of John exhibits some of those characteristics, and that is why John is so different from the Synoptics. 
But that same observation explains why Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not identical either. And so, when we talk about the Gospels as historically reliable, we can say, Yes, indeed they are. They give us a very true portrait of the historical Jesus, but there are these interpretive elements at work, which Jesus himself told his own disciples to do. And this so isn’t a question of faulty memory or just wild imagination, making up stuff, that sort of thing; that’s not my position. I think the Gospel of John is indeed historical, but it’s a mixture: it’s not just history, but it’s also interpretation. And I think that’s what, you know, caused some problems with some conservative listeners. 

Justin: We’ll bring Lydia in at this point to talk about that. But, effectively yes. You felt there was a false dichotomy being painted by Bart, and you think there is a more nuanced way of understanding the Gospels within their own genre, within their own time, that does not negate their historical reliability. Let’s cross to Lydia now. Lydia, because it was really you were the one who was interested in discussing this with Craig. I know Craig isn’t the only person with whom you obviously disagreed with on the length to which they’ve perhaps questioned the historical reliability of aspects of the Gospel of John and so on. I think Mike Licona . . . you’ve also had some interaction with on this. So, what are your main concerns here, Lydia, coming to this yourself?

Lydia: Right. Well, one thing I would like to discuss that I do feel that in what Craig is saying right here right now, he’s making John sound more like the Synoptic Gospels than what he has implied in the past. And so, for example, I’d like to zero in a little bit on that statement about John being a mix of interpretation and history. There was definitely a sense that John is in a completely different category from the Synoptic in some of the discussion with Bart. It wasn’t just a matter of some of these ideas that Craig has concerning even the Synoptic Gospels (that they felt free to expand on the teachings of Jesus . . . we might disagree with that too, in fact, I suspect that we do). But there was a pretty strong distinction. So, for example, in that discussion, Craig you said concerning the I Am statements and particularly, 'Before Abraham was, I Am," you said, 'This aspect of the Gospel of John I would not put into the category of historical. It's a genre question.' And for example, you said, 'The Johannine statements, the distinctive ones, with a few exceptions, there the ones like I said earlier, are of a different genre altogether, that something that only incidentally has historical material in it, but otherwise is a completely different type of literature.' And you said that some of these look like places where the, as you called it, Johannine community has dramatically recreated things that were not historically said by the historical Jesus in a recognizable fashion, but that reflected their own theological reflections. And you contrasted that with the Synoptics very strongly. So, I think we can get to your views of John by moving beyond this notion of pedagogic practices of the time, which you would apply to the Synoptics as well, to this distinction you are wanting to draw between them. And I would like to get you to, you know, state clearly what your position is concerning the historicity of, for example, the dialogue where Jesus is talking to the Jewish people and ends it by saying, "Before Abraham was, I Am." And then they throw stones. And I just want to clarify before you answer that I am not asking whether John recorded these things word for word or verbatim, but I am asking, Was that incident . . . occurred in addition to any incident recorded in the Synoptics in a historically recognizable fashion?

Justin: I mean, you let right in there, Lydia. Before we do come to Craig for some responses to that, what for you in a broader sense is, you know . . . what kind of difference does this make? Why, for you, is it so important that we do understand John as having a very real, if you like, historical pedigree in the terms of these are not, in a sense, recreated episodes or in any sense simply formed out of a Johannine community or whatever, that these really do relate to historical things that Jesus did and said?

Lydia: Well I think it's great that we have four Gospels rather than three, let me put it that way. I think that it is a great thing that we have the Gospel of John. And, I think that the Gospel of John is historical throughout, I think it displays its historicity everywhere. I don't think it switches on and off, like 'I'm historical now, oh now its allegory' or something like that; it's historical throughout. And it's important, because there is great material in there, and it's giving us additional material that we do not find in the Synoptic Gospels. So we want to know what the historical Jesus did and said and who he was, what his teaching was, and I think John does give us that; and it gives us material that is not simply duplicating what is in the Synoptics, so when someone appears to be saying that where John is unique he is really representing the reflections of a community, rather than incidents that happened with the historical Jesus, and I think that is false, then I actually want to come and challenge that and say, 'No, I think that's false.' I think we actually have evidence to the contrary, and it’s good for us to have this fourth, historical Gospel, giving us this additional material. Obviously, we want to know what Jesus said.

Justin: I mean I was going to say the one, you know, particularly among more conservative scholars, who, you know, subscribe to a particular view of inerrancy . . . that, I know, they had concerns with some of the things Craig and other scholars have said in this regard, because they don't think you should be able to treat the Gospels differently, to them being effectively being reported speech.

Lydia: Well, that's not where I'm coming from.

Justin: But, you're not coming from that, because you don't hold that position yourself, do you? I just want to be clear on that.

Lydia: That's correct.

Justin: Yes.

Lydia: I want to be very clear on that. I think the documents are very reliable, and my concerns here are historical and evidential. I think there is ample evidence that the Gospel of John is historical in nature everywhere, again, not switching on and off; and is highly reliable as an individual source for Jesus' life and teaching, and I'm glad we have the Gospel. So I am defending that not because of a commitment to inerrancy. That is correct.

Justin: Well, let's, before we come back to you, Craig, just give a shout out for any listener who would like to get in touch about today's discussion. [Announcements, which I skip.] There's a lot that Lydia brought up there, Craig. So, I don't know where you want to begin. I don't know whether it would be worth looking at that central question she had around, What do you believe is the nature of the statements Jesus in terms of the I Am statements, and particularly that one, 'Before Abraham was, I Am.' Now, is that something Jesus said, or is that something that, as it were, words put into his mouth by a later community expressing more the tradition around him, in a sense? Where do you go with that?

Craig: Well, I think, in the I Am statements you have Jesus' teaching but not always his exact words. I didn't talk about 'Before Abraham was, I Am,' that particular statement in John 8. I don't recall that coming up with Bart Ehrman. I think, if I recall correctly, Bart just asked me if the I Am discourses, such as they were, represented the actual words of Jesus. And it was in the context of 'how do we account for John being so different from the Synoptics.' And what I conceded in that conversation is that I did not think that the I Am discourses were . . . you know, if you had been there with Jesus running a tape recorded, I don't think you would have heard a I Am discourse from top to bottom in that form.

Justin: And forgive me for interrupting. Just for all those who are not as familiar as you obviously are with these texts, could you just remind us what some of those statements are in that I Am discourse.

Craig: Of course. In John's Gospel, and this is one of the most distinctive features about John, is where Jesus just begins to speak at length, you have nothing like this in the Synoptics, in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. But in John, Jesus will say, 'I Am the light of the world,' and he'll go on and on and on for many verses, or, 'I Am the bread of life,' and he'll go on and on for many verses explaining what that means and in what sense he is the bread of life coming, you know, from heaven, and everything else. 'I am the Truth,' 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,' 'I am the Resurrection of Life.' These are the - 'I am the good Shepherd' - these are the I Am discourses; they're about seven of them, and they're very thematic, they're very theological, they have a very high Christology, and Jesus speaks more or less as Wisdom speaks. If you compare, for example, the book of Sirach chapter 24, Sophia or Wisdom speaks this way also. And this is why many scholars see the Gospel of John as something of a hybrid. It's, sure, it's loaded with history - we have the historical Jesus, we have itinerary, we have places, real people, real events, including the threat to stone Jesus. We have, probably, important information about Jesus' ministry prior to the chronology that we find in the Synoptic Gospels. And so, John . . . I agree with many things Lydia has said: that John is an invaluable source for additional information, and that does explain a lot of the differences; it's supplemental, it's additional, it isn't simply covering the same ground as Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But there is this stylized speaking as Wisdom for many, many verses in a row, and this is where scholars suspect that the evangelist or his community have taken Jesus' teaching and fashioned these lengthy discourses so that it is a teasing out in greater detail the actual meaning of Jesus's teaching as well as specific things that he said. 
The Synoptic writers do that a little bit, also, especially Matthew in creating these discourses (five major discourses) in his gospel. But John seems to take it a step further, and shapes the discourse in a way that it does sound like Wisdom is speaking. And that was the only point I was trying to make to Bart Ehrman. I think he wanted me to try to defend or feel pressured to defend that the I Am discourses in John were verbatim, you know word for word. And, no, I didn't think so; they were interpretive, but that doesn't mean they don't reflect what Jesus actually taught.

Justin: Okay, Lydia, go ahead.

Lydia: Yeah, I'd like to go ahead here. Craig, I just really want to say that two of the most notable statements that Jesus makes which were explicitly addressed by Bart were, 'Before Abraham was, I Am,' and 'I and the Father are one.' Neither of those take place in the context of a lengthy discourse. 'Before Abraham was, I Am' takes place at the end of a dialogue that Jesus has with the people, and 'I and the Father are one' takes place at the end of a very short discussion that is set in the portico of Solomon were Jesus has . . . ttalks about being the good shepherd, and say, 'No one can pluck them out of the Father's hand,' and then he says, 'I and the Father are one.' And in that case, they take up stones to stone him. Neither of these are a lengthy discourse, and again, as I said before, I'm not asking whether you think that this is recorded verbatim. What I am asking, let's just take those two cases, and I'd just like to get a clear yes or no, do you think that those two incidents where Jesus was in these places and was having these discussions and these dialogues and culminated by saying, in the one case, 'Before Abraham was, I Am,' and in the other case, 'I and the Father are one,' and they went to stone him. Do you think those incidents where he said those things occurred in a recognizable way in history? What is your opinion on that?

Craig: I think they did. The only thing, again to go back to the Bart Ehrman thing, had to do with the I Am discourses. He wasn't asking my opinion about the whole of the Gospel of John, or about these specific sayings here where Jesus remarks in a way that angers people. We see that in the Synoptics also where there are these one liners, where Jesus says something or he is accused of something and there are threats made. I . . . There is high Christology made throughout Jesus' ministry; that's why at the top of the program, I mentioned one of the scrolls from Qumran that I think, now that it's been found (it's 4Q521), we realize now Jesus' reply to the imprisoned John the Baptist was indeed a Messianic reply. If I were to go further into that, the 4Q521 is alluding to one of the psalms where it is describing the works of the LORD, Yahweh the God of Israel, and so now we realize, not only is it a Messianic reply to John on the part of Jesus, it is a very high Christology, where he is basically claiming to do the very works of the LORD, the works of Yahweh, and that has encouraged scholars in the last twenty years (mostly evangelical scholars, to be sure), but it's encouraged scholars to start speaking about a very high Christology that's in the Synoptic Gospels, not just in John. And so, I think that's very helpful and that's narrowing the gap, you might say in some ways, between John and the Synoptics.
I just don't want to be misunderstood on this. What the whole point was, Are the I Am discourses, the lengthy discourses, verbatim reports of what Jesus said? And I said, I don't think so, because of the pedagogical practices of the time, the way history was written, the way Jesus himself instructed his own disciples to interpret and apply his teaching.

Justin: And if I could cross to Lydia. You yourself have actually said you don't think they are verbatim. But what do you think they are? What distinguishes what you think was actually said and what you think Craig thinks has actually happened with these I Am discourses and statements.

Lydia: First of all, I really just disagree with this phrase 'I Am discourses' and I also disagree, you know . . . I mean obviously Craig probably hasn't rewatched the debate footage recently, but Bart definitely asked, 'Did he say 'I am the Father are one?'' He said that; he asked specifically about that. He asked specifically about 'Before Abraham was, I Am.' He did not simply ask about lengthy discourses. So, I actually think there is a little bit of recreation of history going on here. That's less important to me than the actual facts of the matter.
As far as being or not being verbatim, that's really not a super important matter. For one thing Jesus may have been speaking in Aramaic, so just to begin with there would have to be some translation going on. Obviously if it were, you know, 'Before Abraham walked around in Canaan, I Am,' you know, there can be these slight differences . . . the important point to me is that it is recognizable in history, and that it occurs separately from what occurred in the Synoptics. So, for example, I mean again, at that time, 'The Johannine sayings, the distinctive ones, with few exceptions look like,' as I said earlier, 'a different genre altogether, something that only incidentally has historical material.' Not merely, he did not merely say, 'the long discourses,' though, he did also discuss long discourses, but also Johannine sayings.
Now, its great if he's changed his mind about that. But what I would want to say is that all of John shows this impact of history, and in fact even the longest discourse, which is known as the Farewell Discourse, in John has these interesting crossovers with the Synoptic material. And I have specifics on that: where Jesus is saying things there in a different context (because it is the last supper) but that are exact parallels to synoptic sayings. It's also possible that that discourse is partly a composite, the way some people thing the Sermon on the Mount may be a composite, a putting of somethings together in one place that may originally had said at different times.

Justin: But what I'm hearing from you, in that sense, Lydia, is that whether, however it is put together, the material is gathered, Jesus did say things that were of this nature, of this high Christology: these I Am sayings were said by Jesus -

Lydia: And in an extremely recognizable, and in particular when there were scenes that were different from anything in the Synoptics, these unique scenes occurred, and these unique sayings occurred in a recognizable way.

Justin: We're running out to our first break . . . [announcements, which I skip] But coming back to you first of all, Craig, on this front, I mean, you've said already actually there's a lot you can agree with in what Lydia is saying about certain aspects of the historicity of John's Gospel. I think there is a difference, though, of opinion on these particular sayings, these I Am statements; and regardless of whether, which particular ones you were or weren't debating with Bart Ehrman. I think it is important for Lydia, even if the material has been, perhaps, arranged and, you know, it's not the exact words that were said, and perhaps things have been brought together in some way, nevertheless, what they are reporting are claims Jesus made of himself, that he did say in some fashion, 'I am the bread of life,' 'I am the light of the world,' 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.' 
Now, is it not so important for you that Jesus literally said those words (whether they be in Aramaic or whatever)? Is it okay for a Gospel to effectively put words into Jesus' mouth by, as it were, a kind of adapting, and in a sense theologizing that he . . . that they are aware of in a historical sense?

Craig: Well, it is very important, and Jesus' teaching has to be understood correctly, and then what is said, how he is summarized, or paraphrased, or elaborated on has to be true to the original intent and true to the entire context of his ministry and his teaching, and very true in light of the Easter event. I, as a starting place, I go to Matthew 13:52, where, after his . . . these parables on the King of God, he asks his disciples if they understand what he's taught. And they say that they do, and then he goes on to say that the scribe, every scribe who is discipled, trained from the Kingdom of Heaven, knows how to pull out of his treasure box (literally) things that are new as well as things that are old. And I take that, in step with the pedagogy of antiquity, where you really don't know your master's teaching if you simply repeat it word for word. Anybody can do that; a trained parrot can do that. But you demonstrate your knowledge, the fact that you've been discipled, that you truly have learned your master's teaching when you are able to elaborate on it, expand it, or contract it, link different sayings together (and it's called chreia in the singular, chrei in the plural). Papias, the early Church Father, early second century actually uses that word in describing the teaching of Jesus complied by Mark, the teachings passed on to him by Peter. And we see that this is very much in play in the Synoptic Gospels. 
I'm not saying this, I'm not saying anything new. Scholars were making that observation thirty years ago. And I think we have something similar going on in John; the difference, though, is (and this is what we've been talking about) John is so different, and we don’t' have Synoptic-Johannine Gospels: we only have one. And we have three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), so we can compare them, we can horizontally compare them, and we can see a multitude of differences. Most of them are very small, minor, where the wording has been changed. Or perhaps sometimes the saying is in a new location. And instead of having a crisis of faith, or wondering, 'Oh, what's going on here, these are contradictions,' we have a very good idea of what's going on, and it’s the pedagogy of the time at work, which Jesus himself enjoined on his disciples. That is what makes the Gospels so effective; and so, we don't just have one gospel, we have four. We have three synoptics which cover the same ground essentially, and speak so well to three different settings, three different contexts, and apply the ??? tradition so effectively.
John is a bit of an outlier in that what makes John more complicated is John is used . . . is using mostly wholly different material. And so that's why this discussion is a little bit complicated. We don't have a point of comparison in that sense. So, when we look at Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we can see the same story in two or three of the Gospels, and we can actually see the change in the wording. And, that has to be accounted for. And those who say that 'Well, these changes represent mistakes or failures of memory,' I think they are incorrect; that is not the right explanation for it. But when we see the differences in John, they are of such a magnitude compared to Matthew, Mark, and Luke it's a little more difficult to sort that out and to explain what's going on. Part of it is, as Lydia has said, it's simply different material. And I agree with that. I think a big chunk of it is that, as the early Church Fathers knew, is that it was actually previous ministry experience and teaching, that occurred before Jesus was baptized by John; that is part of it. And some of it is geographic, that is, John gives us a lot more material in the south, in Samaria and Judea and in Jerusalem. John even talks about visits to Jerusalem that are not recorded in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. So that does explain some of it. But once we make the observation that the Evangelist did have the freedom - and I would argue, the obligation - to reshape Jesus' teaching, as Jesus himself taught them to do, I think that is what addresses this problem very well. And, we then have no reason to have a crisis of confidence in the Gospels.

Justin: [Starts talking]

Craig: I was just going to say the disciples were taught well and it shows. And so we have truth. What we have in all four Gospels is what Jesus taught, even if we don't always have the exact words and in the same sequence and the same location.

Justin: So, as it were the chreia removes the crisis, in the terms of the understanding the . . . what was acceptable to do in terms of this reframing and reshaping of the teaching and so on; and this is being done, to some extent, with other material, to some extent in John's gospel. Lydia, where do you want to begin what what, because . . .

Lydia: Yeah, I think I would like to go to the distinction that Craig seems to be making between what he calls the long discourses in John and (apparently what he is now admitting the distinct historicity of, which is) those two places where Jesus said, "Before Abraham was, I am," and, "I and the Father are one." (Presumably because, as has been pointed out, they did not occur in the course of long discourses.) So now it appears that, where he thinks John is distinctive from the Synoptics . . . and again, I want to point out that Craig believes this chreia elaboration was allowed in the Synoptics as well, but he has also emphasized very strongly a distinction with John (and even somewhat in this conversation) concerning the so-called long discourses. So, I'd like to address that a little bit.
The distinction between John and the Synoptics on the length of Jesus' discourses is to some extent an illusion and has been exaggerated. There has . . . with a Unitarian scholar named James Drummond in the early 1900s, he put together a chart showing that this idea that John has much longer discourses than the Synoptics is actually false. Matthew actually has longer sections in which Jesus speaks uninterrupted. There are not lengthy I Am discourses in the Gospel of John, that are just like are really long, and there's nothing that long in the Synoptics. That's not true at all. The Sermon on the Mount is actually longer than any portion of the so-called Farewell Discourse in John that is not broken up by dialogue. Richard Bauckham has also pointed out that the aphoristic style that Jesus uses in the Synoptics might actually be the artifact, and that the more connected style of Jesus in, for example, the Farewell Discourse or the Bread of Life Discourse may be more realistic. Now, Bauckham himself is not saying that that’s verbatim what Jesus said. he might even think it is even more contrived than what I think it is. But his point is that we should not take the choppy Jesus of the Synoptics to be the historical Jesus and the connected Jesus of John to be ahistorical; that, in fact, it would look more realistic for him to speak in a connected fashion. 
I would also like to point out that, and I'm just going to go to the so-called Farewell Discourse, because some of the ones that Craig has cast some question on here, such as what are called the I Am statements with a predicate, like "I am the vine, and you are the branches," these kind of things that occur allegedly in long discourses, occur on that last night. That last night is confirmed by some of the undesigned coincidences that I've discussed. (For example, why did Jesus wash their feet? Because they were quarrelling and squabbling. And what did Jesus mean in Luke by saying, "I am among you as the one who serves," and then that’s explained by the washing.') And some of these discourses are interspersed with dialogue that he's had with them that night. So, I think we do have reason . . . again, maybe there is some composite going on there in that period from John 14-16. But, I don't think we have reason to believe that passage is any more expanded or the words of the Johannine community or anything like that than what is in the Synoptic Gospels.
And, in fact, here is a really interesting parallel I found. In Matthew 7:7, we have the famous, "Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be open unto you." In John 16:24, which is right smack in the middle of one of these so-called long Johannine discourses, Jesus says, "Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you shall receive." Similarly, Mark 13:13, again a different setting, a different context, he says, "You will be hated by everyone on account of my name." In John 15:19, he says, "Because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you." Same thought, same concept. I think, this is the same Jesus, absolutely, and I think he is in no less historical, and, in fact, I would say we have reason to believe that he said things that were recognizably like this, possibly even many of them on that night. In fact, the references to the vine: there are vineyards in Jerusalem. And he says, "Come on let's go," at the end of one chapter, and they could have been passing those vineyards.

Justin: I mean, you're starting to bring in some of this area that you believe is evidence of the historical reliability of John and so on, these undesigned coincidences, cross-referenced against details of the Synoptic Gospels here, Lydia. But we've moved, in a sense, from those I Am statements and discourses, Craig, to more this Farewell Discourse, which, again just to set the scene a little bit here, we obviously have all got the full Gospel accounts, which contain an account of Jesus' last supper, and the events of the crucifixion. But John's Gospel gives Jesus a great deal more dialogue overall within that, a lot more expansive, if you like, statements and reassurances to the disciples and so on, on that last supper. 
So, and Lydia's view is, firstly, there is no reason to assume that somehow the Synoptic Gospels are more historical because we have a more choppy, shorter sort of version of Jesus, of what Jesus says compared to these longer more flowing sort of statements of Jesus in John. And secondly, I think, that there is every reason to see a lot of connections between what Jesus says there, in that longer discourse as reported in John, compared to the shorter sort of moments in the synoptic Gospels. So, what's your view personally, first of all, on that Farwell Discourse? Again, how much do you think, you know, if you had been there at the time, Jesus would have actually been saying, how much do you think is a sort of elaboration or paraphrase or restatement of his teaching by a later writer or community. Where do you stand on that, that particular element of John's Gospel?

Craig: Well, I have no reason to cast any doubt or raise any questions about either the veracity or historicity of the Upper Room Discourse. It is an intimate conversation. The disciples are all there, we have the beloved disciple, a mysterious figure much debated on in even the early Church Fathers as to who he is, and that's the sort of thing that I wouldn’t be surprise at all if it represents a very good synopsis, verbally and so forth, of things Jesus said, even if it only represented a small portion of what was said over those long hours together that evening.
But there is an important point, and this is where I do disagree with Lydia, and I think this is ultimately most of the issue that is behind this discussion and her criticism of me, and it's just how the gospels were composed. It's not so much a question of historicity or veracity, it's just understanding how they're composed. And I go back to what she said about the longer discourses in Matthew. The problem here is these discourses have been constructed out of disparate materials. And she mentioned the Sermon on the Mount, that's a great example of it. When you look at Luke, the parallel there, and it’s half a chapter, it's Luke 6:20-49, the so-called Sermon the Plain, and in Matthew it becomes three chapters, five, six and seven. And all critical scholars of the Synoptics, and I mean evangelicals, not just, you know, non-evangelicals, recognize this assembling, this constructing of these discourses out of materials. And if Lydia rejects that and says, 'No, that's not what happened; it's a recording of what Jesus said on one particular occasion,' she's very much out of step with critical gospel scholarship on this point. Maybe she doesn't understand the views of most of us hold to: Markan priority, the existence of a collection of Jesus' sayings which Matthew and Luke independently of each other used and supplemented their Markan narrative in creating their own Gospels of Matthew and Luke. So I think there is a major difference between us there, and I think that this lays the foundation for some of these disagreements on other features that reach out and touch John as well.

Lydia: I would like to address that, if I may, and clarify what I do and don't understand. Would that be okay?

Justin: Go ahead.

Lydia: First of all, actually, I've explicitly, right here in this conversation, repeatedly raised the possibility of composite discourses, both for Matthew and for John. I'm open to either possibility there, that it could be either composite or non-composite. I actually tend to think that critical scholars, of whose views I am aware, that Craig is mentioning, are pretty definite on what is composite and what is not. But I think, if anything critical scholars need to be a little more open that the possibility that something may have happened or been said recognizability all at a given time. But I'm not going to be dogmatic about that at all. I'm certainly aware of the two source hypothesis, I'm also aware of more or less rigid versions thereof. I'm also aware of arguments for, for example, Matthean authorship; and unfortunately the very rigid notion of Markan priority are sometimes used to not allow Matthew to have his own access to these events and actually be adding eye-witness material. I have evidence that he did so from undesigned coincidences, but . . . and the same way with John. But, I am not at all unaware of the notion of a composite discourse. 
However, again, in other statements that Dr. Craig or Dr. Evans has made, he has cast additional doubt on John, more particularly and especially for these sayings here in this conversation more so for the I Am statements followed by a predicate, in the earlier conversation with Dr. Ehrman it encompassed the I Am statements without a predicate, like 'Before Abraham was, I Am,' or the statement 'I and the Father are one.' That there is something especially questionable about these, and here he seems emphasize that he thinks it’s because they're embedded in long discourses. In fact, the possibility of a composite discourse actually means there is no more reason to attribute that to the Johannine community than any other portion of the Gospel, because if one thinks it might be to some extent a composite of sayings Jesus said at another times, then it is not the product of later reflection on the part of the Johannine community. Jesus might very well have said, "I Am vine," or, "I Am the bread of life." (I just want to mention concerning the 'bread of life', Craig Blomberg has a very interesting discussion on that as a . . . Jesus engaging in a midrash on an ancient Hebrew text, not someone else inventing what Jesus said. And he says at least that . . . since Jesus was a rabbi and this supposedly took place in a synagogue, that would be a very appropriate setting for this kind of show of rabbinic knowledge on Jesus' part in the Bread of Life discourse.
So, I really think that what I'm chiefly pushing for right at this moment is a greater openness to the possibility that these things were uttered at a given time, but I'm certainly not at all unaware of critically scholarly work on these matters.

Justin: Of course, and in that sense, Lydia, you're saying, 'Okay, maybe there's this composite sort of stuff going on. You're fully aware of what these critics say. But you want the critics, as it were, to be more open to the idea that the long dialogues and parts of John's Gospel being genuine, you know, that they're based on the historical sayings of Jesus, what he said in particular settings and places. And you're concerned, for instance, quoting from what Craig said in one of those dialogues with Bart Ehrman, when Craig, for instance, said, “I would be very surprised if we caught him,” as in Jesus, “uttering 'I Am this' and 'I Am that.'”

Lydia: Exactly. I think we would have caught him uttering, 'I Am this,' and, 'I Am that.' And I don't see any reason to cast doubt on that historically, even if it does occur in a longer discourse (but sometimes it doesn't occur in a longer discourse).

Justin: I mean, let's allow Craig to clarify. I mean, Craig, I think we're coming back to the original question which we began with, which is, Are you actually saying Jesus didn't actually say, 'I Am the bread of life,' 'I Am the light of the world,' 'I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,' that these things didn't come from the mouth of Jesus, but rather they were this chreia, this kind of elaboration of his teaching by the community, or person who wrote the Gospel of John? Obviously, Lydia feels there's no need to go this far. You don't have to. There's no reason to treat the Gospel of John so differently from the Synoptics in these sorts of statements. But, you, if you are saying that he didn't actually say those things, you've gone on further then you need to, you've caused more skepticism upon these, the historical reliability of these statements than you need to. So, go ahead, Craig; what's your response there?

Craig: It begins with a series of observations. We don't find the I Am discourses in Matthew, Mark, or Luke; we just don't. And, we have three Gospels, we have a pretty broad coverage of Jesus' teaching and activities. Sure, of course, we don't think Matthew, Mark, and Luke contain everything Jesus said and did. And so, the fact that John comes along and has material and sayings and deeds that are not recorded in Matthew, Mark or Luke that's not in itself problematic. But it is strange that the style of teaching that is common place in John is not represented in Matthew, Mark and Luke. And so, that's the first observation that's made. So, we have the I Am discourses in John. We do not have equivalents in the Synoptics: first observation. 
The second one is the I Am way of speaking ('I Am this' and 'I Am that,' and various attributes) is a feature we find in Wisdom tradition, both in canonical Scripture and outside (in the approximate time . . . the century or two leading up to the Church). And so, that then makes us wonder, Hmm, maybe John is taking Jesus' teaching, which you do find in the Synoptics, including teaching that perhaps is not found in the Synoptics, that's unique to that southern perspective in the Johannine community, and taking that teaching and presenting it in as though Jesus was Wisdom speaking. And so, there is some creativity, much more creativity than we see in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. So, when we look at the handbooks of education in antiquity and historiography, we realize that that fits within it, even if it's at the edges of it.
So, I'll have to ask Lydia, Does she allow for paraphrase? Jesus seems to be teaching his disciples that way in his own example where he repeats parables other things in various ways in various settings, and they're a little bit different. And so, Jesus seems able to restate his own teaching, paraphrase his own teaching. Matthew 13:52 seems to be an instruction that his disciples to do that. So, does Lydia allow for paraphrase? Can the evangelist . . . is it legitimate, have they been instructed to adapt and paraphrase Jesus' teaching, even expand it? And if the answer to those questions is, ‘Well, yes,’ well maybe that does help explain (not everything, but at least) somethings with respect to the Gospel of John. And if she goes that far, then I think we are basically on the same page, even if we might differ here or there as we work our way through each passage.

Justin: Just one minute to respond and we'll have to go to our final break, Lydia.

Lydia: Okay, wow, that's a lot to respond to. First of all, I think we need to be really careful not to misuse the word “paraphrase.” If Jesus never uttered the 'Bread of Life' discourse in some recognizable fashion (I'll just pick that one), where he's comparing himself to the bread of life, then that's . . . and then,  John, or the author of John wrote up an entire discourse that did not occur in any recognizably historical fashion. I would say it's not a paraphrase. I think we need to use the word “paraphrase” in a way that is more recognizable.
Secondly, I would say that I certainly disagree with Craig's interpretation of that verse in Matthew about bringing out things old and new. In fact, the author of John often distinguishes between what the disciples understood later and what Jesus actually uttered at the time. So, I actually think he's actually scrupulous about that.
So sure, I would allow paraphrasing in the normal sense of "paraphrase," but not in this extremely expansive, and I would say idiosyncratic way, that certain scholars are using it, that I don't think people understand: that what they mean by "paraphrase" could be making up an entire discourse that never historically occurred. That, I just don't really see we have any reason to believe the authors did.

Justin: And in terms of Craig's question that he particularly wanted you to answer, Do you believe Jesus gave permission for people to elaborate on, paraphrase, interpret his teaching, and this is effectively what's happened in the Synoptics and John's Gospel.

Lydia: Sure, I would say he wants them to teach, and the Holy Spirit comes and guides them to teach. But there is a big difference between their teaching as apostles, using their authority as apostles (and he gave them that for a reason), and their teaching in such a way as to make it appear to that Jesus himself actually made the statements. Those are two different things, and they have to be kept distinct. In fact, Ben Witherington has noted that the Holy Spirit is seen a source of continuing revelation in John 14, but it's not confused with the role of reminding the disciples of what Jesus himself said during his earthly ministry. So, I think those need to be kept distinct. Certainly, they were to teach the early Church, but I don't see them teaching by making up discourses that Jesus never said and then putting them into the mouth of Jesus. I don't see a reason to believe they did that.

Justin: We’re going to go to our final break. [SKIP] Well, we're concluding today's program as we ask, Does John's Gospel present a historically accurate picture of Jesus? There’s been a lot of ink spilled and a lot of debates had over the nature of John Gospel compared to the Synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and the way in which he presents Jesus and the words of Jesus there. And Craig Evans, a distinguished New Testament scholar, has been talking to us on the program today about the way he conceives of the way John is set out, and what the purposes were of those who wrote down the life, teachings, and sayings of Jesus there. And says . . . agrees with our other guest, Lydia McGrew, that there's an awful lot of valuable historical data in the Gospel of John. But that’s . . . we do have to treat the way they present sayings of Jesus in a somewhat different way than the Synoptics. There's more elaboration, there's more chreia, in a way, going on. That's the technical term for this sort of paraphrasing, elaborating on, and retelling the teachings of Jesus.
Lydia McGrew is concerned that scholars like Craig have been too quick to dismiss the historicity of the sayings of Jesus in the Gospel of John. And she's already spoken a little bit about the ways she thinks there is actually a great deal of historical basis for some the . . . for various of the sayings . . . . And just in that last segment, again I think, Lydia was essentially restating some of her concerns, Craig, that she feels that, you know, that there is no so much reason to cast so much doubt on these particular sayings, that we're entitled to take from John, you know, the same sort of lessons we do from lot of the Synoptics; and while we're not saying these are verbatim, that these are essentially . . . if we go the length of actually saying these are effectively made up, Jesus never said anything in any historical context akin to the I Am statements, then we've got a problem on our hands. And she just doesn't see we have to go down that route. And I think you're a bit more prepared to go down that route, to say, it’s . . . yes, it is more than possible that Jesus never actually made the I Am statements, and these are effectively, not made up, but rather these are extrapolations, if you like, of Jesus' teaching by the Johannine community or author of John. So, is it just a fact that you are prepared to prepared to go a bit further than her on that basis, Craig?

Craig: I suppose so. You could put it that way. It's just that we can say John the Evangelist has a different writing style and a different agenda. And, you know, Matthew, Mark, or Luke have their respective agendas. But, the point is we're still talking about Jesus. And so, you have virtually nothing (I think there are a few verses in Matthew 11, which could be exceptional), virtually nothing in Matthew, Mark, and Luke that sounds like, and looks like, Jesus in the Gospel of John. So, we have to ask as historians, at this point, is there just some other Jesus we just didn't know about? Does Jesus simply just behave and talk very differently in some circumstances (maybe when he's down south, when he's in Samaria, Judea, in and out of Jerusalem and Bethany)? Or, is it a lot more due to the way the Evangelist chooses to write the story? And I opt with the latter. 
I think it is the same Jesus, and I think he is presented very differently . . . and I guess I’m counting votes: it's three to one. Matthew, Mark, and Luke present him a certain way; John presents him a very different way. And I suspect, given the parallels with Wisdom literature, for example, that John is presenting Jesus in a much more interpretive light. He's being more aggressive in the paraphrasing, the theological expansion (extrapolation is a good word, too). It's dramatic, it's literary, but that doesn't mean the history is lost or that it no longer reflects Jesus actually taught. 
Sometimes the analogy I use is the parables. Jesus taught in parables, especially if we're talking about Matthew, Mark, and Luke. (And by the way, the parables as such don't even appear in John.) But throughout Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus' teaching is characterized by parables. Mark actually says Jesus did not teach without parables. And parables are fictions. Some of them are very realistic and reflect the ways people behaved; some of them don't. But the point is, Jesus' greatest teaching on the Kingdom of God, who God is, and how we should live, is presented in parables. And I think in a sense that this is what John is doing. Now, I wouldn't say that John is a parable. It's not a fiction. But what John's doing is taking Jesus' teaching and his activities (and I would agree with the idea that the Holy Spirit deepens the understanding of John and other disciples of Jesus, especially in the post-Easter setting) . . . and so he's presenting in hindsight Jesus as the very incarnation of God, the very incarnation of God's Wisdom. And expansively interpreting Jesus' saying in light of that.

Justin: And just before Lydia comes back in, one question that's been buzzing around my mind while you've been speaking there, Craig, is . . . A lot of skeptics listen to this program, a lot of skeptics who, in a sense, you know, may be really interested and intrigued and want there to be as much, as you like, difference between what the historical Jesus may have said and what the Gospels actually report him to have said. And I can imagine a lot of them, right now, saying, “Well, if a Christian like Craig expects me to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior on the basis of what he said about himself, who he claimed to be, how can I possibly do that if I can't be certain that he did say any of these things about 'I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,' 'I Am the Good Shepherd,' 'I Am the Light of the World?'” What's your response to that? Because, I think that is the problem that I think Lydia sees . . . is if you're, what you're potentially doing, is undermining the Deistic claims of Jesus and his Lordship there.

Craig: Well, what I would say is that we have Jesus' divinity expressed in all four Gospels, in different ways. And we have his divinity expressed by those who knew him, talk about him, witnessed him as the risen Lord: particularly Paul, for example. And so, the New Testament as a whole bears witness to Jesus' Divinity, to his saving ministry, his saving death on the cross, his resurrection. And so, it doesn't just ride on the Gospel of John and the sayings we find there, however we are to understand their development and how they came to . . . came into this form that we have of them in John. If we understand the whole witness of the New Testament, if we understand - and I think we do now - much better the high Christology of the synoptic gospels, then we do recognize we're in a position to say that what we find in John is not unbelievable, it's not a distortion, it's not fiction, but truly does represent what Jesus taught.

Justin: Thank you so much, Craig. Lydia, let's come to you, and we'll start to wrap things up. What . . . does that allay any of your concerns in any way?

Lydia: I'd like to say just a couple of things in wrap-up here that I think that I think will be interesting to the audience. First of all, earlier in this conversation, I kind of pinned Craig down a little bit, concerning specifically the incident where Jesus has a dialogue with the Jews, and then he says, "Before Abraham was, I Am," and they try to stone him. I asked, Did that happen incident occur recognizably in history separate from anything in the Synoptics? And at that time, he said yes, that he thought it did. Which is very different from what he appeared to be saying in 2012. Now, here toward the end toward the end of our program, he seems to be coming back and sort of taking that back again. Because, when he talks about 'I Am,' and the use of the term 'I Am' being, quote unquote, “Jesus talking like Wisdom.” There's really no reason to apply that then to, "I am the bread of life," or, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," but to say what he says: "Before Abraham was, I Am” . . . that really historically occurred. So, I don't think in the past Craig has drawn a sharp distinction between those, and I doubt that he really means, even now, to draw a sharp distinction between those. So, I think there is real ambiguity about where he's coming from concerning the recognizable historicity (again, not verbatim), but of a couple of those strong claims to Deity that Jesus makes in John. And I just want to draw attention to that ambiguity.
Then, the next thing I want to address is his statement that John presents Jesus as so different. And I completely disagree with that; I think the nature and personality of Jesus are clearly the same in all four Gospels. And I have many, many examples of this, but here in the time we have, I can't give them in detail: but his use of sarcasm, his modes of thought, has rapier sharp wit, his love for his friends, his weeping with compassion, his ability to read thoughts, even his characteristic metaphors and turns of phrase, his use of object lessons. John's presentation of Jesus is actually very strikingly the same as the Synoptics; and the differences between them are exaggerated and incorrectly stated by critical scholarship. By the use of vivid vignette’s John shows us, not an allegorical abstraction, but a solid and intensely real person. And he is the same person who we meet in the Synoptic Gospels. And we can tell that by reading them; that's not just something we believe by faith. That's actually right there in the text of the documents. And I've been enjoying doing some researching on that, discovering how that’s true in great detail.

Justin: I'm just going to give you both just thirty seconds for a final thought before we close out today's show. I'll start with you, Craig.

Craig: Well, I think that's not a very realistic understanding of John. And that's the reason why the vast majority of scholars don't see it that way. John does present Jesus in a very different way. I agree that it's the same Jesus, but the portraits in John and the Synoptics are very different. And we, I think we, should take that difference into account. And just to assert that it's the same thing just won't do it.

Justin: Thank you very much for joining me today, Craig. If you want to know more about Craig and his work: Craigaevans.com. Final word to you, Lydia, just as we close out. Again, if you could keep it to thirty seconds or less.

Lydia: As far as the vast majority of scholars, I certainly think we need to consider the democracy of the dead when we're considering this here. C. S. Lewis compared John's portrait of Jesus to Boswell's "Life of Johnson", which was certainly a very close-up, very historical memoir. Of course, I'm not saying, simply asserting they're the same. I have pages and pages of examples, such as Jesus' way of talking about Sabbath controversies in Luke 13 and John 7. They're different Sabbath controversies, and yet his wit and what I'd call his conceptual punning is exactly the same. Even his physical gestures (the way he looks up to heaven when he prays) . . . So, I actually have many examples; I'm not merely asserting this. And this was noted by older scholars on numerous occasions. I've been enjoying a book by Stanley Leathes, (L E A T H E S) from the nineteenth century, where he has pages and page and pages of parallels between the Synoptic and the Johannine Jesus. So, this is actually supportable by very concrete data that the portrait is actually . . . has an enormous amount of overlap, and John's own differences of linguistic style should not be allowed to obscure that.

Justin: Well, that you both for joining me on the program today. Thank you for what was obviously a spirit disagreement on the nature of what exactly is going on with the Gospel of John. But I do so appreciate you coming on to take the time to talk about it. So, Craig and Lydia, thank you for joining me on today's program.

Craig: You're most welcome.

Lydia: Thanks for having us.