Philosophy, Theology, History, Science, Big Questions

11 Reasons To Believe That The Prior Probability of The Resurrection Is Low, and an Audio Response By William Lane Craig

5/1/2015

Brad Bowen of the Secular Outpost, has written a post here:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2013/03/29/why-god-did-not-raise-jesus-from-the-dead/

where he defends 11 reasons to think that God wouldn't raise Jesus from the dead.

Here is William Lane Craig's response in audio format:

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Tim McGrew On Arif Ahmed's Opening Speech in his debate with Gary Habermas on the resurrection

10/22/2012

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What about other miracle claims for which we have 'better' evidence? Aren't we forced to believe in them too if we accept the case for the resurrection?

10/21/2012

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This objection is all too common and all to misguided. It has at least three fundamental errors implicit in it: 1) It can assume that other miracles are inconsistent with Christianity when in fact they are not, 2) It conflates the facts, with an inference to the best explanation of the facts (there may indeed be better evidence to support some fact, of set of facts, that are relevant for assessing some miracle claim in one context compared to another, but this doesn't mean that just because there is a plausible natural explanation in the one case that this transfers over to the other case as well), and 3) It fails to understand that you have to focus in on the specific evidence for some event within a specific context and compare the supernatural explanation with the probability of the naturalistic explanations in the context at hand. If the latter are just as probable as the former in explaining some specific evidence under consideration (i.e. Hindu Milk Miracles, Lourdes, Salem With Trials, etc.), then we are not warranted in accepting the supernatural explanation. So, the crucial point to make is that there aren't any good naturalistic explanations in the case of the resurrection for the specific evidence under consideration in that context whereas in the other cases there are plausible naturalistic explanations for the facts under consideration. That is really all there is to it.

-For a technical discussion of points 2 and 3 above, please see the article by Tim and Lydia McGrew which can be found in the following book:

http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Philosophy-Religion-Jake-Chandler/dp/0199604762/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346703486&sr=8-1&keywords=probability+in+the+philosophy+of+religion

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What About The Base Rate Fallacy? Over 100 billion people have not been raised from the dead; Must we know that God WANTED to raise Jesus from the dead?

10/21/2012

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1) A BRIEF RESPONSE FROM LYDIA MCGREW:

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2) DOES IT MATTER THAT RESURRECTIONS ARE SO INFREQUENT ON EARTH?: http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/08/ECREE5.html

RESPONSE: The problem with Lowder’s position is that is it self-defeating, and his probability estimate is not meaningful since he agrees that we do not know the intentions of God (predictively) with respect to resurrecting people on earth (including Jesus), he can’t turn around and use the estimated population of human beings to arrive at the prior improbability he does unless he knows that God has designed a well-defined random experiment of trial resurrection events wherein human beings constitute God’s sample space; this requires a highly detailed and specific knowledge of Gods intentions that is not only unavailable to Lowder, but is so specific in comparison to the question ‘would God want to raise Jesus from the dead’ that it is very difficult to see how Lowder can consistently say that we don’t know that God would want to do the latter, but he knows (he presupposes this part) that God is performing some sort of Bernoulli trial on Earth in the case of the former!? Moreover, even if Lowder knew this, his prior probability calculation illegitimately includes all humans up to the present wherein he would only be justified in using the total number of ‘trials’ up unto the point under consideration, namely, the resurrection of Jesus. So, what percentage of the total population had live and died up until the time of Jesus? Only 2 percent! So, using the figures Lowder does, we just need to find what 2 percent of the number he uses is which comes out to: ~2140000000, or approximately 2.14x 10^-9. This may still sound like a large number, but it would be 'weak sauce' for something like the case the McGrew's make for the resurection to overcome. But as I say, Lowder's calculation is not a meaningful probability. Let me say that I think Lowder's basic point would be legitimate if the hypothesis under consideration was that 'Jesus rose naturally, and randomly from the dead.' That is highly improbable in terms of frequency. But the hypothesis is not that Jesus rose naturally from the dead, it is that God raised Jesus supernaturally from the dead. THE BOTTOM LINE: Frequency probabilities are grossly unreliable when a personal agent is the causal explanation under consideration and what Lowder should focus on (which he does in his other Bayesian arguments) is epistemic probability and try to show that the prior probability of God existing and God wanting to raise Jesus from the dead is low; so probability in terms of frequency is misguided whereas the use of epistemic probability is not.

*Even if I am wrong about this, then skip down to point 6 below where I think the death knell for this objection rings loudly

3) DO WE NEED TO KNOW THAT GOD WOULD WANT TO RAISE JESUS FROM THE DEAD?: The following articles are very helpful for addressing this objection in more detail:
http://christendomreview.com/Volume003Issue002/essay_003.html

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SWINBURNE OFFERS SOME CONSIDERATIONS TO THINK THAT GOD WOULD WANT TO RAISE SOMEONE LIKE JESUS FROM THE DEAD HERE: http://www.apologeticsinthechurch.com/uploads/7/4/5/6/7456646/pc_15-2_swinburne_final1.pdf

4) Yet another avenue to explore in responding to this objection (of needing to know that God would want to raise Jesus from the dead) is to explore the relationship between Bayes Theorem, Inference to the Best Explanation, and Prior Probabilities. For example, William Lane Craig utilizes IBE instead of Bayes Theorem in his case for the resurrection because he says, the prior probability that God would want to raise Jesus from the dead is inscrutable, and so, he thinks, he doesn't even have to address this worry since he uses IBE. Does this response work? I think it does if one or both of the following relationships between Bayes, IBE, and prior probabilities is correct:

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Was Jesus Temporarily Buried (Or 'Stored'), And Then Re-Buried (Dishonorably, In A Common Graveyard)?

4/1/2012

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Is The Passion Narrative (Death, Burial, Empty Tomb, Appearances) Prophecy Historicized?

3/23/2012

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Evidence For Visionary Resurrection Appearances: Is The Transfiguration A Misplaced Resurrection Appearance?

3/23/2012

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Is 1 Cor. 15:3-11 a Pauline Interpolation? WLC's Response to Richard Price

3/13/2012

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We should doubt the burial narrative since there is a legendary development overtime with respect to the person of Joseph of Arimathea who eventually is described as a follower of Jesus

3/5/2012

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First, even if this were true, what it would show is that there grew up around the historical hard core of the burial an invented motivation for why Joseph would have given Jesus an honorable burial, not that the burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea was itself a legend since it is early, independently, and multiply attested; passes the criteria of embarrasment, etc. But what of the alleged legendary development in the Gospel narratives about Jospeh of Arimathea being a sympathizer and follower of Jesus?

1) In the later Gospels, we have independent attestation that Joseph was secretly a sympathizer of Jesus, (and John even says that he was disciple of Jesus), but secretly for fear of the Jews. Richard Bauckham has argued (I think anyway) that John is actually correct and that the reason Joseph's secret became more explicit in the Gospels after Mark has to do with protecting Joseph from the Jews and by the time of Luke and Matthew, and especially by the time of John, that it was no longer necessary to protect Joseph's affiliation with Jesus from the Jews because the members of the Sanhedrin that had condemned Jesus were either dispatched or dead because old age and/or the Jewish massacre.

2) Even in Mark's Gospel Joseph is described as a righteous man who was seeking for the kingdom of God which is the same kind of language that is used to describe the message taught by Jesus. This is important because this is not inconsistent or even radically different from the way Luke, Matthew, and even John speak of Joseph.

3) A sign of genuine history that has been called 'undesigned coincidences' by Tim McGrew has to do with the way in which independent narratives dovetail and interlock with one another in unintended ways. Interestingly enough, the Gospel of Luke interlocks with the other three because it mentions that Joseph wasn't present at the vote to condemn Jesus.

4) Other explanations serve to enhance the probability of the previous three points: Others have argued that Joseph was a delegate of the Sanhedrin to make sure that the body was dispatched properly; it was very important in Judaims that bodies be buried on the same day of execution so they were very solicitous about it. However, what should make us skeptical about this explanation is that it is very surprising that the none of the Gospels mention Jospeh taking care of the other two crucified men; it seems like they were content to let the Romans bury them in a common criminals' grave but Joseph singles out Jesus for selective treatment and buries him in the one of the most expensive tombs during that time which makes it very likely that Joseph really was a secret follower of Jesus.

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Were Women Assigned The Exclusive Role Of Anointing Bodies?

2/29/2012

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Keith Parsons argues that the women naturally would be the first to see the risen Christ in an invented story, since it was their responsibility to anoint the body.

RESPONSE: Mr. Parsons is simply factually mistaken:

Dov Zlotnick, The tractate "Mourning" (Semahot) (Regulations relating to death, burial, and mourning). Translated from the Hebrew, with introd. and notes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p. 82 (XII, 10). "A man may shroud and gird the corpse of a man, but not that of a woman. A woman may shroud and gird the corpse of a man or of a woman. A man may attend another man suffering from intestinal illness, but not a woman. A woman may attend a man or a woman suffering from intestinal illness."

Licona and Habermas further respond that Parson’s claim doesn’t square with the Gospels’ testimony that Joseph of Arimathea and/or Nicodemus prepared the body for burial with a substantial amount of spices before the women’s visit (Matt. 27:57-61; Mk. 15:42-47; Lk. 23:50-56; Jn. 19:38-40). Moreover, an invented story of the resurrection could have recorded the appearance to the men while waiting at the tomb for the women to show up or after the women did their part in dressing the corpse. The women need only have played a secondary role.

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