In part one, we looked at the logical version of the problem of suffering and evil.This argument attempts to show that since suffering and evil exist, it is logically impossible for God to exist, and we explained why even atheist philosophers admit that this argument fails. But wait. It may still be argued
That while it’s logically possible that God and suffering both exist, is far from likely. There’s just so much pointless suffering, it seems improbable that God could have good reasons for permitting it. This is the probability version of the problem. Suffering provides empirical evidence
That God’s existence is not impossible, just highly unlikely. Is this a good argument? Consider three points. First, we are not in a position to say with any confidence that God probably lacks reasons for allowing the suffering in the world. The problem is that we’re limited in space and time, and in
Intelligence and insight. God, on the other hand, sees every detail of history from beginning to end, and orders it through people’s free decisions and actions in order to achieve his purposes. God may have to allow a great deal of suffering along the way. Suffering which appears pointless within our limited scope of
Understanding may be seen to have been justly permitted by God within his wider framework. Sometimes what we experience makes no sense until we gain a wider perspective and see the big picture designed by the Creator. Here’s the second point. Relative to the full scope of the evidence, God’s
Existence may well be probable. You see, probabilities are always relative to background information. For example, if we consider only how much this man weighs, we would say it’s highly improbable that he’s a world-class athlete. But when we’re willing to consider new information, that he’s a professional sumo wrestler and
The world champion, we quickly revise our view. In the same way, when the atheist claims that God’s existence is improbable, we should ask, improbable relative to what background information? If we consider only the suffering in the world, then God’s existence may very well appear to be improbable, but if we’re
Willing to look at the full scope of background information to take into account the powerful arguments for God’s existence, we may come to a very different conclusion. The third point is Christianity entails doctrines that increase the probability of the coexistence of God and suffering.
Consider four of these. First, the chief purpose of life is not happiness. People often assume that if God exists, his role is to create a comfortable environment for his human pets. They think the ultimate goal of our lives on earth is happiness, and therefore, God is obligated to keep us happy.
However, Christianity presents a radically different view, that the purpose of life is to know God. This alone brings true, lasting fulfillment. Suffering can bring about a deeper, more intimate knowledge of God either on the part of the one who’s suffering or those around him. The whole point of human history is
That God, having given us free will, is drawing as many people as he can into his unending Kingdom. Suffering is one of the ways God can draw people freely to himself. In fact, countries that have endured the most hardship often show the
Highest growth rate for Christianity. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Second, mankind is in a state of rebellion against God and His purpose. Terrible human evils are testimony to
Man’s depravity, a consequence of his alienation from God. The Christian isn’t surprised at moral evil in the world; on the contrary, he expects it. The third doctrine states that God’s purpose is not restricted to this life, but spills over beyond the grave into eternal life. This world is just the
Beginning, the entry way to an unimaginable, never-ending life beyond death’s door. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, underwent afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, hunger; yet he wrote, we do not lose heart, for this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for
An eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. Paul understood
That life on earth, and whatever suffering it holds for each of us, is temporary. Our pain will not endure forever, but our lives with God will. Paul was not belittling the plight of those who suffer horribly in this life. Indeed,
He was one of them; but he saw that those sufferings will be overwhelmed forever by the ocean of joy that God will give to those who will freely receive it. And the fourth doctrine is this: the knowledge of God is an incomparable good. Knowing God
Is the ultimate fulfillment of human existence, an infinite good. Thus, the person who knows God, no matter how much he has suffered, can still say God is good to me. So if Christianity is true, it’s not at all improbable that suffering and evil should exist. In summary, for all these
Reasons, the probability version of the problem of evil is no more successful than the logical version. As a purely intellectual problem, then, the problem of evil does not disprove God’s existence. But even if those intellectual arguments fail, the emotional problem of suffering and evil
Remains very powerful. If you have suffered deeply, or if you’ve watched someone you love go to intense pain, you may be thinking, so what is God exists? Why would I want to respond to him or worship him? I feel cold and empty, and
Want nothing to do with him. You’re not alone. God knows your name; he knows who you are and what you’re going through. God promises to be with you through your suffering. He can give you the strength to endure. Jesus Christ also suffered;
Although he was innocent, he was tortured and sentenced to death.His suffering had a purpose: to provide you and me the life-giving connection to God. Not only does God exist, but he loves you. He seeks after you, he offers you hope, and in time, he will make all things new.
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or mourning, crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
You see what the atheist has to say, he’s got to be able to prove that it is impossible or improbable for God to have a morally sufficient reason for permitting these facts of suffering, and that’s a burden of proof which is so
Heavy that no atheist has ever been able to sustain it. [Moderator] Explain that, because the question I was going to ask you is let’s talk about this subject of faith, which is where I was going, so you jumped right where I was headed. When they say
That, okay, explain that idea that you just entered into. [Craig] Take someone’s little daughter dying of leukemia, or getting run over by an automobile. We don’t see why that happened, and we wonder why wouldn’t a sovereign God intervene to stop it? And what the atheist has to say is that it’s either
Impossible or it’s highly improbable that God could have a morally justifying reason for allowing that to occur, but there’s no way given our finitude, our limits in space and time, for being able to make that kind of a claim with any justification. God’s morally sufficient reason for allowing your daughter’s
Death might not emerge until 300 years from now, maybe in another country. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history so that the consequences of any event are simply incalculable and incomprehensible for finite, local persons. So the atheist is making a claim here which is just completely unsustainable;
There’s no way for him to show that it’s improbable or impossible that God has a morally sufficient reason for allowing this evil to occur, and therefore his argument really has no intellectual credibility. It’s a purely emotional argument. [Moderator] And it’s a compelling one, isn’t it?
[Craig] Emotionally compelling, but not intellectually compelling. [Moderator] Correct, and so when somebody says in that moment, in immense pain, I don’t care what good he can bring out of this, [yes] I reject him. And we hear that a lot, [sure] C.S. Lewis drifted towards saying that in his Grief Observed, and
God, when God hears us say those kind of things, okay, his response is one of understanding. Scripture says he too has been tempted in every way, even as we were. [yes] And so God doesn’t shut us off when we
Say that. [Craig] No no, no I think that’s absolutely right. Look at the Psalms, how the psalmist expresses anger toward God, and God where are you, why are you allowing this, why am I going through this? I think the lesson of
The Psalms is come to God with your hurt and your pain and your anger and don’t try to stifle it and suppress it. Let it out and he’ll listen to you. [Moderator] He’ll listen, and if you’ll let him, if you’ll listen to him, as Christopher Hitchens
Acknowledged he gives the only consistent logically constructed plausible answer that frankly even Hitchens acknowledged; you know what? Christianity alone solves this problem. [Craig] Yeah, I remember Bertrand Russell, the great atheist philosopher, once said that no one can sit at the bedside of a dying
Child and believe in God, but when Jan and I were in Paris we met a young minister who was trained and now worked in counseling dying children. And I thought to myself: counseling dying children, what would Russell have said to those children? What could he say? Too bad?
Tough luck? That’s all the naturalist has got to say. As you say it’s theism, it’s belief in God, that provides a hope and a reason for the suffering that its redeemed, whereas in atheism we’re locked in a world that is filled with gratuitous and unredeemed suffering, and there is no hope of escape.
[Anderson] Evil and suffering is a big one, and I’d be interested in your perspectives on that. You hear people say that particularly the Abrahamic God, who’s all-powerful and all-knowing and all good, and you’ve just made a reference to that yourself, the locus of all good things,
[yes] now there’s the atheistic argument from evil. And it basically runs that if there is such a God, and look I don’t want to sound unsympathetic about this; it’s a big challenge evil is a big problem, just as I described exists, then, there’d be no evil or or suffering. But
There is a lot of evil and suffering in the world, therefore there can’t be a God, or certainly not a Christian God. So where do philosophers in general come out on that question of suffering, and where do you land? [Craig] Well historically for centuries atheistic philosophers have defended
The view that the existence of the suffering and evil in the world is logically incompatible with the existence of God. And now on the contemporary scene, this has really changed; virtually no one defends the logical version of the problem of evil anymore, and the reason is that it lays upon
The shoulders of the atheist a burden of proof that is so heavy that no one has been able to sustain it. The atheist would have to prove that there is no logically possible reason that God could have for permitting the evil and suffering in the world,
And no one can prove such a thing. So those who do defend the problem of evil today have retreated from the logical version of the problem to the so-called probabilistic version of the problem, where the claim is that given the evil and suffering in the world, it’s improbable that
God exists, if not impossible. And the difficulty with this version of the problem is that it makes probability judgments that are simply beyond our ability. There is no basis for thinking that if God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the evil and suffering in the world
That these should be evident to me. For example, every event that occurs in human history sends a ripple effect through history, such that God’s morally sufficient reasons for permitting it might not emerge until centuries from now, perhaps in another country. An illustration of this would
Be the so-called butterfly effect in contemporary physics. It’s been shown that the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings on a twig in West Africa can set in motion forces that will eventually produce a hurricane over the Atlantic Ocean, and yet no one watching that little butterfly on the branch
Could possibly predict such an outcome. These kinds of probability judgments are just beyond our capacity. And similarly, when we see some instance of suffering and evil in the world, we are simply not in a position to say with any sort of confidence God probably doesn’t have
A morally sufficient reason for permitting that to occur. A second point that needs to be made here is that when one’s talking about probabilities, then you’ve also got to consider on the other side of the scale, what is the probability that God does exist? And here I would offer
A multiple considerations that I think make it quite probable that there is in fact a transcendent creator and designer of the universe, despite any improbability that the suffering in the world might throw upon the existence of God. [Anderson] Interestingly, I’ve never
Forgotten the story, a true story, about a young university student in Scotland not long after well probably I suspect during the Depression years, things were grim, and he knocked on the door, of a small cottage that was opened, there was a returned serviceman from the first World War,
And when he realized the young man wanted to talk to him about God he said go away, he said I was in the trenches in France and I stopped believing in God when I saw all that evil. And the young man said to him I respect that that must have been terrible,
And I certainly won’t pester you, but can I just make the observation that I wonder if I’d been there I might not have stopped believing in man rather than stop believing in God. And the old man looked at him, tears welled up near his eyes,
And he said you better come in; we need to talk about this. It’s an interesting take on evil. I sometimes think that one of our problems is we’re not self-reflective enough. [Craig] Yes one of the major developments in philosophy with respect to this problem is the so-called free will defense,
In which philosophers I think have been able to show that it’s neither improbable nor impossible that every world that God would create that would involve this much good, this much moral goodness, would also involve this much moral evil freely perpetrated by human free agents,
So that ultimately the blame lies at man’s threshold and not at God’s. oh
Hi, my name is Greg Ganssle and I’m a part-time lecturer[br]in the Department of Philosophy at Yale University, and a Senior Fellow at the Rivendell Institute. And today we’re talking about the philosophical problem of evil. In previous discussions,[br]we’ve seen the charge of contradiction or the deductive logical problem of evil discussed.
And this is the claim that[br]there is a contradiction in asserting that God[br]exists, God is wholly good, all-powerful, and all-knowing,[br]and that evil exists. The solution to this charge[br]of contradiction, we found, was in the idea that God might have[br]a good reason to allow evil.
A good God can allow evil if[br]He has a good reason to do so. It’s from this point that[br]the second major argument in the philosophical[br]problem of evil begins. This is the evidential argument. Rather than “the charge of contradiction,” I like to call this “the unicorn[br]objection.” Just like a unicorn might exist
But they’re awfully hard to find, this argument starts with[br]the idea that maybe God has a reason to allow the evil we witness, but it sure seems like there[br]is no reason out there. So let me see if I can make[br]this a little more rigorous. I’m following an important[br]paper that was published
By philosopher William Rowe in 1979. This argument goes something like this[br](and I’m going to simplify). Premise one: There are unjustified evils in the world. Premise two: If God exists, there will be no unjustified evils in the world. Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist. Let me clarify a few things
Before I try to give a bit of an answer. So, what is an unjustified evil? An unjustified evil is an evil where there is no good reason to allow it. No good being would allow this evil if he could prevent it. The argument is that there are
Cases of evil like this in the world, and if there are, then God does not exist. Now, notice the way I set up the argument, it’s actually a valid deductive argument. So why would we call this[br]an evidential argument? The answer is the first premise, “There are unjustified[br]evils,” can only be supported
With an evidential case. We cannot argue that, beyond[br]the shadow of a doubt, there are unjustified evils. We have to weigh the[br]evidence, pro and con, for the claim that there[br]are unjustified evils. So let’s begin to do that. Well, William Rowe in his[br]article tells a story of a deer
Who’s caught in a forest[br]fire and suffers horribly for four or five days before she dies. And he points out that in the[br]case of suffering like this, we cannot see any reason that[br]God might have to allow it. It looks like an unjustified evil. And we can go through and look at some
Of the standard reasons God[br]might have to allow evils and show that they don’t[br]seem to apply in this case. For example, human free[br]will seems to be irrelevant especially if the fire[br]was caused by lightning. Secondly, the fact that it’s a good thing to have a regular cause and effect world
Doesn’t seem to apply,[br]because God could always end the deer’s misery without[br]really interfering with the regularities of the world. So here’s a case that looks[br]like an unjustified evil. How is a theist going to respond? Well, another philosopher named Steven Wykstra begin this way. He said, “We’re looking for a reason
That God could have to allow this evil,” or “We’re looking for what we could call a justifying reason.” And William Rowe’s argument[br]goes something like this. First: It doesn’t seem like[br]there’s a justifying reason. Secondly: Therefore, probably there is no justifying reason. And that’s the kind of reasoning that’s supporting premise one.
The evidence we bring[br]to bear to premise one is that, as much as we think[br]about it, we cannot discern a justifying reason, so it[br]seems like there is none. Then we conclude not[br]that there definitely is no justifying reason, but[br]that it’s likely, or probably there is no justifying reason.
And then our conclusion becomes[br]”Probably, there is no God.” Now what Steve Wykstra does with this is he thinks hard about this inference from “It seems like there[br]is no justifying reason” to “Probably, there is no justifying[br]reason.” I’m oversimplifying his case quite a bit, but it’s as if he’s making this claim.
Sometimes inferences of that kind are very strong and[br]sometimes they’re very weak. So here’s some examples. Look around the room. It seems like there are no[br]live elephants in the room. Therefore, probably there are[br]no live elephants in the room. That seems to be a[br]pretty strong inference. What about this one? Look around the room again.
It seems like there are no[br]carbon-14 atoms in the room. Therefore, probably there are[br]no carbon-14 atoms in the room. Well that doesn’t seem like[br]a very strong inference, even if you look around the room twice. What is the difference? The difference can be captured[br]in the sentences of the form “If there were a ____,
We would probably know it.” Now we’ll take the first case. “If there were a live elephant in the[br]room, we would probably know it.” That is true. You look around the room, and a live elephant is something[br]you’re going to notice. If the room is small[br]enough, there aren’t a lot
Of large objects a live[br]elephant could hide behind. So it’s a very strong inference. But think about the carbon-14 atom. “If there were a carbon-14 atom in the[br]room, we would probably know it.” That turns out to be false. You cannot detect tacarbon-14 atom simply by glancing around the room.
So sometimes these inferences are strong and sometimes they’re weak. Now let’s go back to Rowe’s argument. What is it with which[br]he fills in the blank? A justifying reason. A reason God could have[br]to allow this evil. So we look at a particular case of evil. And we asked the question “If there were
A justifying reason,[br]would we probably know it?” If the answer to that question is “Yes,” then Rowe’s argument is strong. If the answer is “No,” then it’s weak. Let me tell you why I think it’s weak. First of all, if God[br]exists, we would expect
That many of His reasons for[br]doing things are going to be stuff that we cannot figure out. Secondly, we can figure[br]out reasons God might have for lots of the evils in the world: things due to free will, due to cause-and-effect universe. There are lots of evils that we encounter
Where we can figure out what[br]a justifying reason might be. Third thing: every philosopher recognizes that we’re not going to[br]be able to figure out God’s reasons in every case. So we all accept the idea[br]that there are many cases we can figure out and there are many cases we shouldn’t be able to figure out.
The question is, are there[br]too many cases of that kind? And this is where the disagreement is. I think, if you have other[br]reasons to think God exists, then you’re in good grounds for saying that this argument is not strong, because the number of cases we cannot figure out is[br]not necessarily so great
To render existence of God unlikely. This is one of those cases where both the theist and the atheist can say that the other side can be perfectly rational[br]in their beliefs. It’s a matter of assessing[br]the evidence differently. In fact, in Rowe’s article[br]where he first put forward this argument, he makes this point.
He says he thinks it’s[br]perfectly reasonable for a theist to continue to believe in God even in spite of this argument. So we’ve looked at the[br]evidential argument from evil, simply one version of it by William Rowe. And I’ve explained how[br]a theist can respond, to see whether it’s still[br]reasonable to believe in God.
Of course, many philosophers have launched different versions of this argument which are more complicated and perhaps more difficult to answer. Subtitles by the Amara.org community
I was wondering if you could clear this up for me. So… argues that Christ’s suffering was equivalent to our eternal damnation on account of the infinite dignity of Christ. So he appeals to the divine nature of Christ and that absolves the issue. But earlier this morning you mentioned that when Christ experienced the
Loss of fellowship with the Father it was through his human nature and not the divine, and so what I’m having a difficult time understanding is how we can appeal to the divine nature of Jesus in order for the sacrifice to be sufficient, while denying that it is the involvement of his divine nature.
This is a tremendous subtlety of Chalcedonian orthodoxy concerning the two natures of Christ. And that is that there is only one person who Christ is, and that is a divine person. It is the second person of the Trinity. There is no
Human person who is Jesus of Nazareth. There is a divine person who has a human nature as well as a divine nature. So it’s not that in virtue of his divine nature that Christ makes atonement; it is that you have a divine person who in his
Human nature bears our sin and punishment, and it’s the person that is divine and is the one who suffers and dies and so forth for our sins, but he does so with respect to the human nature.
Hi, my name is Greg Ganssle, and I’m a Senior Fellow[br]at the Rivendell Institute at Yale University. We’re discussing the[br]philosophical problem of evil. So in the last lecture, we looked at the philosophical problem of evil and we said that atheists[br]want to deny premise one, that is, “God exists and is omniscient
Omnipotent, and wholly good”, while theists want to investigate the additional premises more carefully. So let us check to see. Are these premises true? So let’s look at premise three first: “There are no limits to what an omnipotent, omniscient being can do.” Is this true? Well, let’s think about it.
You’ve probably heard this question: “Can God make a rock so big[br]that even He can’t move it?” What about this: “Can God make a class so boring[br]that even He falls asleep?” These are the kinds of questions some people think are[br]going to be unanswerable. But they boil down to,[br]especially the rock question
Boils down to, “Can God[br]make contradictions true?” You see, a rock so big[br]that an all-powerful being cannot move it is a contradiction. So the question is, can God[br]make a contradiction true? So let’s answer the question[br]”Yes” and let’s answer the question “No” and see what happens. “Yes”: If God can make contradictions true,
Then he can make a rock so[br]big that he cannot move it. But then, he can also move[br]it, because he can make the contradiction true that[br]he cannot move the rock and he also can move the rock. So this is not a problem. But what if God cannot do contradiction?
Then we will have to say that God cannot make this kind of a rock. It’s not something that,[br]as an all-powerful being, He can accomplish. Now traditionally, most[br]theologians and philosophers have understood God’s power such that He cannot do contradictions. And it’s very important for[br]the atheist to hold this view.
Because the atheist[br]wants to have an argument that God does not exist, such[br]as John Mackie’s argument. So suppose Mackie has[br]a successful argument: There’s a contradiction in believing that God exists and that evil exists. The theist can simply[br]say, “Well, if God can do contradictions, he can make[br]that contradiction true. There is no contradiction that challenges
The existence of God.” So in order to have any[br]argument against the existence of God at all, we have to[br]assume that God’s power does not extend to being able[br]to make contradictions true. So we are going to say that premise three as it stands is false.
There are some limits to what[br]an all-powerful being can do. There are logical limits. God cannot draw a square circle. God cannot make a rock[br]so big He cannot move it. These are contradictions. So we need to rewrite premise three. We’ll call it “Three*”: There are no non-logical limits
To what an omnipotent,[br]omniscient being can do. This has a chance of being true. So we’ve revised premise three;[br]let’s look at premise four. Premise four: “A good being always eliminates evil as far as it can.” This too turns out to be false. Often, a good parent[br]allows evil and suffering
Into her child’s life even[br]if she could eliminate it. In our family, we had a very[br]strict rule that the children were not allowed to eat[br]candy before breakfast, and sometimes this caused distress. But we knew we had a good reason to allow this kind of suffering. It didn’t make us bad parents.
So we have to revise premise[br]four as well. Four*: A good being always eliminates[br]evil as far as it can unless it has a good reason to allow it. This has a chance of being true. So the theist says, “We need[br]to revise those two premises. Let’s plug them back into our argument
And see if we can still[br]get a contradiction.” Premise one remains the same. Premise two remains the same. Evil exists. Premise three*. “There are no non-logical limits to what an omnipotent being can do.” Premise four*. “A good being always eliminates[br]evil as far as it can, unless it has a good reason to allow it.”
>From these four, we can[br]go through the steps. Statement five is actually going to be statement five* now: God can eliminate all the evil that it’s logically possible to[br]eliminate. Statement six becomes statement six*: God will eliminate all[br]the evil He can eliminate because He is good, unless He[br]has a good reason to allow it.
>From statement five* and statement six*, we get statement seven*: God eliminates all the evil[br]He logically can eliminate, unless He has a good reason to allow it. Statement eight*: There[br]is evil and there is no evil, unless God has a good reason to allow it. And this is not a contradiction.
So what the theists have recognized is that if it’s possible that[br]God has a good reason to allow evil, there is no contradiction in claiming that God[br]exists, God is wholly good, all-powerful, all-knowing,[br]and yet evil exists. Could it be that God has a[br]good reason to allow evil,
But we don’t have to[br]know what His reasons are for any particular evil? There are some things that[br]have come up as suggestions for why God might allow some[br]of the evils we encounter. First, human freedom. Many philosophers believe[br]that if God allows us to be free in a significant[br]way, then He cannot determine
That we always choose what’s right. That would be a contradiction: a determined action that’s free. Secondly, many people[br]think that the regularities in the universe require the possibility of natural evils such as[br]drownings and burnings. It’s the very same properties[br]of water that make it biologically useful that make[br]it possible for us to drown.
If we’re going to have a regular[br]cause and effect universe, we need to have a stable world. These might be some of the reasons that God allows evil in the world. We don’t know His particular reasons. So the charge of[br]contradiction is the charge that there is a contradiction[br]between the existence of God
And the existence of evil. We’ve shown that there’s[br]probably no contradiction. If God can have a reason to allow evil, then the argument has been answered. Of course, this leads to[br]the next problem of evil called “the evidential problem.” But that’s for another day. Subtitles by the Amara.org community
What If We Proved the Devil? For many, the devil is the embodiment of true evil. A terrifying and ancient, ever-present force existing in the shadows of humanity, orchestrating all the terrible things that have happened and ever will happen.
But what if this malevolent being wasn’t just the stuff of stories, but instead a real-world, accepted entity? This is Unveiled, and today we’re answering the extraordinary question; What if we proved the Devil? Are you a fiend for facts? Are you constantly curious?
Then why not subscribe to Unveiled for more clips like this one? And ring the bell for more fascinating content! Throughout theology, faith and cultural history, the exact identity and intention of the Devil is a complex and thorny issue. And various figures have assumed the title, without necessarily deserving it.
Take Hades, the Lord of the Underworld in ancient Greek mythology… He’s usually presented as the worst of the worst, but he’s only really there to watch over the souls of the dead and isn’t an explicitly evil figure. In fact, according to some representations, the Devil himself wasn’t actually evil at
First – but his evilness set in when he was cast out of heaven as a “fallen angel” after disagreements with God. Now, he mainly serves to tempt humanity into making selfish, dishonest and generally bad decisions – which, from some perspectives, means that the devil actually exists so that
Humankind can remain pure, by resisting his schemes. Many interpret the Devil’s first appearance in the Bible as when he takes the form of a serpent to convince Eve to eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge, which she does,
Turning humankind into a race of sinners all the way up until the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. At other points, the Devil goes by Satan, a title originally given to the ruler of hell, otherwise known as the archangel of death Samael in Jewish texts.
But, in the three thousand years since the Old Testament was first written, the Devil has morphed many, many times, from a figure more simply in charge of punishing those who give in to sinful temptation, to the ultimate personification of evil itself.
So, given that there are so many conflicting ideas about who or what he is and why he even exists, how could the devil ever be explicitly proven? Well, if he plays to type, then he’s actually far more likely to just plain reveal himself than, say, God would be.
After all, making himself known to potential sinners, or appearing at times of extreme hardship, is kind of his “thing”. But, if he did suddenly show, then it could also, adversely, reaffirm the faith that millions of people have in God as well.
With proof of the ultimate evil, the belief that there’s also a supreme good would naturally strengthen. That said, proof that the devil exists might also be seen by some as the final confirmation that God doesn’t, or at least that God isn’t supreme, isn’t all-powerful and all-forgiving,
But can in fact be challenged – this is otherwise known as the Problem of Evil. Regardless, if the Devil (as well as Hell) was shown beyond doubt, back on plain old Planet Earth there’d be mass hysteria. In amongst the existential crises that millions of people would likely be experiencing after
Confirmation of a higher power, the terrible threat of eternal damnation and endless torture would now be confirmed – leaving people to decipher exactly what that means for their own lives… And placing all new, urgent meaning on defining the parameters of precisely what sends you to hell, and what doesn’t.
We’d see huge ethical questions debated as a matter of fact, but with widespread disagreement on what those facts are – seeing as the meaning of the devil would still rely on interpretation. The confusion and chaos could quickly trigger a major crime wave, with people throwing caution
To the wind, convinced that for one reason or another the devil will target them anyway. Of course, if the Devil’s appearance also confirms the existence of an overriding God, then there’d be no major cause for concern and humanity could still make it through the pearly gates.
Elsewhere, the Devil in real life could have a severe impact on law, order and justice all over the world – with even convicted criminals now able to blame the actual devil, in a bid to claim they’re not accountable for their actions. Already, people have used this defence with some degree of success.
Take the infamous “The Devil Made Me Do It” murder case in 1981, where Arne Cheyenne Johnson killed his landlord, blamed demonic possession, was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter but not murder, and served a shortened sentence of five years in prison. Johnson’s controversial case obviously played out without categorical evidence that the devil exists…
But, if Satan really stood among us we’d likely see lots more crimes justified as the devil’s work, and a probable collapse of the criminal justice system as lawyers scramble to find a way to prove whether or not a criminal really was influenced by the fallen deity who now definitely is real.
And it’s not as though we could simply call the devil to the stand to testify, given that he’s characterised – among other things – as persuasive, manipulative and untrustworthy. And so, with the devil at our door and hell on our doorstep, perhaps there’d be only
One solution; we’d need to somehow eliminate Satan, and in so doing stop all bad things from ever happening again. It’d be a tall order, but with the Devil out in the open it’d no longer feel such a massive leap to actually go to war with him.
United by the ultimate in common enemies, the world’s militaries could stage a global effort to rid humanity of its greatest and most dangerous villain. Could he ever be defeated, though? And could our armies ever match his? It’s hard to believe that anything, even an arsenal of nuclear weapons, could kill the Devil outright…
More likely we’d wind up eradicating ourselves in the crossfire, probably as part of our opponent’s cunning plan. Having inspired continent-wide battlefields of bloodshed and violence, we could also assume that the now-confirmed devil would bring with him plenty of other dangerous demons and nightmarish monsters – including vampires.
They’re pop culture powerhouses nowadays, but the vampire myth can be traced as far back as the story of Lilith, Adam’s first wife according to some texts, who becomes the consort of Samael, aka Satan. So, if the devil’s real, then vampires probably are too, and who knows what else!
Ouija boards are suddenly viable, and crucifixes are desperately weaponised as the end of days apparently draws near. If Satan truly showed himself, humanity would struggle to comprehend it at first, then struggle to adapt, and finally, possibly, fall into his trap. And that’s what would happen if we proved the Devil.
What do you think? Is there anything we missed? Let us know in the comments, check out these other clips from Unveiled, and make sure you subscribe and ring the bell for our latest content.
Hi, my name is Greg Ganssle, and I’m a part-time lecturer[br]in the Department of Philosophy at Yale University, and a senior fellow at the Rivendell Institute. Today we’re going to talk about part of the philosophical problem of evil. The philosophical problem[br]of evil is an argument beginning with facts about evil,
Leading to the conclusion either that God does not exist, or that[br]it’s most likely the case that God does not exist. So first we need to make a distinction. There’s what has been[br]called “a deductive,” or “the logical problem of evil,” and then there’s what has been called “the evidential problem of evil”.
Deductive or logical problem of evil, I like to call “the[br]square circle objection” or “the charge of contradiction.” It is an argument that to believe that God exists, and that evil exists, is like believing in square circles. There’s a contradiction. The evidential problem, on the other hand, I like to call “the unicorn objection.”
It is not that there’s a contradiction, but it’s pretty hard to believe in God in light of facts about evil. Today I’m going to talk about[br]the logical problem of evil, and how theists, or[br]philosophers who believe in God, begin to answer it. So, first we need to look at what is
The charge of contradiction. Where is the contradiction found? I’m following a famous paper by a British philosopher named John Mackie who began his argument[br]with a couple of premises. Premise one: God exists,[br]and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient. The second premise is that evil exists. So we have God on the one hand,
And evil on the other hand. His aim is to show that these two together entail or lead to a contradiction. He recognizes that the contradiction is not obvious at first. We have to amplify “What does it mean for God to be wholly good,[br]omnipotent, and omniscient?” Once we amplify this, we can see
How these premises together[br]lead to a contradiction. In order to amplify this, he[br]adds two additional premises. Premise three: There are no[br]limits to what an omnipotent, omniscient being can do. Premise four: A good[br]being always eliminates or prevents evil as far as it can. That’s part of what it[br]means to be a good being.
So, Mackie has four premises, and he tries to derive a[br]contradiction from them. We can see pretty clearly[br]that he can succeed. We can take step number five: God can eliminate or prevent[br]all of the evil there is. If premise one is true and God[br]is all-powerful, omnipotent, then he’s powerful enough[br]to eliminate all evil.
Premise six: God will eliminate or prevent all of the evil that there[br]is, because he is good. If premise one is true[br]and God is wholly good, and premise four is true “a good being always[br]eliminates or prevents evil as far as it can,” then step six is true. God will eliminate or prevent
All of the evil that he can[br]eliminate because he is good. So from these six steps, we can see that a contradiction follows. If step five and step six are true, then we get the conclusion that God does eliminate[br]or prevent all evil. Well, if God eliminates[br]and prevents all evil,
Then step eight is true: there is no evil. But the final step, step nine, builds on premise two, the[br]premise that evil exists. And we get a statement “There is evil and there is no evil.” And that is the explicit contradiction. Something is wrong with a valid argument that leads to a contradiction.
Some premise has to be rejected. John Mackie and other atheists think premise one needs to be rejected. It’s not true that God[br]exists and is wholly good, omnipotent, and omniscient. Theists, or philosophers who[br]believe that God does exist, they think the problem is[br]not with the first premise, nor is it with the second premise,
Because it’s pretty[br]obvious that evil exists. Rather, they look carefully[br]at the additional premises, premise three and premise four. Subtitles by the Amara.org community
We are all well aware of the suffering and evil in the world: horrific suffering, unthinkable evil. How then can anyone believe in the existence of an all-loving, all-powerful God? And if God does exist, why would anyone want to worship Him? Epicurus framed the logical problem of suffering and evil like this:
If God is willing to prevent evil but not able, then he’s not all-powerful. If he is able to prevent evil but not willing, he is not good. But if he is both willing and able, how can evil exist? And if he is neither
Able nor willing, then why call him God? In other words, it’s logically impossible for God and suffering to both exist, but we know full well that suffering exists. Therefore, God does not. Is this a good argument? Let’s look at it more closely.
Are these two statements logically inconsistent? No; here is an example of two logically inconsistent statements. David can’t be both married and a bachelor, but there is no explicit contradiction between these two statements, so there must be hidden assumptions behind this argument that
Would bring out the alleged contradiction. Here they are. If God is all-powerful, he can create any world he wants, and if God is all-loving, he prefers a world without suffering. So if an all-powerful, all-loving God exists, it follows that suffering does not exist. Since suffering
Obviously does exist, the atheist concludes that God must not exist. But are the atheist’s two hidden assumptions necessarily true? Consider the first assumption. Can God create any world he wants? What if he want a world populated by people who have free will? It’s logically impossible for God to force
Someone to freely choose to do good. Forcing free choices is like making a square circle; it’s not logically possible. It’s not that God lacks the power to perform the task; it is that the supposed task itself is just nonsense. So
It may not be feasible to create a world populated by people who always freely choose to do what is morally good, so the first assumption is not necessarily true. Therefore, the argument fails, and what about the second assumption? Is it necessarily true that God would prefer a world without suffering? How could we
Possibly know this? We all know of cases where we permit suffering in order to bring about a greater good. If it’s even possible that God allows suffering in order to achieve a greater good, then we cannot say this assumption is necessarily true. For the logical problem of suffering to succeed, the atheist
Would have to show that it’s logically impossible that free will exists, and that it’s logically impossible that God has good reasons for permitting suffering. This burden of proof is too heavy to bear. It’s quite possible that God and suffering both exist. This is why philosophers, even atheist philosophers,
Have given up on the logical problem of evil. We can concede that the problem of evil does not after all show that the central doctrines of theism are logically inconsistent with one another. Some philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically
Inconsistent with the existence of a theistic God. No one I think has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. It’s now acknowledged on almost all sides that the logical argument is bankrupt. But this is hardly the end of the discussion. We still need to explore the probability version of the problem of evil.
As we said in the introduction the resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christianity without it all of Christianity is a lie in a false religion but unlike most miracle claims Christians claim there is good historical evidence for the resurrection so what is this evidence and how can we
Use it we already went over the basic underlying philosophy in the introduction and pointed out that we already gave natural theology arguments for God’s existence argued the New Testament documents are reliable and established miracles are not impossible however as we noted in the introduction we will not assume the New Testament
Documents are inspired or even accurate in every detail instead we will only argue from facts that are agreed upon by the majority of New Testament scholars and have good evidence to infer they are true this means even if the rest of the New Testament is a fabrication it will
Not show these facts are false since even many skeptical scholars doubt the historicity of the entire New Testament but at least agree these facts are true so now with this as our underlying foundation we can begin to look at the historical evidence and see if it infers a resurrection first two underlying
Facts about the death of Jesus it is almost unanimously agreed that Jesus died by crucifixion just outside of Jerusalem sceptical scholar John Dominic Crossan says this is as sure as anything historical can ever be sceptical scholar EP Sanders lists this as one of the most indisputable facts about Jesus’s life so
There is no question for historians whether or not Jesus died by crucifixion second it is widely agreed that Jesus was buried in nearby tomb the evidence for this is pretty overwhelming we have multiple attestation from early sources like Paul and mark and Josephus agrees crucified victims were allowed to receive a proper burial
Jewish law demanded that even foreigners and criminals had to be buried we have archaeological evidence for this as well the burial count of Jesus also meets the criteria of embarrassment since they had to admit they could not afford their own tomb to bury Jesus but had to you
Kim of a member of the court who had just executed him there are just too many facts would support the burial of Jesus only a few skeptical scholars in the Jesus Seminar deny this but the majority does not and we’ll come back to this later and discuss it more but both
Of these facts could still be true and Jesus would still be dead in the grave the real question is what happened next what caused the events which followed and led to the rise of Christianity from a small backwater province in Rome there have been a wide variety of theories
That have been proposed in order to explain what took place three days after Jesus was buried and this video will cover the four most popular in general theories to see which best fits the data the first theory is the mythic theory this is probably the most popular among
Laymen sceptics it argues that all the events in miracle claims of Jesus were made up at a later time and were not made up by early eyewitnesses the disciples never claimed Jesus rose from the dead and was only made up by later Christians the second is like the mythic
Theory but it is called the conspiracy theory historical evidence that justices probably the earliest competing theory offered to challenge the resurrection account it says that the disciples made up the story of Jesus rising from the dead and simply lied about it all for their own gain third we’ll look at the hallucination
Theory which comes in many variations and it’s probably the most popular among skeptical New Testament scholars it basically says that after Jesus died the disciples were grief-stricken and had hallucinations or visions that Jesus had arisen from the dead and that propelled them to think he was alive again and
Finally we’ll compare these two the resurrection theory which is that Jesus actually did rise from the dead and the disciples believed it because they witnessed it so let’s look at the facts and see if any of these theories can fully explain the data the first piece is something that is accepted by almost
Unanimous scholarship which is that after Jesus died his disciples said he appeared to them again alive there is not a lot of doubt among scholars that the disciples believed this had happened Bart Ehrman says I don’t doubt at all that some disciples claimed this Paul writing about 25 years later indicates
That this is what they claimed and I don’t think he is making it up EP sander says it is an equally secure fact that Jesus disciples saw him in what sense is not certain after his death thereafter his followers saw him the reason for this is because it has multiple attestation in various
Sources including Josephus and there is no way to explain the rise of Christianity if this did not happen something had to happen which compelled the disciples to begin the world’s largest religion with seemingly nothing well people claim may see all sorts of things so why should we take the claims
Of the disciples seriously how do we know their testimony is reliable and they were not simply making the appearances up well in our previous series we’ve already established a new Testament it’s very early and reliable in what it reports so there is plenty of evidence their testimony is reliable but
Putting that aside we should at least evaluate when eyewitness testimony is unreliable for instance when events happen quickly or over a period of a few seconds it is hard to retain memory of an event or when people go out looking for what they want to find people that are desperately
Desiring to find Bigfoot will sometimes fool themselves into thinking they found something or when the participants are all strangers like during a bank robbery it is hard to retain memory when you were around unfamiliar people and last it is hard to retain memory if there was a weapon involved for the simple reason
That everyone is focused on the weapon and not anything else however if we examine the resurrection reports none of these seem to be a factor there is certainly not a weapon involved and it is not with strangers the disciples are familiar with each other and who they are witnessing they believe had risen
The disciples were also not expecting Jesus to rise from the dead all the accounts embarrassingly report that the disciples had misunderstood the Scriptures in what Jesus had claimed and they did not expect him to come back and the reports do not seem to happen quickly but over a period of time where
Jesus would eat and drink with him and engage in conversations or give them instructions even if you could write off the Gospels and acts as later myths we still have preserved for us early creeds and oral sermons handed down which report these as well so the reports on the surface level do
Not match circumstances that create unreliable testimony as EP Sanders admits they definitely experienced something which doesn’t bode well for the conspiracy theory so what if these accounts which is made up at a later date well this seems to be rejected by most scholars since Paul preserved for
Us an early Creed in first Corinthians 15 which is a list of witnesses that Jesus was said to have appeared to they include Peter the rest of the disciples a group of five hundred at once then James and then all the Apostles most scholars believe this list of witnesses
In the Creed goes back to within three years of Pentecost the reasons for this are simply overwhelming it is formed in a mnemonic structure and with parallelism and it is less than fifty words and all this seems to meaning was an early Creed for katha sizing new Christians it was something easy to
Learn and memorize Paul also says of the Corinthians I delivered to you when I received this is a rabbinic statement for a teacher passing on something to his students so it had to have come from the disciples themselves very early on before they could teach it to Paul the
Creed also calls Peter Cephas and not by his name Peter Cephas was an early name for him only later on was he called Peter and it has an independent tradition that is not contingent on the Gospels such as the appearance to James in the independent appearance to Peter Geritol Collins says
That he doesn’t know of any New Testament scholar who dates the Creed after the mid 40s so all the evidence suggested is very early and this means the reports of appearances are very early on as well that rules out the mythic theory what about the hallucination theory well the problem is
The appearances happen in group settings even in the early Crete and group hallucinations are exceptionally rare and because of this there was not a lot of scientific literature to explain them in a private email with scholar Michael Kona psychologist dr. Gary sabzi says I have surveyed the professional literature peer-reviewed journal
Articles and books written by psychologists psychiatrists and other relevant health care professionals during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination an event for which there is more than one person purportedly sharing in a vision or other sensory perceptions
Where there was clearly no referent so there is not a lot of scientific evidence group hallucinations can happen peer-reviewed work on hallucinations also reports that they most often manifests in one sensory mode such as auditory or visual and then multimode hallucinations are exceptionally rare yet the appearances of Jesus contain at
Least both of these elements making the hallucination theory exceptionally improbable for an elucidation to explain the appearances you would have to say that the disciples are all each having a rare multi-mode hallucination that they are all agreeing Jesus is doing certain things like eating and drinking and giving them the exact same instructions
And this would need to have happened multiple times not just once even if you could write off the Gospels and acts as later myths we still have the early Creed preserved in 1st Corinthians 15 in other early sermons preserved in acts which report that Jesus ate and drank
With the disciples CH Dodd notes the speeches and acts seem very early because they lack influence from Pauline theology or vocabulary they contain a high degree of Semitism meaning they were likely originally Aramaic and they lack resemblance to the original written elements of Acts and Luke meaning they
Likely predate acts and seemed to be very early Aramaic speeches so the reports are very early and appear in group settings multi-sensory and over a period of time in hallucinations with these elements are so improvable it would have to be a miracle to cause one let alone several but what about the
Power of suggestion sometimes one person can cause others around them to he’ll loosen eight the same thing through the power of suggestion such as people in a lifeboat where one thinks they see a ship in the distance and they all think they see the same ship in anomalistic psychology a study of extraordinary
Phenomenon behavior and experience authors Lucy and Jones are at some of the very little literature on group hallucinations and theorize that if there is an expectation emotional excitement and people having been informed beforehand that a group hallucination may be possible it is also believed they will vary in what is
There’s a and Jones site an event from 1917 where 70,000 people said they witnessed a public miracle however the reports varied although the children reportedly saw the Virgin the crowd at least many of them witnessed a color phenomenon in which the son in the shape of a fiery disc
Began to move and approached the earth however Zeus nee and Jones also had to conclude with the final answer to these questions has yet to be obtained so they still maintain a scientific explanation has yet to explain collective hallucinations however even if they could it is interesting how their
Criteria doesn’t fit the resurrection appearances expectation and excitement were definitely not present the narratives embarrassingly portray the disciples as cowardly running for their lives after Jesus was crucified they even doubted the report of the women and when they first saw Jesus they were frightened which shows they were not
Excited and didn’t understand what was going on second it is interesting that if the appearances of Jesus were hallucinations then they do not for the criteria of varying drastically between reports all report a bodily resurrection of Jesus where he looks sort of like himself but also slightly different and
His body has new powers that do not have before as William Lane Craig says the fact remains that there is not a single instance in the case books exhibiting the diversity involved and the post-mortem appearances of Jesus but the biggest problem with the hallucination theory is this even if you discount the
Gospels is unreliable one still is to account for the early Christians preaching bodily resurrection and not a spiritual appearance the first Christians were very familiar with visions and claim to actually have some in acts 12 when the servant girl finds Peter at the gate she runs a tell
Everyone and they tell her the appearance she had with just an angel so the Christians firmly understood what visions and spiritual experiences were yet they never interpreted the appearances of Christ as just spiritual visions they firmly believed it was a bodily appearance and that is what they preached from the beginning as even
Sceptical scholar curlew Daman agrees so since the appearances were in group settings multi-sensory do not vary or were interpreted to be spiritual but always physical there was no expectation or excitement for them the hallucination theory cannot account for these appearances so what about the conspiracy theory well despite the early facts we
Mentioned about how the resurrection appearances do not match factors that make testimony unreliable it would be hard to explain how the Christians could hold together such a radical conspiracy with over 500 people involved before Christ was crucified they couldn’t even keep Judas from betraying them however
If all we have to go on is the appearances themselves and no other piece of data we have to accept that this theory could at least tentatively account for the reports of appearances even though it seems like a stretch so I don’t see any reason why the conspiracy
Theory could not account for this piece of data if especially there was no more data to go over finally the resurrection theory can account for this since if Jesus did rise from the dead reporting his physical appearance makes perfect sense the next piece of data is appearances to skeptics it is almost
Unanimously accepted that James and the brothers of Jesus were not his followers during his crucifixion it is also unanimously accepted that Paul was an enemy of the church originally in a later convert the reason for this is Paul admits it himself and cites an early Creed in Galatians 1 22
To 23 he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy if we add the account and acts we have multiple attestation and it meets the criteria of embarrassment since Paul reports it himself that he was once the enemy and was in the wrong
The same goes for the conversion of James it is clear in the early material Paul the leader of the Jerusalem church was none other than James the brother of Jesus however all the evidence suggests that James did not believe his brother was the Christ during jesus’s ministry the Gospels embarrassingly report that
The Brothers of Jesus were skeptical of him no early Christian would dare attack a prominent leader in the church by claiming he was once jesus’s enemy James was also not listed as one present at the cross and Jesus surrendered his mother over to the Beloved Disciple
But why not his own brothers if they were in the Christian ranks this is why most scholars accept James and his brothers or early skeptics and only converted after the crucifixion so what happened that turned these enemies into believers well the mythic theory is a hard time explaining this since Paul was very
Early on writing and quoting a Creed about his own conversion also mentioning the changes in early skeptic would not have been made up as no Christian would dare to dishonor shame her lie about one of their own leaders in such a terrible way so this fact would not have been
Made up later on yet it is clear James was the early leader of the Jerusalem church as Paul and Josephus record could James and Paul of lied the question must be asked why on earth would they have done that the early church was a small persecuted and
Hated minority with a messiah who is just shamefully crucified as a criminal it was too poor to even afford their own tomb Jesus had dishonored the family and James has already opposed to him why would James suddenly feel the need to make up an appearance of Jesus’s resurrection if there was nothing to
Gain and only shame and dishonor to suddenly reverse but claim his brother was Lord after he had already mocked him openly to do such a thing would make no sense Paul also had no reason to try this he was at the top of his game a prominent leader on the rise and making
A name for himself while he persecuted the church he had everything going for him and suddenly he has an urge to leave all that and join the persecuted minority he had already hated such a sudden conversion he knew to be a lie would take a miracle in itself of nothing else
So what have they both hallucinating well adding more hallucinations to this theory begins to multiply its assumptions and causes it to lack parsimony it is even harder to explain since neither them were grieving that Jesus had died especially Paul who hated the church James may have been in grief
For his brother but he didn’t believe he was the Lord and would never have expected or even considered a physical resurrection says a dying rising Messiah was not part of second temple Judaism beliefs as scholar Michael ocona says James and his brothers would have regarded their dead brother as a heretic
Rather than rushed to Jerusalem and be caught up in the group ecstasy it seems more likely that Jesus’s execution as a criminal on a blasphemer would have supported their continual unbelief rather their conversion the plausibility of Paul having hallucination is even far lower than James since hallucinations usually happened for people who are
Expecting them and grieving over the death of the loved one neither of these would have been the case for Paul nor would a mere vision have caused his sudden conversion as we said earlier the early church knew what visions were and if Paul simply had a
Dream he would have called it a dream and moved on a hallucination would be very improbable as the cause of Paul’s sudden conversion however the Christian theory can easily explain the conversion and appearance to skeptics if Jesus really did rise and appear to them that would be enough to
Cause their miraculous conversion now we have surveyed the appearances but that is only half the battle since we cannot interview them personally today or perform a psychoanalysis but what we can do is look at the surrounding facts that accompany these appearances for us today and see which theory is the most
Plausible for them so now it’s time to fill in the gaps first up the expectation of the gospel to the surrounding world the message of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins may sound loving and warm to us but to the ancient world a culture that thrived
On honor and status such a message would be nothing but disgusting and horrendous Walter bear said the enemies of Christianity always refer to this gracefulness of the death of Jesus with great emphasis and malicious pleasure a God or son of God dying on a cross that
Was enough to put paid to the new religion david de silva knows the same thing in his work christianity was founded on a premise that should have failed from the moment it began the christians preach to the Gentiles to worship a man that was shamefully executed on the cross not only that but
A Jew of all people who the Romans looked down upon but even more than that a Jew who was a carpenter which it was also a position that was looked down upon Cicero said that such an occupation was vulgar and compared to slavery on top of that they preach physical
Resurrection to the Roman world which was detested by most pagans who thought the purpose of death was to escape the evil material universe and make it to the spiritual realm yet the Christians taught the Jewish idea that heaven would be the restoration in eternal Kingdom on earth which was not something
Pagans hoped for but even more the Christians place ethical demands on the new converts that would have shocked most pagans no temple prostitution or even extramarital affairs morality was radically challenged by the Christians that flew in the face of most pagans as they Sylvan knows the message about this
Christ was incompatible with the most deeply rooted religious ideology of the Gentile world as well as with the most recent message propagated in the Roman Imperial ideology this is seen in how the Christian opponents like Kelsey’s attacked Christianity he attacked Christians for worshipping a God who
Could not beat the Romans or even escape from the cross Justin Martyr had to respond to these attacks because pagans were calling the Christians mad for putting a crucified man next to the eternal God the Jews also thought the message of Christ was embarrassing they’re supposed Messiah was shamefully
Crucified and murdered by the Roman enemy the Messiah was expected to be a conqueror who would defeat Rome and restore the Kingdom of Israel Jesus was shamed and disgraced to follow him was to give up on the Jewish idealization of a conquering Messiah and a restored Israel on top of that Jesus
Was from Galilee and Nazareth of all places areas were looked down upon by the Jews his father was not known to them so he had a shady family history which the Jews were not keen to forget everything the Christian stood for was working against them they had better
Have good evidence and truly thought Jesus had been raised because the odds were completely against them on every front as NT Wright says Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false this being so knowing the expectation the gospel would have no group of conspirators
Would ever have made it their core doctrine if you’re going to make up a message the gain of following you want to make up something that is appealing and will work to your advantage not something that was expected to fail so the conspiracy theory could not explain
Why the Christians would make up such a story neither can the hallucination theory as we said before the crucifixion of Jesus is almost unanimously accepted by scholars as well as the fact that Jesus did it advocate lie ethical loads so unless the entire population of Jerusalem hallucinating Jesus’s crucifixion and message this
Would not be something that Christians were fallen to believing hallucinations also usually happen to grieving people as a psychological way to comfort themselves you would not hallucinate things to believe that would cause you more trouble and grief so the hallucination theory cannot explain what the disciples would preach
An utterly embarrassing message in a way to win converts and again as we’ve already noted the disciples and early church knew what visions were yet they preached the physical resurrection as part of the gospel not a spiritual vindication it would have been easier for their Gentile audience and even
Jewish audience who didn’t expect a resurrection to happen until the end of time to preach a spiritual assumption over a physical return and transformation hallucinations would have inferred this not a reanimation of the body since we know crucifixion was preached early the mythic Theory cannot explain
This either it would also fail for the same reasons the conspiracy theory does but all this fits perfectly with the resurrection theory this is what was preached by Christians because this is how it happened and they preached this embarrassing message because it was true the next factor look at is the low
Status of women in the ancient world it is unanimously accepted that in the ancient world the testimony of women was not to be trusted but let not the testimony of women be admitted on account of the levity and boldness of their sex any evidence which a woman
Gives is not valid to offer let the words of the law be burned rather than given to women there is a whole host of other sources we could look at which shows women were believed to be less trustworthy than men the ancient world was very clear the testimony of women
Was not to be trusted now take that and marvel at the fact that in the Gospels the women are the first and primary witnesses to the empty tomb this fact was utterly embarrassing for the early church first they admit they didn’t even trust the testimony of the women then
All the early sermons found in acts and the epistles always skip over the fact of the women were the first to discover the tomb that doesn’t contradict the Gospels but they tend to stay on this matter in order to make their early case because women were not deemed
To be credible witnesses yet when they write down the accounts of how it happened they cannot leave this fact out because they played such a key role discovering the empty tomb this is a serious claim because as Richard baulkham says in these stories women are given priority by God as recipients of
Revelation and thereby the role of mediators of that revelation to men the Gospels claimed the women were an intricate part of the revelation of God and the first key eyewitnesses to the resurrection thereby making their testimony necessary and telling how the empty tomb was found for an ancient
Writer this was not something you would ever make up Cal says even uses to try to discredit Christianity who claimed the entire argument for the empty tomb rested on the testimony of women NT Wright says as historians we are obliged to comment that if these stories have
Been made up five years later let alone thirty forty or fifty years later they would never have had Mary Magdalene in this role put Mary there is from the point of view of Christian apologists wanting to explain to a skeptical audience that Jesus really did rise from
The dead like shooting themselves in the foot but to us as historians this kind of thing is gold dust the early Christians would never never have made this up so the mythic theory or the conspiracy theory lacks any explanatory power with this one as Michael okona says even if the disciples
Had fled Jerusalem Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus may have been better candidates than women for discovering the empty tomb what about the hallucination theory it is difficult to say if the hallucination theory could fit with this one if all we have to go on is this fact I suppose you could say
Someone had a crazy dream and thought women discovered the empty tomb before anyone else but why they weren’t expecting it in multiple sources seem to agree this is how it happened plus it was such an embarrassing fact that everyone involved would have wanted to make sure it actually happened and
That it was not a dream or a subjective vision so will allow this one to pass just to be fair but there was really no reason why one would hallucinate this since it was not comforting or expected to happen but even though it lacks explanatory power will allow to tentatively pass
Until we can evaluate the evidence for the empty tomb and finally the Christian theory has no problem explaining this because the writers were reporting how it happened and of course because God is no respecter of persons and there is neither male nor female for we are all
One in Christ next fact the immediate proclamation in Jerusalem the majority of scholars could not deny that the resurrection was first preached in Jerusalem all the evidence leads to Jerusalem as being the home base and happening very early on such as the development of early Christian Creed’s and how all the sources suggest
Jerusalem is where Christianity began Tacitus mentions off the cuff that Christianity began in Judea and spread from there in one of Paul’s early epistles he mentions off the cuff that the Apostles are still preaching in Jerusalem now why does this matter well when we look at the importance of time
And when you proclaim a miracle that fact can make a serious impact as James siren said the Apostles proclaim the resurrection at Pentecost when Jerusalem expected the spread of the report and endeavored to prevent it well the eyes of their enemies were yet sparkling with rage and madness
While Calvary was yet died with the blood they had spilt there do imposters take such measures would they not have waited till the fury of the Jews had been appeased till judges and public officers had been changed until people had been less attentive to their dispositions if the evidence was not in
Their favor it would have made sense for the early church to go elsewhere as cults often do cult leaders ran up their followers and take them away from civilization or to a different area from the place where you can be disproven even with Mormonism Joseph Smith’s led his people away from New York
But the disciples walked right up to the Sanhedrin and said you crucified your Messiah and he has been raised now these people are either crazy or they are absolutely convinced they are right so the conspiracy theory has no hope of explaining this if you’re an impostor
You go off to Spain or India and proclaim your miracle not in Jerusalem where they have the evidence then motive and the means to debunk you since we know the resurrection was proclaimed early on and it was in Jerusalem it is hard to say that the mythic theory can
Explain this either this was not something we can say with developed later if the created first Corinthians 15 is roughly dated within three years of Pentecost that means there were Christians right there on Jerusalem developing this which set a foundational belief for Christians to be able to
Memorize so there is no reason to think it was developed later on or far off elsewhere so the mythic theory cannot explain this fact either but what about the hallucination theory well if all we have to go on is this fact I suppose a miraculous hallucination could convince
The disciples to preach the resurrection immediately in Jerusalem but it is still doubtful because hallucinations or visions don’t really imply a physical resurrection or do they fit with group hallucinations as we discussed earlier but it is possible if all we have is this fact alone so just in case we miss
Something we’ll allow this one to pass but the resurrection theory explains this with the most ease because if Jesus was resurrected of course the disciples had the boldness to proclaim the resurrection God would have been on their side and all the evidence would have been in their favor
Next fact the voluntary suffering of disciples and witnesses this is an important fact we cannot ignore multiple attestation from Christian and non-christian sources testifies that the early witnesses of the risen Christ were persecuted martyred for their faith Tacitus and Suetonius mention events and Josephus as well who even tells us how
James was martyred in Jerusalem first belief Jesus was the Risen Messiah Paul also admits to intense persecution early on in fact his scholars like NT right note 2nd Corinthians was written as a response to the Corinthians who asked Paul to provide some evidence of good fortune to show God was on his side
Asian people believed like some still today that if you were suffering persecution it was evidence you were being punished by God and needed to turn from your ways Paul responded with the opposite despite the cultural norms and it was meant to challenge their beliefs of how God worked a later Epistle from
Clement of rome talked of how Paul and Peter were martyred in Rome for their faith and axor course how the early witnesses were persecuted and murdered the evidence for this is multiple attested so what some people may say people die for their faith all the time why are the
Christians any different people will and have often died for things that were false but they don’t tend to die for something they know to be false we’re not talking about Christians who were martyred but the founders of Christianity who were murdered these men and women did not die just for faith but
Something they claim to have seen with their own eyes the root meaning of the word martyr is witness over time we’ve expanded the word to mean anyone who dies for their beliefs but originally they referred to someone who was a witness of an event and died for his
Truth the disciples didn’t just die for their beliefs they died for events they claimed had happened and knew very well they were true are made up fliers make lousy martyrs when you have nothing to gain it doesn’t make sense to make up or hold to a theory that is going to get
You nothing and the Apostles were not getting a whole lot out of their new religion they were constantly facing persecution from the Jews and threats of death nor do they become wealthy from what they were doing they were doing it because they were insane than one of the
Cult following they did some things that didn’t make any sense like establishing churches in other regions which it did not have total control over Paul moved from city to city raising up believers and then moving on you’re trying to establish a cult in a controlled group
Of people you do as cults do you gather your followers remove them from society where there’s a threat they’ll be pulled away by reality and you keep them very close to keep them brainwashed the Apostles didn’t do that they stayed in populated cities and left their new
Churches to go start more churches in other cities which leaves your followers vulnerable to corruption and if we read the epistles that is exactly what happened the Apostles had to revisit them and write letters to correct them constantly so it doesn’t seem like there was anything to gain from starting
Christianity unless it was an elaborate plan to be martyred so the conspiracy theory is hopeless in explaining this one the mythic theory doesn’t work either because the voluntary suffering has multiple attestation and even from secular authors and there is nothing that challenges that the disciples were
Persecuted or that many of them died for the events there port it is true if the disciples hallucinate the whole thing that it is possible they would be willing to take it to the grave but it would have to be a wild miraculous hallucination to utterly convince them of it and as we
Have seen such hallucinations are very improbable but it is slightly slightly slightly possible if the resurrection theory is true then this fact makes perfect sense the disciples were willing to suffer because Jesus was resurrected and it was better to deny men than to deny God who they witnessed with their own eyes
Final fact the existence of the empty tomb Gary Habermas has surveyed the material written by scholars on the resurrection and it’s found that 75% of them accept that tomb was found empty on Easter morning for example skeptical scholar Jacob Cramer says by far most exegetes hold firmly to the reliability of the
Biblical statements concerning the empty tomb the evidence for this is simply overwhelming however some scholars like John Dominic Crossan do not think Jesus was buried in a tomb but thrown in a trench for dogs to eat because the Romans who not have a lot of proper burial for criminals but such a theory
Flies in the face of a mountain of evidence first Dale Alison who is skeptical of physical resurrection points out the word in the cretan 1st Corinthians 15 for bury would rarely be used for dumping of criminals in a trench for dogs to eat so the earliest
Account of the burial of Jesus would be incompatible with Crossing’s argument we also have multiple attestation crucified victims were buried and two different sources say Jesus was buried we also have archaeological evidence a crucified victim received a proper burial and there was no reason to think the Romans
Would not have allowed this practice they were certainly okay with allowing other Jewish practices to go on in Jerusalem that’s just temple worship which they detest it because it meant a rejection of Roman gods they allowed to juice a conductor on trials have their own temple guards keep the Sabbath and so forth
There is no reason they would not have allowed this as well and it fits with archaeological and textual evidence Jesus’s burial not only has multiple attestation but it meets the criteria of embarrassment since they say he was buried in the tomb of a Sanhedrin member which would have been dishonouring for
His followers such a group had just their lorry and now they needed the Bama tune for him from one of its own members to the public this would have looked pretty humiliating and the fact that they mentioned he was in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea means the tomb was
Public knowledge and its whereabouts were known so the public at any time would have known about it and could have readily debunked it if the tomb was not empty but the account of the empty tomb is also embarrassing because it was discovered by women and we have already
Discussed this is not something you would have made up Matthew also mentions the competing theory that the disciples stole the body this is odd because why would Matthew want to mention the competing theory which could possibly start up doubt among the people he was trying to convert Justin Martyr writing
Later has to respond to this theory because it was the official story Jews were telling people which is an interesting admission because it says the body could not be found if the Sanhedrin still at the body they could have had Gentiles bring it out for them
And show the tomb was never empty but the Christians never had to respond to this charge so both sides agreed the body was missing finally we have the Nazareth inscription a stone found in the area and it has written on it an imperial decree from around 41 ad which
Says that the penalty for grave robbing was death which is interesting because it is very severe for how Romans punished thieving the Romans would not normally give such a high penalty for stealing something but this will make sense with the rise of Christianity and what Suetonius tells us in Rome there
Were riots among the Jews on accounts of Christus which was a common Roman mispronunciation of Christ and eventually Claudius expelled all the Jews because of it if some Jews in Rome were preaching Christ was resurrected and riots resulted from it and the tomb was not empty there would be no need for
An imperial decree because they could just produce the body but because the only alternative explanation was the body was missing because it was stolen Rome’s only option would be to issue a decree to try to combat the accounts of a missing body if there was a body then
Rome could have just dispelled the riots with the body and not have to indirectly admit the body when missing so it appears to be that from all sides the body was missing away there’s no evidence the empty tomb was just a fabrication and this is why most scholars today accept that tomb was
Found empty all the evidence simply favours it so if the body was stolen who did it would Rome of course not because they would not have cared how about the Jewish leaders why would they they wanted Jesus crucified shamed buried and forgotten the last thing they wanted was
Suspicion of him coming back to life of course the Sanhedrin claimed it was the disciples but that is unlikely their rabbi had just been crucified and a movement was dispersed in shamed they were in fear the Jewish authorities would come after them as well there is
No reason to think they would have been in the position to steal a body and create a mass hoax second if they had stolen the body there is little reason to think they would have reported the theory that Jewish leaders were spreading if it was true the last thing
They would have wanted would help spread the rumor they had stolen the body and if they had stolen the body they would not have reported to their shame and dishonor that they had not believed the reports of the women when they found the empty tomb nor would they have
Embarrassingly reported that they had not understood that Jesus had predicted his rise these were very embarrassing and shameful things to report later Christians would not have made this up and attack the honor and authority of their leaders nor would have the disciples unless they wanted to shame
Themselves and most of all where would they have taken the body a common overlooked fact is that this was Passover and the city was flooded with pilgrims they would have been seen and they would have been caught it would have been very hard to pull off especially getting the body out of the
Sanhedrin section of town so for the conspiracy theory to work you need to deposit the disciples were in fear for their lives yet somehow decided to steal the body and faked a resurrection even though none of them were expecting that then they managed to get the body out of
The Sanhedrin section of town where the tombs were and hide it in an overcrowded City the entire theory becomes overwhelmingly unlikely the hallucination theory doesn’t work either did the entire population of Jerusalem hallucinate so the theory it was not really discovered empty fails as well what about the mythic theory so I’ve
Tried to claim the empty tomb was made up later because it is not specifically mentioned in the Creed Paul gives us in first Corinthians well this just ignores the amount of evidence we already gave and that the empty tomb and physical resurrection are both mentioned in the early passion
Narrative found in mark but most of all it overlooks what the Korean first Corinthians says it says that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures he was buried and raised it is pretty obvious that what was buried
Is what was raised and therefore the tomb would have been empty as NT Wright says the fact that the empty tomb itself so prominent the Gospel accounts does not appear to be specifically mentioned in this passage is not significant the mention here of buried and raised no
More need to be amplified in that way then one would need to amplify the statement I walk down the street with the qualification on my feet so the mythic theory fails here as well but there is one theory they can’t account for all the data it is the theory that
Jesus was raised and vindicated by God no other Theory out there can account for all the data the mythic theory fails because we only argued from facts that we know are early and could not have been made up the conspiracy theory could not account for the quality of the
Testimonies of the disciples the empty tomb herwise skeptics would join a small persecuted minority the hallucination theory could only work if you posit some pretty miraculous hallucinations to cause the disciples to change their idea skeptics to convert and posit crazy ideas no one was expecting or looking
For it has to posit such a wild hallucination it would take a miracle itself only the theory that was reported can account for all the data because of that it has explanatory scope because they can explain all the data with the least amount of effort it has explanatory power it provides
Illumination as well which means it can explain other areas of history like the rise of Christianity and the belief in physical resurrection in fact this means three pieces of the criteria are filled that historians use when judging an historical hypothesis behan mccullough who has outlined the criterion for weighing historical theories accepts the
Resurrection hypothesis meets these three things better than any other hypothesis but claims it fails the other two pieces of criteria this Christian hypothesis is of greater explanatory scope and power than other hypotheses which try to account for the relevant evidence but it is less plausible and more ad hoc than
They are so McCullough accepts the resurrection meets three out of five of the criteria for historical investigation but fails the other two however there have been replies to challenge this dr. Travis Campbell has why is the resurrection theory ad-hoc to be ad hoc according to McCullough means a number
Of new suppositions are made by hypothesis that are not already implied in existing knowledge so the hypothesis adds extra assumptions in order to explain the data that is not already present but dr. Campbell points out the resurrection theory only adds one extra assumption not multiple it is difficult
To see why the resurrection hypothesis is extraordinarily ad hoc it requires only one new supposition that God exists surely rival hypotheses require many new suppositions the hallucination theory requires we say group hallucinations plus multi-sensory experiences happened on multiple occasions and that they were so powerful that the disciples took it
To their death preaching something that only brought in poverty and turmoil as well as a crazy Mass City hallucination that there was an empty tomb the conspiracy theory wants us to believe a bunch of frightened followers of Jesus stole a body in secret in an overcrowded
City to makeup up the story they were not expecting or was not in line with Jewish messianic expectations in order to get themselves murdered and that some of the skeptics decided to join their poor persecuted movement for no reason at all the mythic theory expects us to believe an extra assumption for each
Fact that it was actually made up later in spite of hard evidence these facts were very early and unlikely made up the resurrection theory only wants us to add the assumption that God exists which is not @ha if we combine the resurrection argument with other arguments we’ve already presented which infer theism
Since we’ve already argued for theism the resurrection hypothesis would hardly be ad hoc as dr. Campbell says moreover for the person who is already a theist the resurrection hypothesis does not even introduced a new supposition of God’s existence since that is already implied by existing knowledge so the resurrection hypothesis cannot be said
To be ad ha simply by a virtue of the number of suppositions it introduces what about plausibility a historical theory is plausible if other areas are known with confidence and suggests the same theory yours is suggesting so if other things suggests the same conclusion is your theory that would make your theory
Plausible and in line with other beliefs but as we’ve already suggested why would the resurrection theory not be plausible if we have other arguments to infer theism as William Lane Craig says only if the naturalist has good reasons to think that God’s existence is implausible or is intervention in the
World implausible could he justifiably regard the resurrection hypothesis as implausible so if one insists on assuming naturalism is true and leaves no reason for theism as a possibility then they can say the resurrection theory is implausible but that is arguing from a presupposition and not being open to evidence regardless of how
One feels about it and we can say that in conjunction with other arguments the resurrection hypothesis is not ad hoc nor is it implausible has already been shown God exists thus we can see why Anthony flue was bold enough to say the resurrection has more evidence than any
Other miracle claim the resurrection is the only theory that can explain all the data and it can do it while not being at hawk or implausible the evidence infers that God has acted in the world to raise Jesus from the dead as Paulo Frederickson admitted they must have
Seen something in all the evidence favors that what they saw was the risen Savior
