I think it’s great you laid out the arguments so clearly. I think I have two considerations that might slightly increase the plausibility of Christianity, given everything you have said.
First, big picture, it’s noteworthy that you 1) Are a theist 2) Think Christianity is the most plausible religion and 3) Think Christianity is false. This seems to imply that you think none of the popular world religions are true.
IMO, this is quite a strong claim as a theist since it implies that God is very hidden - sufficiently hidden that no large group of people have correctly figured out who he is. That is, the God who is responsible for fine-tuning, psycho-physical harmony etc has no interested in saying Hello to the conscious creatures that he made. I think it’s more likely that God would be revealing than not revealing, conditional on theism, and this should be weighed up against any claim that God is real but no religion is true.
Second, I think I reject the framework you use for describing the “plausibility” of moral claims from the bible/Jesus. I think it is very hard to ground morality outside of God and so I don’t know that we can describe Jesus’ moral claims as implausible or immoral. A lot of your objections seem to be embedded in a consequentialist framework (e.g. Jesus giving bad advice, or people being happier after divorce) but who are we to say that this is the correct framework under which we ought to judge Jesus’ moral claims? In fact, judging Jesus’ moral framework under a non-Christian moral framework and using this as evidence against Jesus’ moral framework seems question begging.
I might be wrong though, would love to hear your thoughts on this :)
I think probably God reaches, in important ways, people across all the major religious traditions.
There are, in my view, strong arguments for consequentialism, though my argument did not assume consequentialism. In fact, the arguments can mostly work without the assumption of moral realism at all--all that's needed is the notion that of the things Jesus asserts, it's likelier he'd assert them if he was a mere mortal than if he was God.
One could strengthen Alec's argument (the first one) by making it about salvation and not just revelation. That is, a lot of people have an intuition that there is something deeply wrong about the human race as it exists, and that in some way we need to be rescued from a spiritually bad situation. (As evidence that this isn't just the influence of Christianity, I note that Buddhism agrees with Christianity on this intuition. Even though it isn't necessarily theistic, and even though it has a very different notion of what the problem and solution are, it agrees that people start out in a nonideal situation and that a radical change is required in order to escape.)
If this intuition is correct, then one might think that God, if he exists, would want to provide a means of "salvation" to the human race, or at least to some individuals who earnestly ask him for it. Now, Universalism might mitigate this somewhat, if you think that God basically guarantees a better situation in the next life, and that this is good enough. But you might still think that God should provide something concrete to people in THIS life---at the very least, some sort of assurance of future forgiveness and salvation. And if so, it is much easier to see how that would work in the context of a particular religion like Christianity, rather than generic mostly hidden theism.
I think this is conceivable but not super obvious. We know that there are a lot of good things that could happen in the world. For instance, it would be great if no one got cancer. Presumably God has some good principled reason to not intervene to bring about various goods. But this could also apply to religious goods. It also seems like universalism mitigates this enough--if many people in this life connect with the divine through religious traditions and rightly believe they're going to be saved, that seems like enough. I agree that there's a non-trivial prior in one of the religions being right given theism, but I don't think it's much over .5
Wouldn’t God have to have at least some contact or interaction with ancient people on the generic theist veiw? Because, assuming God exists, how could ancient people come to believe in God without any of the actual arguments for God? Since ancient people didn’t know about fine tuning, psychophysical harmony, etc.
I’m really blown away by this. What a wonderful post and what an open mindedness you’ve demonstrated on a notoriously difficult topic to be open-minded about. Wherever you go from here, I’ll be curious to hear more about it.
Great post! I have a lot of thoughts here, but I'll focus on the burial of Jesus... you say "In short, I find these statistical arguments more compelling than the specific accounts."
However, this seems to run afoul of our intuitions about the evidential force of testimony. For example, the prior probability that my friend got in an accident on the way to my house is very small (< 0.01) but his testimony to that effect would be strong evidence that he did, in fact, get in an accident.
Obviously, we can point to dissimilarities (e.g. if you don't think the account of Jesus' burial originated with eyewitnesses, then we don't have eyewitness testimony of the burial) but the general principle stands: we should prioritize direct testimony over background statistical considerations, since things that violate statistical norms happen all the time. There's nothing particularly implausible about Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus, and the fact that it shows up so strongly in the tradition should make us think twice before letting statistical considerations trump specific evidence.
Regarding specific arguments for burial: from a historical-critical perspective, I find Dale Allison's treatment more even-handed than Ehrman's. He replies to Ehrman directly at a few points, and ultimately concludes historicity (though tentatively).
That said, I'm in the so-called "maximal data" camp, preferring to engage the gospels holistically. I think a fairly strong case can be mounted for their reliability—especially Luke's. But that's a topic for another time. :)
Testimony doesn't have as much evidential force as you're treating it as having, because it has strictly more evidential force when about more specific things. If someone tells me their phone number, that testimony has a massive Bayes factor, because it's so unlikely they'd assert that sequence of digits if it was false.
It's especially unlikely when there's a plausible account of how it could falsely have arisen. If the early Christians thought that there was a resurrection, it's not surprising that they'd come to believe in an empty tomb.
I'm not much moved by the maximal data argument, but it's way above my paygrade to evaluate as I'm not a historian.
Good points. I agree that the evidential force of testimony depends on the type and specificity of the claim being made. You reminded me of a post by Aron Wall, where he makes much the same point using the example of license plates: http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/just-how-certain-can-we-be/
I remain convinced that the unanimous testimony from the gospel tradition should incline us strongly in the direction of historicity, especially given the (in my view) failure of the arguments against burial (see Allison), but you're correct that the Bayes factor is not quite as high as in the example I gave.
As I was looking through Allison's book again, I found this quote about 1 Corinthians 15, which is relevant to a point you made elsewhere in this article, and would supply a lot more evidence for the historicity of the burial story. Seeing as you've engaged with Allison's book in previous posts, I'd be interested to hear what you thought about his point here:
"According to the old confession in 1 Cor. 15:4, Jesus “died” and “was buried” (ἐτάφη). The first meaning of the verb, θάπτω, is “honor with funeral rites, especially by burial” (LSJ, s.v.). Nowhere in Jewish sources, furthermore, does the formula, “died…and was buried,” refer to anything other than interment in the ground, a cave, or a tomb. So the language of the pre-Pauline formula cannot have been used of a body left to rot on a cross. Nor would the unceremonious dumping of a cadaver onto a pile for scavengers have suggested ἐτάφη. Such a fate would not have been burial but its denial. The retort that Paul wrote “was buried,” not “buried in a tomb,” is specious. Just as “was cremated” implies, for us, “was cremated into ashes,” so “was buried” entailed, in Paul’s world, interment of some sort."
Allison, Jr., Dale C.. The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (p. 191).
That's a good point about the burial. I'll have to think more about this. I've already added a correction based on now being less convinced of the original points I made in response to some comments people made.
Modalism seems pretty clearly unbiblical. The son prayed to the father. Social trinitarianism doesn't seem clearly coherent--hard to differentiate it from polytheism. Though were I to be a trinitarian, I'd be a social trinitarian.
Thanks so much for being interested in hearing challenges to your ideas :) I’d like to offer a few thoughts on your formulation of Swinburne’s a priori argument for the Trinity.
So, I think you may have overlooked an important point in his argument with regard to the number of persons in the Godhead, as he does offer an explanation for why 3 must be both the minimum and maximum number. In my understanding, this aspect of his argument goes something like this: God must be perfectly loving, and perfect love must be both mutual and unselfish. This means that perfect love must be shared between at least 3 persons (since each person must love each other person and also share in love for that person with another person). But 4 persons would not be better than 3 persons because the 4th person (on up) could not exist by necessity. Thus, 3 must be both the minimum and the maximum number of persons in the Godhead.
Happy to discuss further if you would like. And please let me know if you think I have misunderstood your position. Glad you’re giving Christianity some serious thought!
Yes, sorry if I didn’t word the concept clearly. The 4th person could not exist by necessity because he literally would not be necessary for the satisfaction of perfect love. In the Trinitarian formula, all three persons are necessary for God’s eternal expression of perfect love (mutual and unselfish). So, in a sense, the 4th+ would be superfluous, and if they do not exist by necessity, they cannot be God.
In the article, I gave reasons to be doubtful of that. I'm skeptical that the third person introduces a categorically new kind of love, and a fourth person could be needed for God's maximal goodness and to maximally instantiate love, even if there's no new type of love.
Thanks for the response. Okay, so I didn’t quite hear you name the criteria for perfect love that Swinburne identifies (mutuality and unselfishness), and because I think crisp definitions are vital to his argument, I wanted to draw some attention to that. Your description of perfect love seemed fuzzier than his, so I just wanted to make sure that we were fairly considering his argument in its own terms. Another point that I would draw attention to is that Swinburne highlights the fact that because perfect love would be satisfied in its expression by the three eternal persons in the Godhead, a 4th person would have to be eternally generated by a voluntary act versus a necessary one. This is why the 4th could not be considered God (based on the definitions and criteria that Swinburne establishes as the foundation of his argument).
Bentham. I am a christian and agree with most of what you wrote. I recently wrote a thesis addressing (and bolstering) your point two (and tying into some of your other points) that approaches it from a different tack. I don't know what your email is but I assume you can see my email address because I am commenting here. If you send me an email I will send you a pdf of it. Thanks.
Thank you for that wonderful article Matt! I would really like to make a few points in response to your article. Again I’m not going to respond to everything in that article because it’s too long I’m only going to respond to the main points. Also, I’m not going to respond to the last section where you discuss the evidence for Christianity. I’m only going to respond to the criticisms you’ve made against Christianity.
The Trinity:
There is relative identity. Relative identity basically says two things can be numerically one and the same while being distinct. Impure relative identity wouldn’t deny the existence of classical identity but it would say that classical/absolute identity isn’t applied in all situations. A great account of impure relative identity and how it relates to the Trinity is by Michael Rea and his material constitution/hylomorphic account analogy for the Trinity. The Aristotelian notion of hylomorphism says that you can have distinct hylomorphs (matter-form compounds) that are made from one and the same sortal/matter. The relationship between the hylomorphs and the sortal is one of numerical sameness without identity so that the three hylomorphs would be one and the same with the sortal without being identical and they would be distinct in relation to each other. Transitivity wouldn’t apply here. The sortal plus the hylomoprhs would be counted as one material object as there’s one sortal/compound of matter and that’s how Aristotle defined material objects and counted them. This would apply greatly for the Trinity where the divine essence plays the role of the sortal or matter and the hypostases (the persons) play the role of the hylomorphs so that the divine persons with the divine essence would be counted as one divine object/being/God. I think that impure relative identity and hylomorphism are perfect for solving metaphysical puzzles like the puzzle of material constitution. When we ask the question of what is the relationship between the wooden table and the wood that it is made of, we want to say that they are distinct (obviously) but yet we want to enumerate the wooden table as one object and not two (the wooden table and wood) as that goes against our intuition. Like when you sell the wooden table you’re not going to say let’s sell the wooden table plus the wood right? Or when you get a child and you ask them how many objects are there when looking at a marble statue that’s made out of marble they’re not going to say two objects (the statue plus marble) but one object right? So, impure relative identity I think solves many metaphysical puzzles like the puzzle of material constitution and with that we would apply it to describe the relationship between the divine persons and the divine essence and be able to enumerate one God as transitivity wouldn’t apply in those types of circumstances.
Here is a link to a video interview with Michael Rea explaining his model and analogy for the Trinity:
Ok so why three divine persons and not more? Well, because we would say it is metaphysically impossible for there to be more than two distinct ways for divine processions. Remember, the way we distinguish the hypostases (persons) is by the hypostatic properties of being unbegotten, begotten and spirating. The Son is begotten from the Father and that’s how the Son is distinguished from the Father and the Holy Spirit is distinguished in that he spirates from the Father. There couldn’t be more divine persons as there couldn’t be more distinct ways of procession which is the only way we distinguish them by.
I can grant you that the Trinity might be improbable as a low prior probability but would have a high posterior probability for someone like me who has independent reasons and justification for why Christianity and the Trinity is true. Therefore, the Trinity being improbable wouldn’t serve as an epistemic defeater.
The Atonement:
I don’t think that this is a weird teaching at all. If anything it is the most beautiful teaching that could possibly be taught. I think you might have mischaracterized a bit the situation. So God doesn’t make an innocent man take the punishment for all of mankind. No, it is actually God himself who takes on the punishment and dies on our behalf. So it is the judge who himself who pays for the parking fine ticket instead of you paying for the parking fine ticket. The judge can be merciful and decide not to let you pay for it out of his love and yet because of his justness he still allows for the punishment to occur which is the payment done by him. So in the same sense God’s love and justice are clearly manifested and expressed at the cross where his love is demonstrated by not allowing us to die and he dies on our behalf and his justice is exemplified by the punishment still occurring nonetheless.
For the prior probability thing, yes it can be granted (with some controversy as Plantinga would argue otherwise) but then there would be a high posterior probability if independent reasons are conditionalized.
Scripture:
No one believes that the manuscripts we have are inerrant. It is the original manuscripts (that are lost) that are inerrant. So yes you’ll find many errors in the translations pertaining to the manuscripts that are full of errors that we have.
Jesus:
I think Jesus came with the most beautiful teachings possible especially during his time even seculars make that claim. The Christian story is the most beautiful story that could ever be told. God who created us due to him loving us so much beyond what we could understand incarnated and lived among us and sacrificed himself for us due to how much he loves us such a beautiful story.
With the divorce verse I think it’s such a beautiful verse. It protects women so much as during that time it was very easy for a woman to get married then get divorced the next day basically using the woman as a sexual toy. Contrasts that with Islamic teachings of temporary marriages (a.k.a. Mut’ah marriage, pleasure marriage which was a temporary marriage for a certain fixed period for the purpose of just pleasure), or polygamy etc…. Jesus came with very beautiful teachings of monogamy and lack of divorce except for sexual adultery. Jesus views marriage as very holy and it is actually considered in the Catholic and Orthodox churches as a holy sacrament one of the seven!
Now you say that divorce makes people happy. People can still get divorced but they’ll get excommunicated from the church as one of the main faiths of the Coptic church for example (in which I’m a member of) is holy matrimony and that divorce is only for sexual adultery and that marriage signifies a union of two into one flesh. What God unites let man not divide is one of the mottos of the church. If someone wants to get a divorce without adultery being involved they’re basically abandoning the faith of the church and are in heresy in a technical sense. If they truly don’t believe in the teachings of Christ and his Church then they can apostate and then get divorced right?
For Matthew 6:22 Jesus is referencing having too much love for materialistic things like money that you forgot the important spiritual aspects of life in which the purpose of light is built on. Having healthy eyes meaning having a healthy spiritual life is what is most important and what gives your whole body light.
For Matthew 6:25: This is one of the most beautiful teachings of Christ! This exemplifies the beautiful spiritual teachings of Christ! Christ didn’t want us to care about the material world and worry about things like food or how we can care about our body but our spiritual life. If you truly let go of your ego and surrender to God then God will take care of all your needs. You don’t need to focus on the material and food but the spiritual. We have saints like St. Anthony the Great and the Desert Fathers for example who relinquished all materialistic things and went into the desert without any food or preparation for their bodies. Angels used to appear to these desert fathers and feed them bread and the like. Again, Christianity is a spiritual religion and not materialistic at all very similar to the eastern religions in a certain sense.
With Matthew 10 Jesus is saying that because of belief in Christ many people will be martyred as that was what occurred during the Roman persecution and still occurs to this day. Also, in virtue of people converting to christianity many families will disown the converts and that’s why Jesus was saying families will be separated because of belief in him. In the muslim world for example when muslims convert to Christianity their families disown them.
For Matthew 12 this is a beautiful teaching of Christ showing us that us Christians are all the brothers and sisters and mothers of Christ. So beautiful teaching us that there are no special treatments of specific people but that we are all one under Christ which is further asserted by Paul in Galatians.
I think these passages that you reference are not bizarre but so beautiful. The problem is the way you’re reading into the passages. You’re doing external critiques instead of internal critiques on these passages. Look at the way Christians have interpreted these and that should be the correct reading not your own isegesis of these verses but exegesis should be the way to look at these passages right?
There's a lot in your comment that I disagree with but I'll just discuss the end.
No, you shouldn't just look at how Christians interpret passages. Of course Christians interpret everything Jesus said as wise, just, and temperate. The question is whether that is plausible. One can always explain away any implausible-sounding passage, but if the passage has a more plausible non-divine reading, it's evidence against Christiantiy.
That's engaging in external critiques not internal critiques. However, personally I like engaging in internal critiques. Like when I critique Islam I will use their own exegetes and books to criticize their worldview and their quranic passages using their own exegetes. I don't find that I'll convince the muslim by doing an external critique that wouldn't be binding or authoritative on the muslim in any way. Likewise, those external critiques committed by you on certain biblical passages are not binding or authoritative on Christians. They're not going to prove anything to the christian as ultimately they will be question begging. In a certain way and sense, if we assume Christianity is true then certain interpretations you had about biblical passages would be impossible as that would mean Christ wasn't perfect but scripture teaches that he is perfect so if the Christian has evidences for the truth of Christianity and scripture your interpretations and isegesis of scripture would be question begging as they would assume the falsity of Christianity in which the Christian would reject.
No lol. I’m trying to enjoy my Easter and stuff. I don’t expect you to die anytime soon and hopefully someone else will pick this up first. Besides, it’ll give me an excuse to get less annoyed over time by what I took to be your worst arguments so I can be nice and polite when I reply.
This is highly intellectualized. One does not come to know God by reading the Bible and then carefully reasoning out if it logically makes sense. Of course it makes no sense. It’s otherworldly— not only does it speak of truths that are of another world (heaven/hell), it’s also from the 1st century. Nevertheless, I do commend you for reading the Bible anyways.
In eastern orthodoxy, we understand God to reveal himself to the human heart— not the mind.
If you actually want to find God, a great one to start with is “God’s revelation to the human heart” by seraphim rose. Short and sweet, not at all bitter like his usual works. If you *really* want to find God, know that just a bit of desire in your heart is already the first step in prayer. He sees your desire.
The next step is to come to an Orthodox Church. You don’t need to commit yourself to anything, not even coming back a second time. As we say come and see.” Talk to a priest, a good one, and tell them that you want to know God but can’t find faith.
Very different than reading the Bible like a myth to debunk! Of course, you can do all of this and get frustrated and leave without receiving God’s revelation. But if you truly want to know Christ, this is the way brother.
Okay, now onwards, in which I will point out your errors in your reading of the text:
The Trinity
Mystery
Sorry, just because you find the divine nature of God unfathomable, does not mean it’s not true. God is three person, one essence, united in love. You’re right! It makes no sense, it is a mystery, like much of the nature of the spiritual truth! In my catechesis class, they directly told us not to think about it too hard. God is ineffable.
Three persons, one in Essence
You also make a critical error when you say that God’s identity is transitive. This is not consistent with the dogma. The “is” in “the son is God” is not referring to his identity nor personhood — thus we have three distinct persons in the trinity. The is refers to the participation In one divine nature — thus there is one essence that God is united into.
This isn’t just abstract speculation, it governs our experience of Christ. The church prays to the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. There are no prayers to Jesus or the father or the Holy Spirit alone.
Why? It is not three Gods as you claim to prove polytheism of christianity— but one God who is relational. Again, does it make complete sense? No. But we are to accept mystery and understand that we cannot comprehend God. There is a saint that says our access to God on earth is like one grain of sand compared to the entire beach (paraphrase). We are limited by our human nature.
It is hard to accept, especially for people like you who seem more rationally minded. Thus we also get passages in the Bible about how it is difficult for people who are wise of the world to come to faith. But it is true.
Why not infinite Gods?
You also speculate that many Gods would be better than just three. Well, the problem is that no one made up the faith. Perhaps if someone did, then 1000 Gods would indeed be better. There are three Gods because three Gods have been revealed in the incarnation and pentecost.
The number three is not derived from the abstract logic of divine love — swineburg, unfortunately, did not convert to Eastern Orthodoxy until later in life. The Eastern Orthodox do not fully endorse his reasoning, but still appreciate his brilliance. We refer to the church fathers instead. Technically, the model we refer to, that I keep referencing, is called the capacocian model.
The atonement
Yes, the atonement *is* weird. In fact, idk if there’s anything you could tell me is weird about the christian faith and I’d disagree. Perhaps if you said it’s weird that so many people agree with something so strange I would disagree, on the basis that it’s true. And yet, I would have to grant you that the truth is odd.
Sacrificial Victim
For understanding of the sacrificial victim, I prefer Girard. Before I converted to christianity, Rene Girard made me understand christianity’s unique value. To him, God forbade human sacrifice, (which we see in Issac and Abraham, God prevents it) yet human beings commit sacrificial murder as a part of our sociological structure. Goats were also part of a movement away from the human sacrifice. Thus it is not only jews or Christians who sacrifice, yet the ancient pagans as well — often sacrificing humans. You pit sacrifice against religious teachings. And yet, it is Christ who reveals the innocence of the scapegoat. Your modern sensibilities are a product of Christ’s victory over death on the cross. Highly recommend Girard, especially because you are rationally minded.
The atonement
God punishing an innocent man in our place is indeed barbaric. The Orthodox Church would agree with you — except that is not how she understands the atonement at all. What you’re criticizing is a western model of the atonement (penal substitutionary atonement), which imagines sin as a legal debt and God as a judge who demands punishment, which christ then absorbs in our place. The church never taught this.
The orthodox view of atonement is rooted in our understanding of sin. Sin is not breaking the rules. It is a sickness, a corruption, a turning a way from life (which is found in communion with God) as a result of the fall. Christ descended into our condition— into death-- to overthrow death.
God did not punish Jesus. God through the person of Jesus entered into our suffering and defeated it. It’s an act of divine love. Christ didn’t die instead of us, but with us. The western church believes salvation to be a transaction. Yet Christ invites us to die with him, and rise again with him — “take up your cross and follow me.” It is the way by which we heal from the fall and reach theosis.
There are even some priests who will say that God did not have to sacrifice Jesus, this was not the only possible way to restore humanity. But it was the most perfect way, because it is the most loving, the most self emptying, and the most complete. Christ freely offered himself for humanity.
Scripture
Okay, again, another western — specifically protestant reading. We’d be in trouble if the Bible had to be flawless.
The orthodox understand that scripture is not a divine encyclopedia or clean philosophical system. It’s a library. Some parts are history, some are poetry, some are lament, some are prophecy, and some are criess of anguish of people under siege. It was written by human beings, not God himself (though with his inspiration), with their own personalities, limitations, and cultural assumptions.
Some passages are brutal. They express raw, unfiltered rage. The psalms contain cries for vengeance, the prophets rage against oppressions. God does not endorse every word. It is God allowing the full voice of human experience, including grief, fury, and injustice, to be taken up into prayer. “By the rivers of Babylon…” was not meant to teach ethics. It was a cry of pain from people in exile.
Though, this being said, I also grapple with some of this stuff. It is difficult to understand that the holy ones could hold such vengeance in their hearts. Yet, I can emphasize, in that I also have desired such vengeance against those who have hurt me. And instead I pray, knowing vengeance is not mine.
A contradiction in genealogy, a violent war account, or a historical inaccuracy is not a threat to our faith, because its only a problem if you think the Bible is a science textbook dropped straight from heaven.
Violence
You are right to say that some of these texts reflect a historical mindset of ancient Israel (common between all tribes) where victories were interpreted as signs of divine favor. The church does not read these as timeless endorsements of violence. Should someone say “God will love if I start a war with China and kill everyone in the land. Everyone come pick up your cross and follow Jesus in the slaying of the Chinese” the church would find this deeply problematic.
The Old Testament is true, but incomplete. It contains the gradual revelation of God through a specific people at a specific time, leading towards Christ. Christ himself says “you have heard it said… but I say to you” (Matt 5:38- 44). He does not reject scripture, as you point out, but he transcends it — correcting human misunderstandings of God’s will and revealing deeper meaning. He takes isreals understanding of justice and replaces it with mercy, non-retaliation, and self-sacrifical love.
So when we see violence in scripture, we neither deny it happened nor say it was an example of God’s will enacted perfectly.
“Blessed is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.”
From a historical point of view, psalm 137 is a lament. The Babylonians had slaughtered civilians including children and enslaved survivors. It’s a brutally honest cry from a people who had suffered total desolation. The “dashing of babies” is expressing a desire for retribution — the dashing of babies is exactly something the babylonians would’ve done to Isreal’s children.
The psalms are holy not because they are completely moral. They bring every part of the human heart, even the ugliest parts, before God.
Yet, it’s not how the church fathers read scripture. Origen (3rd century) says that the infants of Babylon are the beginnings of sinful thoughts, which must be killed before they grow into full blown passions. The rock is christ, the firm foundation. Again, this is where we get into trouble if the Bible is a science textbook. Its not. There are many instances of allegory. In this light, the violent destruction of enemies in the psalms makes a lot more sense. Our enemies are the powers and principalities, and sin. The church fathers press that scripture must be read in light of Christ.
Okay, im getting fatigued. Idk if I’ll write out a rebuttal to every claim. But you misinterpret every line of scripture here, divorcing it from tradition and spiritual reality.
Jesus came to be the truth and reveal God by living it. Many sayings of Christ may sound offensive or regressive by modern standards. You fail to judge Christ by truth but by plausibility, relatability, and cultural utility.
You’re scandalized that he said hard things. Of course he did. He didn’t flatter his audience. He told people to give up everything and die to themselves.
Christ is not a modern progressive. His contradictions with modern ideas are not errors, they’re evidence that His standard is not psychological wellness but ontological healing. The human person is not just an organism in search of balance. We are meant to seek communion with God. Sin — such as divorce — is not just a bad life outcome. It wounds our communion with God.
You want a God who confirms your sense of what a reasonable teacher would say by modern standards. But the truth is timeless, and does not conform to this world.
Slavery
You say God should’ve revealed germ theory or condemned slavery or at least said less strange sentences. This is silly. You’re acting as if God must act like an enlightened scientist or philosopher. Do you seriously think that if Jesus condemned slavery, the entire system of labor could’ve been overhauled? Would we have immediately switched over to capitalism? Which is not even perfect by Christian standards?
What we do have in scripture is the forbiddance of poor treatment of slaves. Rape is forbidden. Beating slaves to death is forbidden. These are huge changes for slaves at the time. Christ tells the people at the time to look at their slaves as if they are Christ himself. And treat them thus throughly.
Divorce
You cannot simply say divorce is good because it makes people happy. Christ did not come to maximize comfort, far far from it. What about “pick up your cross and follow me” reveals that the christian path is about pursuing happiness? It is about conforming ones life to the truth, and becoming like God as a result.
What about the spiritual reality of sex and marriage making two one flesh before God? This is why divorce is forbidden — and furthermore, you’re also divorcing it from tradition. In an abusive relationship, they are allowances made by priests. If a marriage is hateful, and one has done all they can to resolve it through the church’s guidance, the priest may allow divorce. This is born out of the understanding of human weakness. Christianity is not a legalistic tradition. But divorce is meant to be the last recourse that requires repentance and humility before the truth God has revealed. A divorce is a huge failure before Christ’s call to us, but it is not irredeemable.
“I did not come to bring peace but a sword”
Yes, the truth is decisive. The particular meaning of this passage is that following christ will cause division between believers and nonbelievers. A pagan who comes to faith in christ will neccessarily need to endure difficulties in family life afterwards — they will struggle to understand why they reject their cultural tradition.
When Christ says we must hate our mother and father he is speaking in a way that is common to the ancient jews — the semitic hyperbole. It’s not a call to hatred, he’s not saying despise your parents. We are, in actuality, called to respect our elders. He’s saying nothing, not even our relationship with our family, can come before God.
It sounds extreme until you also realized we are also called to die for him, literally, should we be persecuted. Allowing our relationships with our families to become strained, even for ourselves to be exiled from family life in the worst of cases, in order to not deny Christ (example: not going to a hindu temple) is comparatively mild.
Hell
Hell is not immoral. In orthodox christian understanding, it is the light of God. It is not a punishment. If we do not seek healing through repentance in this life, we can not withstand his light and we experience it as a burning fire. We become demonized. Hell was not created for man. It was created for the demons.
Also, the tradition does not claim that anyone not in the church is immediately condemned. We understand that salvation is a mystery. Even we who are in the church are not immediately saved. Only God can judge our hearts. Further, God desires the salvation of all people. He does not legalistically judge us, but looks for any reason we should be saved.
The orthodox teach that the only way we go to hell is the total rejection of God’s mercy and forgiveness. This is the unforgivable sin.
Okay I’ll end here. Too much effort to go on. But yeah. Refer to the first passage. You will not reach god if you condemn him by worldly standards
Divorcing belief from rationality undermines religious commitment. There's much more interesting things to believe in like anime and sci fi stories than religions. If I can turn my brain off I'd rather believe those are "true" insofar as the true/false dichotomy is still meaningful when the standards are so relaxed and up to aesthetic preferences.
>People often argue that the tomb must have been empty because the testimony to it came from women, and in a patriarchal Jewish society, that wouldn’t have been made up. I find this argument doubtful for two reasons. First, thematically, a key part of the Markan narrative is that Jesus’s disciples were doubtful and had abandoned him. The women were the only game in town!
Mark (the Gospel author, not me) also doesn't claim that the women were the testimonial source of anything. Maybe he believed a bunch of men later went and corroborated the story; we don't know, because the Gospel ends there. But even if women were the source, I think the extent of the patriarchy's grip exaggerated. Maybe women's testimonies weren't admissible in court or whatever (I'm not sure), but I have no doubt Judean men believed claims made by Judean women all the time, and moreover maybe the specific, unknown audience Mark was writing to happened to be more egalitarian than most.
I actually think even infinity would be an arbitrary number of persons in the divine N-ity because, "infinity" doesn't fully specify how many persons there are. Aleph 0? Aleph 1? Beth_{epsilon_0}? The smallest inaccessible cardinal? All seem arbitrary.
Unsetly has the same problem as infinity - it's not a specific quantity. There are unsetly many sets and unsetly many proper classes, but there are strictly more proper classes than there are sets, by Cantor's Theorem.
On the evidence for Christianity, I'd want to say a couple of things.
(1) I think Swinburne is 110% correct that a proper evaluation of this topic requires us to take into the account the prior probability of God becoming incarnate, as well as the probable characteristics that God incarnate would have. You talk about some related issues (e.g. those pertaining to Jesus' teachings), but I don't think you give this issue enough attention. If one is persuaded that (i) it's quite probable that God would become incarnate, and that (ii) God incarnate would live a life filled with religious teaching and serious suffering, then the prior probability of Christianity will go up dramatically (particularly since Jesus is the only figure in human history with an even half-way serious claim to being God incarnate).
(2) I think post-resurrection Christian miracles should get more attention here. Pretty much all of the persuasive miracle claims throughout history take place in a Christian context: odd phenomena like rainbow bodies take place in entirely non-theistic contexts (and so probably aren't good candidates for divine miracles intended to validate a religion), while the other major theistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam) lag seriously behind Christianity in this respect. That's quite surprising if Christianity is false: even if one thinks that God would work to reach people through false religious traditions, it seems borderline misleading for him to do so principally through *one* of those false religious traditions. Note also that the Christian miracle claims often revolve around distinctively Christian doctrines (i.e. doctrines which are flatly inconsistent with the other theistic religions): think of Marian apparitions, or appearances of the risen Christ. It's not just that Christians are miraculously healed by God (though that sometimes happens); it's that they're healed by God after e.g. praying to the Virgin Mary, or doing other things which God presumably wouldn't want people to do if Christianity is false. (This relates to the points that Alec and Aron Wall made, with which I agree.)
(3) Regarding Jesus's teachings, I think it's important to recall that lots of things which *would* be really bad if a normal person said them cease to be bad *if* the person who said them is God. (Swinburne makes this point in his book on the Resurrection: some of Jesus's claims and actions are such that they *would* be morally objectionable if a mere mortal did them, but *not* if he was God.) So for instance, consider the passage about hating father and mother etc. If a random religious leader said that, it would be outrageous, because this leader would be telling his followers to prioritize himself over their own families. But this ceases to be objectionable if the speaker is God. (You *should* prioritize God over your family!)
I also think this should be discussed in connection with the Lewis trilemma. Jesus's teachings have a striking mixture of two elements: (i) they commend exemplary moral treatment of others, without demanding any temporal benefits for Jesus himself (indeed, they involve his predicting his own murder, which scholars like Allison and Casey have argued is probably historical), and (ii) they involve Jesus demanding to be the made the number one priority in his disciples' lives. This is a very odd mixture, unlike anything else ever given by a major religious figure. Other figures typically either (a) give teachings which materially benefit themselves, or else (b) they entirely put themselves to the side. Only Jesus displays this peculiar mixture, demanding nothing temporal for himself, while asking to become everything to those who follow him.
There is a limit on the size of comments, so I'll reply with the rest afterwards.
You are right that if Jesus rose from the dead, the other claims of the Christian worldview still need to be evaluated. In fact, the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide accepted that Jesus rose from the dead without becoming a Christian.
Regarding the Trinity, some argue, I think William Lane Craig for example, that identity was not always viewed as transitive, but I am not sure how accurate that is. Even if that is true, an account of the Trinity is still needed, so here is mine: God is analogous to Moonknight, the superhero. Moonknight has a somewhat fantastical form of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Moonknight actually consists of three persons (I think, maybe it is more) who are all Moonknight, and part of the character is that they start out not getting along or not being aware of each others' existence. Likewise, God is three persons in one, just as how a being with DID can be multiple persons. The fact that Moonknight is multiple persons is integral to his identity, but each of the persons are not the other persons (in fact, they argue and sometimes work against each other).
I am a fan of Bernardo Kastrups idealism, and he argues that we are all dissociated altars within the mind of God. I would say that in order for an altar to be God himself, he would have to have the properties of God, but theoretically, God can have unlimited altars. I think this might address your arbitrary number concern. Perhaps God is an infinite set of persons, or he contains an infinite set of persons, but only three of them are God.
Also, the concept of the Trinity did not come out of nowhere. It has precedence within ancient Judaism, called the "Two Powers of Heaven" doctrine. Alan Segal wrote a book called "Two Powers of Heaven" arguing that ancient Judaism, including in the first century, had this idea that there were two persons of God: The Angel of the Lord and the Lord.
I do not believe the atonement is that weird, especially compared to alternatives. Remember, the premise of Christianity is that all of humanity is rebellious against God, and it (minus Israel) is in the realm of the corrupt Sons of God (see Psalm 82 and Deut. 32:8-9). What could God do about this? He could kill everyone, but the problem is that everyone would be dead. He could arbitrarily forgive everyone, but that would not really solve the underlying issue. He is trying to form loving relationships with humans, and arbitrarily forgiving a bunch of rebellious humans would not change their hearts and minds. It would be the equivalent of releasing every prisoner in the world unconditionally and removing all of the laws that brought them to prison in the first place.
The incarnation can solve this conundrum, however. How can we reconcile with God? We humans need empathy, so God incarnated as a man and suffered brutal torture to show his love for us. Also, he showed us how to follow him and live a good life. Another crucial part of the atonement was defeating the dark powers (corrupt Sons of God), allowing people from all nations (not just Israel) to learn the truth about God and become saved. Michael Heiser notes that the dark powers did not know what Jesus was up to, so this was a surprise to them. They think they defeated God himself by having Jesus killed, but then he descends down (1 Peter 3) to tell them that they lost. It might sound arbitrary from an abstract perspective that God chose to get crucified from the Romans in the first century, but since God has all of the available information, I just assume he knows best.
In short, the atonement is not just about forgiveness. Be sure not to confuse least likely model of atonement, penal substitution, with the atonement itself. The atonement did a lot of things, including by defeating the dark powers, letting gentiles join the family of Abraham, and showing his love to mankind. There is a lot more to say, but I'll leave that to the books (NT Wright, for example, has a lot to say about this). Besides, if Christianity is true, it would be safe to assume that God's method of saving us is the best way, even if we don't understand why. Here is an interesting series on the atonement, and it may provide some answers: https://drmsh.com/did-yahweh-demand-blood-for-a-true-relationship-with-him-were-the-other-gods-more-merciful-to-their-people/.
One more thing on the atonement, it is unlikely that they would have fabricated it. Both first century Jews and Romans criticized Christianity for worshipping a God that got crucified. Crucifixion was a shameful and humiliating thing, and Deut. 21:23 states that anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. An interesting example of this kind of criticism is the Alexamenos graffito, which I suggest looking up (it is ancient graffiti) .
I think there is some confusion about inerrancy. Inerrancy is about its theological accuracy, not historical accuracy. Regardless, most people get hung up on their misunderstandings of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. For example, people falsely believe that God commands Israel to commit genocide. This is plainly false. In those cases, such as Deut. 7 and 1 Sam. 15, it is obviously hyperbole. In Deut. 7, for example, God also tells them not to intermarry with the listed nations. Who would they be intermarrying, if they were utterly destroyed? In 1 Sam. 15, the Amalekites are said to be utterly destroyed, except for king Agag, who is later killed by Samuel. However, the Amalekites appear against in 1 Sam. 30. How is this possible if they were actually destroyed? Again, it is hyperbole.
Also, it is important to note that the Mosaic law was imperfect, as acknowledged by Jesus (see his views on divorce laws). The "Law" was actually a type of treaty between God and his people, so it includes compromises with Israel. For example, it did not ban slavery, although many restrictions were made against it. It also allowed Israel to have a king, even though God did not want them to have one (see 1 Sam. 8). Actually, not even all of the law came from God, see Num. 27 for example. This video sums it up well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93JdjLqBQqE&t=222s&ab_channel=InspiringPhilosophy, and see The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context.
You say a lot about Jesus's teachings. I do not mean this in a mean way, but you are clearly unfamiliar with even some fairly basic Christian responses to your concerns. I don't blame you for this, though. It is hard to get sane information on this topic, and Christian infighting makes it difficult to find the decent scholarly Christian views. Perhaps read some of the New American Commentaries on the New Testament for some conservative Christian views, or dig through Inspiringphilosophy's channel (especially the sources he cites). Also, Mike Winger's video on divorce I think is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2pC6ZikbYo&t=9911s&ab_channel=MikeWinger. I can give a few responses too. You mention Jesus's strong language in Matthew 10 about hating your family. This is another case of hyperbole. He is using figurative language to show the dedication needed to follow him. Regarding John 6, he is clearly using metaphor to describe how people need to believe in him and follow him. See more here: https://drmsh.com/the-lord-supper-supernatural-constipation-lords-supper-part-2/.
>It might sound arbitrary from an abstract perspective that God chose to get crucified from the Romans in the first century, but since God has all of the available information, I just assume he knows best.
>Besides, if Christianity is true, it would be safe to assume that God's method of saving us is the best way, even if we don't understand why.
These are psychological vices designed to keep you believing in something for which a factual investigation wouldn't let you keep believing in.
I think I need to clarify what I am saying. It sounds like I am making an ontological claim, but really, I am trying to make an epistemological claim.
Since I do not have anywhere close to the amount of data required to model the optimal decision making of a God, I am unable to make those kinds of arguments regarding a God's optimal decision making (or lack of it).
So I can't evaluate God's goodness (or whatever) based on empirical observations about the world, for I don't know enough about this world, nor do I know enough about all possible worlds. For all I know, God has made optimal decisions, from an empirical perspective.
In order to argue that God is (or isn't) omniscient, I would have to make an argument that does not rely on empirical data.
Now for what you regard to be the most problematic passages. For the first, you could watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnNJXMkwx4w&ab_channel=InspiringPhilosophy. The main point is that they did not think about prophecy in the way we do. Prophecy was more complicated than prediction. They were conditional on the proper response of the community.
Again, the family hating is hyperbolic language.
Hell is an interesting topic. A lot of figurative language is used to describe hell (which, by the way, is a catch-all term for multiple places, like Hades and Gehenna). I won't give an exegesis of every passage about hell here, but it is noteworthy that evangelical/fundamentalist Christians assume hell is Eternal Conscious Torment based on Jesus's parables and other clearly figurative sayings. This is a poor understanding of what Jesus is saying about hell. Instead, he is talking about the psychology of hell (namely, what kind of thinking gets you there). Take the parable of the rich man in Luke 16 for example. In this parable, the rich man goes to hades, where he is being tormented, and yet, he is able to ask Lazarus for some water. If he was truly being tortured, how could he even talk? The actual lesson of the parable is that the rich man, instead of asking to be freed from hell, wanted the poor man he treated badly to come and serve him in while in hell! It is a moral and psychological lesson, not a lesson on hell. Watch how Jesus talks about hell, and you will realize that he is not focused on ontology.
Another thing, if Jesus is claiming to be the Son of Man from Daniel 12, then he is claiming to be one of the Two Powers of Heaven, as I mentioned earlier. In fact, there are many instances where he claims to be God, but it is not obvious to contemporary readers. For example, when Jesus quotes Psalm 82: https://www.thedivinecouncil.com/Heiser%20Psa82inJohn10%20RegSBL2011.pdf.
I have noticed that you mainly have a problem with interpretations of some Biblical passages, interpretations that I believe are incorrect. Unfortunately, the best interpretations tend to be stuck in a sea of academic articles, but thankfully, some scholars have managed to popularize important ideas. You should read Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm, and then you can jump into that rabbit hole. That is how many (intellectual) Christians nowadays got introduced to good Biblical scholarship and theology, so if you want a comprehensive view of the story of the Bible, as well as better interpretations of passages, compared to typical evangelical and fundamentalist views (which become well-known because they are loud, sort of like how moderate liberals can be lumped in with the much louder Marxists), you can start there.
>Perhaps God is an infinite set of persons, or he contains an infinite set of persons, but only three of them are God.
>Also, the concept of the Trinity did not come out of nowhere. It has precedence within ancient Judaism, called the "Two Powers of Heaven" doctrine. Alan Segal wrote a book called "Two Powers of Heaven" arguing that ancient Judaism, including in the first century, had this idea that there were two persons of God: The Angel of the Lord and the Lord.
This is better evidence for a sociohistorical debunking of the trinity. A nearby and interrelated religious group - the Jews - made the same silly contradictory statement that God is both 2 and 1 persons. You believe this claim is false because the Jews offer little evidence for it. Christianity makes the same claim except it's 3 instead of 2 persons. It similarly gives very poor justification for understanding the asserted contradiction. This is because early Jews and Christians were just making shit up to differentiate themselves from others and there was some crosstalk between them due to geographic proximity that resulted in them asserting similarly false things that functioned as ingroup-outgroup identifiers.
(1) One correction about the Trinity - it isn't clear that the identity involved in the Trinity requires transitivity. In his article on Aquinas's view of the Trinity, Paasch points out that "Aquinas thinks the kind of sameness that occurs in the Trinity is not transitive." That is, the identity relation here isn't strict classical identity, but something weaker. Similarly, Koons's view of the Trinity denies the divine persons are strictly identical --- instead of being strictly identical, they lack real distinctness, which is "a weaker condition than strict identity." This is something Koons gets from Aquinas - "Lack of real distinction corresponds to Aquinas's notion of identitas secundum rem".
(2) One can be a Christian and reject inerrantism - Lydia McGrew is one example of a staunch Christian evidentialist who is an errantist (I know you've interviewed her, but you probably have many readers who haven't heard of her).
(3) It seems strange to reject the resurrection because one rejects other traditional Christian claims. The objections against the Trinity, atonement, etc. don't tell us anything about whether the resurrection accounts are reliable. If it turns out Jesus wasn't perfect, that wouldn't raise or lower the probability of "These accounts are reliable." If I tell you Jack made a mistake, you can't conclude that my testimony is worthless. Of course, you could argue the case for the resurrection fails by itself, but you have said in another comment that "I would accept the resurrection if I didn't think there were independent powerful arguments against Christianity."
I think it’s great you laid out the arguments so clearly. I think I have two considerations that might slightly increase the plausibility of Christianity, given everything you have said.
First, big picture, it’s noteworthy that you 1) Are a theist 2) Think Christianity is the most plausible religion and 3) Think Christianity is false. This seems to imply that you think none of the popular world religions are true.
IMO, this is quite a strong claim as a theist since it implies that God is very hidden - sufficiently hidden that no large group of people have correctly figured out who he is. That is, the God who is responsible for fine-tuning, psycho-physical harmony etc has no interested in saying Hello to the conscious creatures that he made. I think it’s more likely that God would be revealing than not revealing, conditional on theism, and this should be weighed up against any claim that God is real but no religion is true.
Second, I think I reject the framework you use for describing the “plausibility” of moral claims from the bible/Jesus. I think it is very hard to ground morality outside of God and so I don’t know that we can describe Jesus’ moral claims as implausible or immoral. A lot of your objections seem to be embedded in a consequentialist framework (e.g. Jesus giving bad advice, or people being happier after divorce) but who are we to say that this is the correct framework under which we ought to judge Jesus’ moral claims? In fact, judging Jesus’ moral framework under a non-Christian moral framework and using this as evidence against Jesus’ moral framework seems question begging.
I might be wrong though, would love to hear your thoughts on this :)
I think probably God reaches, in important ways, people across all the major religious traditions.
There are, in my view, strong arguments for consequentialism, though my argument did not assume consequentialism. In fact, the arguments can mostly work without the assumption of moral realism at all--all that's needed is the notion that of the things Jesus asserts, it's likelier he'd assert them if he was a mere mortal than if he was God.
One could strengthen Alec's argument (the first one) by making it about salvation and not just revelation. That is, a lot of people have an intuition that there is something deeply wrong about the human race as it exists, and that in some way we need to be rescued from a spiritually bad situation. (As evidence that this isn't just the influence of Christianity, I note that Buddhism agrees with Christianity on this intuition. Even though it isn't necessarily theistic, and even though it has a very different notion of what the problem and solution are, it agrees that people start out in a nonideal situation and that a radical change is required in order to escape.)
If this intuition is correct, then one might think that God, if he exists, would want to provide a means of "salvation" to the human race, or at least to some individuals who earnestly ask him for it. Now, Universalism might mitigate this somewhat, if you think that God basically guarantees a better situation in the next life, and that this is good enough. But you might still think that God should provide something concrete to people in THIS life---at the very least, some sort of assurance of future forgiveness and salvation. And if so, it is much easier to see how that would work in the context of a particular religion like Christianity, rather than generic mostly hidden theism.
I think this is conceivable but not super obvious. We know that there are a lot of good things that could happen in the world. For instance, it would be great if no one got cancer. Presumably God has some good principled reason to not intervene to bring about various goods. But this could also apply to religious goods. It also seems like universalism mitigates this enough--if many people in this life connect with the divine through religious traditions and rightly believe they're going to be saved, that seems like enough. I agree that there's a non-trivial prior in one of the religions being right given theism, but I don't think it's much over .5
Wouldn’t God have to have at least some contact or interaction with ancient people on the generic theist veiw? Because, assuming God exists, how could ancient people come to believe in God without any of the actual arguments for God? Since ancient people didn’t know about fine tuning, psychophysical harmony, etc.
I suppose you could argue that a generic Design argument is plausible, given what ancient humans knew.
I’m really blown away by this. What a wonderful post and what an open mindedness you’ve demonstrated on a notoriously difficult topic to be open-minded about. Wherever you go from here, I’ll be curious to hear more about it.
“That’s polytheism, Patrick! “
Love this video
Thanks!
Great post! I have a lot of thoughts here, but I'll focus on the burial of Jesus... you say "In short, I find these statistical arguments more compelling than the specific accounts."
However, this seems to run afoul of our intuitions about the evidential force of testimony. For example, the prior probability that my friend got in an accident on the way to my house is very small (< 0.01) but his testimony to that effect would be strong evidence that he did, in fact, get in an accident.
Obviously, we can point to dissimilarities (e.g. if you don't think the account of Jesus' burial originated with eyewitnesses, then we don't have eyewitness testimony of the burial) but the general principle stands: we should prioritize direct testimony over background statistical considerations, since things that violate statistical norms happen all the time. There's nothing particularly implausible about Joseph of Arimathea burying Jesus, and the fact that it shows up so strongly in the tradition should make us think twice before letting statistical considerations trump specific evidence.
Regarding specific arguments for burial: from a historical-critical perspective, I find Dale Allison's treatment more even-handed than Ehrman's. He replies to Ehrman directly at a few points, and ultimately concludes historicity (though tentatively).
That said, I'm in the so-called "maximal data" camp, preferring to engage the gospels holistically. I think a fairly strong case can be mounted for their reliability—especially Luke's. But that's a topic for another time. :)
Thanks, that's an interesting point !
Testimony doesn't have as much evidential force as you're treating it as having, because it has strictly more evidential force when about more specific things. If someone tells me their phone number, that testimony has a massive Bayes factor, because it's so unlikely they'd assert that sequence of digits if it was false.
It's especially unlikely when there's a plausible account of how it could falsely have arisen. If the early Christians thought that there was a resurrection, it's not surprising that they'd come to believe in an empty tomb.
I'm not much moved by the maximal data argument, but it's way above my paygrade to evaluate as I'm not a historian.
Thanks for the reply!
Good points. I agree that the evidential force of testimony depends on the type and specificity of the claim being made. You reminded me of a post by Aron Wall, where he makes much the same point using the example of license plates: http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/just-how-certain-can-we-be/
I remain convinced that the unanimous testimony from the gospel tradition should incline us strongly in the direction of historicity, especially given the (in my view) failure of the arguments against burial (see Allison), but you're correct that the Bayes factor is not quite as high as in the example I gave.
As I was looking through Allison's book again, I found this quote about 1 Corinthians 15, which is relevant to a point you made elsewhere in this article, and would supply a lot more evidence for the historicity of the burial story. Seeing as you've engaged with Allison's book in previous posts, I'd be interested to hear what you thought about his point here:
"According to the old confession in 1 Cor. 15:4, Jesus “died” and “was buried” (ἐτάφη). The first meaning of the verb, θάπτω, is “honor with funeral rites, especially by burial” (LSJ, s.v.). Nowhere in Jewish sources, furthermore, does the formula, “died…and was buried,” refer to anything other than interment in the ground, a cave, or a tomb. So the language of the pre-Pauline formula cannot have been used of a body left to rot on a cross. Nor would the unceremonious dumping of a cadaver onto a pile for scavengers have suggested ἐτάφη. Such a fate would not have been burial but its denial. The retort that Paul wrote “was buried,” not “buried in a tomb,” is specious. Just as “was cremated” implies, for us, “was cremated into ashes,” so “was buried” entailed, in Paul’s world, interment of some sort."
Allison, Jr., Dale C.. The Resurrection of Jesus: Apologetics, Polemics, History (p. 191).
Yeah, I had that post by Aron in mind.
That's a good point about the burial. I'll have to think more about this. I've already added a correction based on now being less convinced of the original points I made in response to some comments people made.
On the trinity, why not be a social Trinitarian like Hasker or a modalist? Those are at least coherent possibilities, unlike the alternatives
Modalism seems pretty clearly unbiblical. The son prayed to the father. Social trinitarianism doesn't seem clearly coherent--hard to differentiate it from polytheism. Though were I to be a trinitarian, I'd be a social trinitarian.
Thanks so much for being interested in hearing challenges to your ideas :) I’d like to offer a few thoughts on your formulation of Swinburne’s a priori argument for the Trinity.
So, I think you may have overlooked an important point in his argument with regard to the number of persons in the Godhead, as he does offer an explanation for why 3 must be both the minimum and maximum number. In my understanding, this aspect of his argument goes something like this: God must be perfectly loving, and perfect love must be both mutual and unselfish. This means that perfect love must be shared between at least 3 persons (since each person must love each other person and also share in love for that person with another person). But 4 persons would not be better than 3 persons because the 4th person (on up) could not exist by necessity. Thus, 3 must be both the minimum and the maximum number of persons in the Godhead.
Happy to discuss further if you would like. And please let me know if you think I have misunderstood your position. Glad you’re giving Christianity some serious thought!
Why couldn't the 4th exist by necessity?
Yes, sorry if I didn’t word the concept clearly. The 4th person could not exist by necessity because he literally would not be necessary for the satisfaction of perfect love. In the Trinitarian formula, all three persons are necessary for God’s eternal expression of perfect love (mutual and unselfish). So, in a sense, the 4th+ would be superfluous, and if they do not exist by necessity, they cannot be God.
In the article, I gave reasons to be doubtful of that. I'm skeptical that the third person introduces a categorically new kind of love, and a fourth person could be needed for God's maximal goodness and to maximally instantiate love, even if there's no new type of love.
Thanks for the response. Okay, so I didn’t quite hear you name the criteria for perfect love that Swinburne identifies (mutuality and unselfishness), and because I think crisp definitions are vital to his argument, I wanted to draw some attention to that. Your description of perfect love seemed fuzzier than his, so I just wanted to make sure that we were fairly considering his argument in its own terms. Another point that I would draw attention to is that Swinburne highlights the fact that because perfect love would be satisfied in its expression by the three eternal persons in the Godhead, a 4th person would have to be eternally generated by a voluntary act versus a necessary one. This is why the 4th could not be considered God (based on the definitions and criteria that Swinburne establishes as the foundation of his argument).
Bentham. I am a christian and agree with most of what you wrote. I recently wrote a thesis addressing (and bolstering) your point two (and tying into some of your other points) that approaches it from a different tack. I don't know what your email is but I assume you can see my email address because I am commenting here. If you send me an email I will send you a pdf of it. Thanks.
Great post!
Thank you for that wonderful article Matt! I would really like to make a few points in response to your article. Again I’m not going to respond to everything in that article because it’s too long I’m only going to respond to the main points. Also, I’m not going to respond to the last section where you discuss the evidence for Christianity. I’m only going to respond to the criticisms you’ve made against Christianity.
The Trinity:
There is relative identity. Relative identity basically says two things can be numerically one and the same while being distinct. Impure relative identity wouldn’t deny the existence of classical identity but it would say that classical/absolute identity isn’t applied in all situations. A great account of impure relative identity and how it relates to the Trinity is by Michael Rea and his material constitution/hylomorphic account analogy for the Trinity. The Aristotelian notion of hylomorphism says that you can have distinct hylomorphs (matter-form compounds) that are made from one and the same sortal/matter. The relationship between the hylomorphs and the sortal is one of numerical sameness without identity so that the three hylomorphs would be one and the same with the sortal without being identical and they would be distinct in relation to each other. Transitivity wouldn’t apply here. The sortal plus the hylomoprhs would be counted as one material object as there’s one sortal/compound of matter and that’s how Aristotle defined material objects and counted them. This would apply greatly for the Trinity where the divine essence plays the role of the sortal or matter and the hypostases (the persons) play the role of the hylomorphs so that the divine persons with the divine essence would be counted as one divine object/being/God. I think that impure relative identity and hylomorphism are perfect for solving metaphysical puzzles like the puzzle of material constitution. When we ask the question of what is the relationship between the wooden table and the wood that it is made of, we want to say that they are distinct (obviously) but yet we want to enumerate the wooden table as one object and not two (the wooden table and wood) as that goes against our intuition. Like when you sell the wooden table you’re not going to say let’s sell the wooden table plus the wood right? Or when you get a child and you ask them how many objects are there when looking at a marble statue that’s made out of marble they’re not going to say two objects (the statue plus marble) but one object right? So, impure relative identity I think solves many metaphysical puzzles like the puzzle of material constitution and with that we would apply it to describe the relationship between the divine persons and the divine essence and be able to enumerate one God as transitivity wouldn’t apply in those types of circumstances.
Here is a link to a video interview with Michael Rea explaining his model and analogy for the Trinity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_UxFJkQkFs&t=5557s
And here’s his paper:
https://philarchive.org/rec/BROMCA-3
Ok so why three divine persons and not more? Well, because we would say it is metaphysically impossible for there to be more than two distinct ways for divine processions. Remember, the way we distinguish the hypostases (persons) is by the hypostatic properties of being unbegotten, begotten and spirating. The Son is begotten from the Father and that’s how the Son is distinguished from the Father and the Holy Spirit is distinguished in that he spirates from the Father. There couldn’t be more divine persons as there couldn’t be more distinct ways of procession which is the only way we distinguish them by.
I can grant you that the Trinity might be improbable as a low prior probability but would have a high posterior probability for someone like me who has independent reasons and justification for why Christianity and the Trinity is true. Therefore, the Trinity being improbable wouldn’t serve as an epistemic defeater.
The Atonement:
I don’t think that this is a weird teaching at all. If anything it is the most beautiful teaching that could possibly be taught. I think you might have mischaracterized a bit the situation. So God doesn’t make an innocent man take the punishment for all of mankind. No, it is actually God himself who takes on the punishment and dies on our behalf. So it is the judge who himself who pays for the parking fine ticket instead of you paying for the parking fine ticket. The judge can be merciful and decide not to let you pay for it out of his love and yet because of his justness he still allows for the punishment to occur which is the payment done by him. So in the same sense God’s love and justice are clearly manifested and expressed at the cross where his love is demonstrated by not allowing us to die and he dies on our behalf and his justice is exemplified by the punishment still occurring nonetheless.
For the prior probability thing, yes it can be granted (with some controversy as Plantinga would argue otherwise) but then there would be a high posterior probability if independent reasons are conditionalized.
Scripture:
No one believes that the manuscripts we have are inerrant. It is the original manuscripts (that are lost) that are inerrant. So yes you’ll find many errors in the translations pertaining to the manuscripts that are full of errors that we have.
Jesus:
I think Jesus came with the most beautiful teachings possible especially during his time even seculars make that claim. The Christian story is the most beautiful story that could ever be told. God who created us due to him loving us so much beyond what we could understand incarnated and lived among us and sacrificed himself for us due to how much he loves us such a beautiful story.
With the divorce verse I think it’s such a beautiful verse. It protects women so much as during that time it was very easy for a woman to get married then get divorced the next day basically using the woman as a sexual toy. Contrasts that with Islamic teachings of temporary marriages (a.k.a. Mut’ah marriage, pleasure marriage which was a temporary marriage for a certain fixed period for the purpose of just pleasure), or polygamy etc…. Jesus came with very beautiful teachings of monogamy and lack of divorce except for sexual adultery. Jesus views marriage as very holy and it is actually considered in the Catholic and Orthodox churches as a holy sacrament one of the seven!
Now you say that divorce makes people happy. People can still get divorced but they’ll get excommunicated from the church as one of the main faiths of the Coptic church for example (in which I’m a member of) is holy matrimony and that divorce is only for sexual adultery and that marriage signifies a union of two into one flesh. What God unites let man not divide is one of the mottos of the church. If someone wants to get a divorce without adultery being involved they’re basically abandoning the faith of the church and are in heresy in a technical sense. If they truly don’t believe in the teachings of Christ and his Church then they can apostate and then get divorced right?
For Matthew 6:22 Jesus is referencing having too much love for materialistic things like money that you forgot the important spiritual aspects of life in which the purpose of light is built on. Having healthy eyes meaning having a healthy spiritual life is what is most important and what gives your whole body light.
For Matthew 6:25: This is one of the most beautiful teachings of Christ! This exemplifies the beautiful spiritual teachings of Christ! Christ didn’t want us to care about the material world and worry about things like food or how we can care about our body but our spiritual life. If you truly let go of your ego and surrender to God then God will take care of all your needs. You don’t need to focus on the material and food but the spiritual. We have saints like St. Anthony the Great and the Desert Fathers for example who relinquished all materialistic things and went into the desert without any food or preparation for their bodies. Angels used to appear to these desert fathers and feed them bread and the like. Again, Christianity is a spiritual religion and not materialistic at all very similar to the eastern religions in a certain sense.
With Matthew 10 Jesus is saying that because of belief in Christ many people will be martyred as that was what occurred during the Roman persecution and still occurs to this day. Also, in virtue of people converting to christianity many families will disown the converts and that’s why Jesus was saying families will be separated because of belief in him. In the muslim world for example when muslims convert to Christianity their families disown them.
For Matthew 12 this is a beautiful teaching of Christ showing us that us Christians are all the brothers and sisters and mothers of Christ. So beautiful teaching us that there are no special treatments of specific people but that we are all one under Christ which is further asserted by Paul in Galatians.
I think these passages that you reference are not bizarre but so beautiful. The problem is the way you’re reading into the passages. You’re doing external critiques instead of internal critiques on these passages. Look at the way Christians have interpreted these and that should be the correct reading not your own isegesis of these verses but exegesis should be the way to look at these passages right?
There's a lot in your comment that I disagree with but I'll just discuss the end.
No, you shouldn't just look at how Christians interpret passages. Of course Christians interpret everything Jesus said as wise, just, and temperate. The question is whether that is plausible. One can always explain away any implausible-sounding passage, but if the passage has a more plausible non-divine reading, it's evidence against Christiantiy.
That's engaging in external critiques not internal critiques. However, personally I like engaging in internal critiques. Like when I critique Islam I will use their own exegetes and books to criticize their worldview and their quranic passages using their own exegetes. I don't find that I'll convince the muslim by doing an external critique that wouldn't be binding or authoritative on the muslim in any way. Likewise, those external critiques committed by you on certain biblical passages are not binding or authoritative on Christians. They're not going to prove anything to the christian as ultimately they will be question begging. In a certain way and sense, if we assume Christianity is true then certain interpretations you had about biblical passages would be impossible as that would mean Christ wasn't perfect but scripture teaches that he is perfect so if the Christian has evidences for the truth of Christianity and scripture your interpretations and isegesis of scripture would be question begging as they would assume the falsity of Christianity in which the Christian would reject.
Guess I know what I am doing after I finish my book
Writing or reading?
Writing
So, maybe a year lol
lol, then write the reply first!
No lol. I’m trying to enjoy my Easter and stuff. I don’t expect you to die anytime soon and hopefully someone else will pick this up first. Besides, it’ll give me an excuse to get less annoyed over time by what I took to be your worst arguments so I can be nice and polite when I reply.
:)
This is highly intellectualized. One does not come to know God by reading the Bible and then carefully reasoning out if it logically makes sense. Of course it makes no sense. It’s otherworldly— not only does it speak of truths that are of another world (heaven/hell), it’s also from the 1st century. Nevertheless, I do commend you for reading the Bible anyways.
In eastern orthodoxy, we understand God to reveal himself to the human heart— not the mind.
If you actually want to find God, a great one to start with is “God’s revelation to the human heart” by seraphim rose. Short and sweet, not at all bitter like his usual works. If you *really* want to find God, know that just a bit of desire in your heart is already the first step in prayer. He sees your desire.
The next step is to come to an Orthodox Church. You don’t need to commit yourself to anything, not even coming back a second time. As we say come and see.” Talk to a priest, a good one, and tell them that you want to know God but can’t find faith.
Very different than reading the Bible like a myth to debunk! Of course, you can do all of this and get frustrated and leave without receiving God’s revelation. But if you truly want to know Christ, this is the way brother.
Okay, now onwards, in which I will point out your errors in your reading of the text:
The Trinity
Mystery
Sorry, just because you find the divine nature of God unfathomable, does not mean it’s not true. God is three person, one essence, united in love. You’re right! It makes no sense, it is a mystery, like much of the nature of the spiritual truth! In my catechesis class, they directly told us not to think about it too hard. God is ineffable.
Three persons, one in Essence
You also make a critical error when you say that God’s identity is transitive. This is not consistent with the dogma. The “is” in “the son is God” is not referring to his identity nor personhood — thus we have three distinct persons in the trinity. The is refers to the participation In one divine nature — thus there is one essence that God is united into.
This isn’t just abstract speculation, it governs our experience of Christ. The church prays to the Father, the son and the Holy Spirit. There are no prayers to Jesus or the father or the Holy Spirit alone.
Why? It is not three Gods as you claim to prove polytheism of christianity— but one God who is relational. Again, does it make complete sense? No. But we are to accept mystery and understand that we cannot comprehend God. There is a saint that says our access to God on earth is like one grain of sand compared to the entire beach (paraphrase). We are limited by our human nature.
It is hard to accept, especially for people like you who seem more rationally minded. Thus we also get passages in the Bible about how it is difficult for people who are wise of the world to come to faith. But it is true.
Why not infinite Gods?
You also speculate that many Gods would be better than just three. Well, the problem is that no one made up the faith. Perhaps if someone did, then 1000 Gods would indeed be better. There are three Gods because three Gods have been revealed in the incarnation and pentecost.
The number three is not derived from the abstract logic of divine love — swineburg, unfortunately, did not convert to Eastern Orthodoxy until later in life. The Eastern Orthodox do not fully endorse his reasoning, but still appreciate his brilliance. We refer to the church fathers instead. Technically, the model we refer to, that I keep referencing, is called the capacocian model.
The atonement
Yes, the atonement *is* weird. In fact, idk if there’s anything you could tell me is weird about the christian faith and I’d disagree. Perhaps if you said it’s weird that so many people agree with something so strange I would disagree, on the basis that it’s true. And yet, I would have to grant you that the truth is odd.
Sacrificial Victim
For understanding of the sacrificial victim, I prefer Girard. Before I converted to christianity, Rene Girard made me understand christianity’s unique value. To him, God forbade human sacrifice, (which we see in Issac and Abraham, God prevents it) yet human beings commit sacrificial murder as a part of our sociological structure. Goats were also part of a movement away from the human sacrifice. Thus it is not only jews or Christians who sacrifice, yet the ancient pagans as well — often sacrificing humans. You pit sacrifice against religious teachings. And yet, it is Christ who reveals the innocence of the scapegoat. Your modern sensibilities are a product of Christ’s victory over death on the cross. Highly recommend Girard, especially because you are rationally minded.
The atonement
God punishing an innocent man in our place is indeed barbaric. The Orthodox Church would agree with you — except that is not how she understands the atonement at all. What you’re criticizing is a western model of the atonement (penal substitutionary atonement), which imagines sin as a legal debt and God as a judge who demands punishment, which christ then absorbs in our place. The church never taught this.
The orthodox view of atonement is rooted in our understanding of sin. Sin is not breaking the rules. It is a sickness, a corruption, a turning a way from life (which is found in communion with God) as a result of the fall. Christ descended into our condition— into death-- to overthrow death.
God did not punish Jesus. God through the person of Jesus entered into our suffering and defeated it. It’s an act of divine love. Christ didn’t die instead of us, but with us. The western church believes salvation to be a transaction. Yet Christ invites us to die with him, and rise again with him — “take up your cross and follow me.” It is the way by which we heal from the fall and reach theosis.
There are even some priests who will say that God did not have to sacrifice Jesus, this was not the only possible way to restore humanity. But it was the most perfect way, because it is the most loving, the most self emptying, and the most complete. Christ freely offered himself for humanity.
Scripture
Okay, again, another western — specifically protestant reading. We’d be in trouble if the Bible had to be flawless.
The orthodox understand that scripture is not a divine encyclopedia or clean philosophical system. It’s a library. Some parts are history, some are poetry, some are lament, some are prophecy, and some are criess of anguish of people under siege. It was written by human beings, not God himself (though with his inspiration), with their own personalities, limitations, and cultural assumptions.
Some passages are brutal. They express raw, unfiltered rage. The psalms contain cries for vengeance, the prophets rage against oppressions. God does not endorse every word. It is God allowing the full voice of human experience, including grief, fury, and injustice, to be taken up into prayer. “By the rivers of Babylon…” was not meant to teach ethics. It was a cry of pain from people in exile.
Though, this being said, I also grapple with some of this stuff. It is difficult to understand that the holy ones could hold such vengeance in their hearts. Yet, I can emphasize, in that I also have desired such vengeance against those who have hurt me. And instead I pray, knowing vengeance is not mine.
A contradiction in genealogy, a violent war account, or a historical inaccuracy is not a threat to our faith, because its only a problem if you think the Bible is a science textbook dropped straight from heaven.
Violence
You are right to say that some of these texts reflect a historical mindset of ancient Israel (common between all tribes) where victories were interpreted as signs of divine favor. The church does not read these as timeless endorsements of violence. Should someone say “God will love if I start a war with China and kill everyone in the land. Everyone come pick up your cross and follow Jesus in the slaying of the Chinese” the church would find this deeply problematic.
The Old Testament is true, but incomplete. It contains the gradual revelation of God through a specific people at a specific time, leading towards Christ. Christ himself says “you have heard it said… but I say to you” (Matt 5:38- 44). He does not reject scripture, as you point out, but he transcends it — correcting human misunderstandings of God’s will and revealing deeper meaning. He takes isreals understanding of justice and replaces it with mercy, non-retaliation, and self-sacrifical love.
So when we see violence in scripture, we neither deny it happened nor say it was an example of God’s will enacted perfectly.
“Blessed is he who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock.”
From a historical point of view, psalm 137 is a lament. The Babylonians had slaughtered civilians including children and enslaved survivors. It’s a brutally honest cry from a people who had suffered total desolation. The “dashing of babies” is expressing a desire for retribution — the dashing of babies is exactly something the babylonians would’ve done to Isreal’s children.
The psalms are holy not because they are completely moral. They bring every part of the human heart, even the ugliest parts, before God.
Yet, it’s not how the church fathers read scripture. Origen (3rd century) says that the infants of Babylon are the beginnings of sinful thoughts, which must be killed before they grow into full blown passions. The rock is christ, the firm foundation. Again, this is where we get into trouble if the Bible is a science textbook. Its not. There are many instances of allegory. In this light, the violent destruction of enemies in the psalms makes a lot more sense. Our enemies are the powers and principalities, and sin. The church fathers press that scripture must be read in light of Christ.
Jesus
Okay, im getting fatigued. Idk if I’ll write out a rebuttal to every claim. But you misinterpret every line of scripture here, divorcing it from tradition and spiritual reality.
Jesus came to be the truth and reveal God by living it. Many sayings of Christ may sound offensive or regressive by modern standards. You fail to judge Christ by truth but by plausibility, relatability, and cultural utility.
You’re scandalized that he said hard things. Of course he did. He didn’t flatter his audience. He told people to give up everything and die to themselves.
Christ is not a modern progressive. His contradictions with modern ideas are not errors, they’re evidence that His standard is not psychological wellness but ontological healing. The human person is not just an organism in search of balance. We are meant to seek communion with God. Sin — such as divorce — is not just a bad life outcome. It wounds our communion with God.
You want a God who confirms your sense of what a reasonable teacher would say by modern standards. But the truth is timeless, and does not conform to this world.
Slavery
You say God should’ve revealed germ theory or condemned slavery or at least said less strange sentences. This is silly. You’re acting as if God must act like an enlightened scientist or philosopher. Do you seriously think that if Jesus condemned slavery, the entire system of labor could’ve been overhauled? Would we have immediately switched over to capitalism? Which is not even perfect by Christian standards?
What we do have in scripture is the forbiddance of poor treatment of slaves. Rape is forbidden. Beating slaves to death is forbidden. These are huge changes for slaves at the time. Christ tells the people at the time to look at their slaves as if they are Christ himself. And treat them thus throughly.
Divorce
You cannot simply say divorce is good because it makes people happy. Christ did not come to maximize comfort, far far from it. What about “pick up your cross and follow me” reveals that the christian path is about pursuing happiness? It is about conforming ones life to the truth, and becoming like God as a result.
What about the spiritual reality of sex and marriage making two one flesh before God? This is why divorce is forbidden — and furthermore, you’re also divorcing it from tradition. In an abusive relationship, they are allowances made by priests. If a marriage is hateful, and one has done all they can to resolve it through the church’s guidance, the priest may allow divorce. This is born out of the understanding of human weakness. Christianity is not a legalistic tradition. But divorce is meant to be the last recourse that requires repentance and humility before the truth God has revealed. A divorce is a huge failure before Christ’s call to us, but it is not irredeemable.
“I did not come to bring peace but a sword”
Yes, the truth is decisive. The particular meaning of this passage is that following christ will cause division between believers and nonbelievers. A pagan who comes to faith in christ will neccessarily need to endure difficulties in family life afterwards — they will struggle to understand why they reject their cultural tradition.
When Christ says we must hate our mother and father he is speaking in a way that is common to the ancient jews — the semitic hyperbole. It’s not a call to hatred, he’s not saying despise your parents. We are, in actuality, called to respect our elders. He’s saying nothing, not even our relationship with our family, can come before God.
It sounds extreme until you also realized we are also called to die for him, literally, should we be persecuted. Allowing our relationships with our families to become strained, even for ourselves to be exiled from family life in the worst of cases, in order to not deny Christ (example: not going to a hindu temple) is comparatively mild.
Hell
Hell is not immoral. In orthodox christian understanding, it is the light of God. It is not a punishment. If we do not seek healing through repentance in this life, we can not withstand his light and we experience it as a burning fire. We become demonized. Hell was not created for man. It was created for the demons.
Also, the tradition does not claim that anyone not in the church is immediately condemned. We understand that salvation is a mystery. Even we who are in the church are not immediately saved. Only God can judge our hearts. Further, God desires the salvation of all people. He does not legalistically judge us, but looks for any reason we should be saved.
The orthodox teach that the only way we go to hell is the total rejection of God’s mercy and forgiveness. This is the unforgivable sin.
Okay I’ll end here. Too much effort to go on. But yeah. Refer to the first passage. You will not reach god if you condemn him by worldly standards
I hope he responds to this! I’m very interested in seeing his thinking on a more orthodox perspective.
I probably won't sadly--a bit fatigued from responding to lots of comments.
It would be quite a lot to respond to all this! But I'll hold out hope for another day lol.
I hope so too, I’m glad you read it. I looked at it again and realized why I got tired… this is a whole essay 😂
Divorcing belief from rationality undermines religious commitment. There's much more interesting things to believe in like anime and sci fi stories than religions. If I can turn my brain off I'd rather believe those are "true" insofar as the true/false dichotomy is still meaningful when the standards are so relaxed and up to aesthetic preferences.
Yeah, the Christians always thought rationality was important, even in early church history
>People often argue that the tomb must have been empty because the testimony to it came from women, and in a patriarchal Jewish society, that wouldn’t have been made up. I find this argument doubtful for two reasons. First, thematically, a key part of the Markan narrative is that Jesus’s disciples were doubtful and had abandoned him. The women were the only game in town!
Mark (the Gospel author, not me) also doesn't claim that the women were the testimonial source of anything. Maybe he believed a bunch of men later went and corroborated the story; we don't know, because the Gospel ends there. But even if women were the source, I think the extent of the patriarchy's grip exaggerated. Maybe women's testimonies weren't admissible in court or whatever (I'm not sure), but I have no doubt Judean men believed claims made by Judean women all the time, and moreover maybe the specific, unknown audience Mark was writing to happened to be more egalitarian than most.
On atonement, tolle lege: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol26/iss3/2/
This is my fav atonement theory
I actually think even infinity would be an arbitrary number of persons in the divine N-ity because, "infinity" doesn't fully specify how many persons there are. Aleph 0? Aleph 1? Beth_{epsilon_0}? The smallest inaccessible cardinal? All seem arbitrary.
Unsetly many!
Unsetly has the same problem as infinity - it's not a specific quantity. There are unsetly many sets and unsetly many proper classes, but there are strictly more proper classes than there are sets, by Cantor's Theorem.
On the evidence for Christianity, I'd want to say a couple of things.
(1) I think Swinburne is 110% correct that a proper evaluation of this topic requires us to take into the account the prior probability of God becoming incarnate, as well as the probable characteristics that God incarnate would have. You talk about some related issues (e.g. those pertaining to Jesus' teachings), but I don't think you give this issue enough attention. If one is persuaded that (i) it's quite probable that God would become incarnate, and that (ii) God incarnate would live a life filled with religious teaching and serious suffering, then the prior probability of Christianity will go up dramatically (particularly since Jesus is the only figure in human history with an even half-way serious claim to being God incarnate).
(2) I think post-resurrection Christian miracles should get more attention here. Pretty much all of the persuasive miracle claims throughout history take place in a Christian context: odd phenomena like rainbow bodies take place in entirely non-theistic contexts (and so probably aren't good candidates for divine miracles intended to validate a religion), while the other major theistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam) lag seriously behind Christianity in this respect. That's quite surprising if Christianity is false: even if one thinks that God would work to reach people through false religious traditions, it seems borderline misleading for him to do so principally through *one* of those false religious traditions. Note also that the Christian miracle claims often revolve around distinctively Christian doctrines (i.e. doctrines which are flatly inconsistent with the other theistic religions): think of Marian apparitions, or appearances of the risen Christ. It's not just that Christians are miraculously healed by God (though that sometimes happens); it's that they're healed by God after e.g. praying to the Virgin Mary, or doing other things which God presumably wouldn't want people to do if Christianity is false. (This relates to the points that Alec and Aron Wall made, with which I agree.)
(3) Regarding Jesus's teachings, I think it's important to recall that lots of things which *would* be really bad if a normal person said them cease to be bad *if* the person who said them is God. (Swinburne makes this point in his book on the Resurrection: some of Jesus's claims and actions are such that they *would* be morally objectionable if a mere mortal did them, but *not* if he was God.) So for instance, consider the passage about hating father and mother etc. If a random religious leader said that, it would be outrageous, because this leader would be telling his followers to prioritize himself over their own families. But this ceases to be objectionable if the speaker is God. (You *should* prioritize God over your family!)
I also think this should be discussed in connection with the Lewis trilemma. Jesus's teachings have a striking mixture of two elements: (i) they commend exemplary moral treatment of others, without demanding any temporal benefits for Jesus himself (indeed, they involve his predicting his own murder, which scholars like Allison and Casey have argued is probably historical), and (ii) they involve Jesus demanding to be the made the number one priority in his disciples' lives. This is a very odd mixture, unlike anything else ever given by a major religious figure. Other figures typically either (a) give teachings which materially benefit themselves, or else (b) they entirely put themselves to the side. Only Jesus displays this peculiar mixture, demanding nothing temporal for himself, while asking to become everything to those who follow him.
There is a limit on the size of comments, so I'll reply with the rest afterwards.
You are right that if Jesus rose from the dead, the other claims of the Christian worldview still need to be evaluated. In fact, the Jewish scholar Pinchas Lapide accepted that Jesus rose from the dead without becoming a Christian.
Regarding the Trinity, some argue, I think William Lane Craig for example, that identity was not always viewed as transitive, but I am not sure how accurate that is. Even if that is true, an account of the Trinity is still needed, so here is mine: God is analogous to Moonknight, the superhero. Moonknight has a somewhat fantastical form of Dissociative Identity Disorder. Moonknight actually consists of three persons (I think, maybe it is more) who are all Moonknight, and part of the character is that they start out not getting along or not being aware of each others' existence. Likewise, God is three persons in one, just as how a being with DID can be multiple persons. The fact that Moonknight is multiple persons is integral to his identity, but each of the persons are not the other persons (in fact, they argue and sometimes work against each other).
I am a fan of Bernardo Kastrups idealism, and he argues that we are all dissociated altars within the mind of God. I would say that in order for an altar to be God himself, he would have to have the properties of God, but theoretically, God can have unlimited altars. I think this might address your arbitrary number concern. Perhaps God is an infinite set of persons, or he contains an infinite set of persons, but only three of them are God.
Also, the concept of the Trinity did not come out of nowhere. It has precedence within ancient Judaism, called the "Two Powers of Heaven" doctrine. Alan Segal wrote a book called "Two Powers of Heaven" arguing that ancient Judaism, including in the first century, had this idea that there were two persons of God: The Angel of the Lord and the Lord.
I do not believe the atonement is that weird, especially compared to alternatives. Remember, the premise of Christianity is that all of humanity is rebellious against God, and it (minus Israel) is in the realm of the corrupt Sons of God (see Psalm 82 and Deut. 32:8-9). What could God do about this? He could kill everyone, but the problem is that everyone would be dead. He could arbitrarily forgive everyone, but that would not really solve the underlying issue. He is trying to form loving relationships with humans, and arbitrarily forgiving a bunch of rebellious humans would not change their hearts and minds. It would be the equivalent of releasing every prisoner in the world unconditionally and removing all of the laws that brought them to prison in the first place.
The incarnation can solve this conundrum, however. How can we reconcile with God? We humans need empathy, so God incarnated as a man and suffered brutal torture to show his love for us. Also, he showed us how to follow him and live a good life. Another crucial part of the atonement was defeating the dark powers (corrupt Sons of God), allowing people from all nations (not just Israel) to learn the truth about God and become saved. Michael Heiser notes that the dark powers did not know what Jesus was up to, so this was a surprise to them. They think they defeated God himself by having Jesus killed, but then he descends down (1 Peter 3) to tell them that they lost. It might sound arbitrary from an abstract perspective that God chose to get crucified from the Romans in the first century, but since God has all of the available information, I just assume he knows best.
In short, the atonement is not just about forgiveness. Be sure not to confuse least likely model of atonement, penal substitution, with the atonement itself. The atonement did a lot of things, including by defeating the dark powers, letting gentiles join the family of Abraham, and showing his love to mankind. There is a lot more to say, but I'll leave that to the books (NT Wright, for example, has a lot to say about this). Besides, if Christianity is true, it would be safe to assume that God's method of saving us is the best way, even if we don't understand why. Here is an interesting series on the atonement, and it may provide some answers: https://drmsh.com/did-yahweh-demand-blood-for-a-true-relationship-with-him-were-the-other-gods-more-merciful-to-their-people/.
One more thing on the atonement, it is unlikely that they would have fabricated it. Both first century Jews and Romans criticized Christianity for worshipping a God that got crucified. Crucifixion was a shameful and humiliating thing, and Deut. 21:23 states that anyone hung on a tree is under God's curse. An interesting example of this kind of criticism is the Alexamenos graffito, which I suggest looking up (it is ancient graffiti) .
I think there is some confusion about inerrancy. Inerrancy is about its theological accuracy, not historical accuracy. Regardless, most people get hung up on their misunderstandings of the Bible, especially the Old Testament. For example, people falsely believe that God commands Israel to commit genocide. This is plainly false. In those cases, such as Deut. 7 and 1 Sam. 15, it is obviously hyperbole. In Deut. 7, for example, God also tells them not to intermarry with the listed nations. Who would they be intermarrying, if they were utterly destroyed? In 1 Sam. 15, the Amalekites are said to be utterly destroyed, except for king Agag, who is later killed by Samuel. However, the Amalekites appear against in 1 Sam. 30. How is this possible if they were actually destroyed? Again, it is hyperbole.
Also, it is important to note that the Mosaic law was imperfect, as acknowledged by Jesus (see his views on divorce laws). The "Law" was actually a type of treaty between God and his people, so it includes compromises with Israel. For example, it did not ban slavery, although many restrictions were made against it. It also allowed Israel to have a king, even though God did not want them to have one (see 1 Sam. 8). Actually, not even all of the law came from God, see Num. 27 for example. This video sums it up well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93JdjLqBQqE&t=222s&ab_channel=InspiringPhilosophy, and see The Lost World of the Torah: Law as Covenant and Wisdom in Ancient Context.
You say a lot about Jesus's teachings. I do not mean this in a mean way, but you are clearly unfamiliar with even some fairly basic Christian responses to your concerns. I don't blame you for this, though. It is hard to get sane information on this topic, and Christian infighting makes it difficult to find the decent scholarly Christian views. Perhaps read some of the New American Commentaries on the New Testament for some conservative Christian views, or dig through Inspiringphilosophy's channel (especially the sources he cites). Also, Mike Winger's video on divorce I think is pretty good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2pC6ZikbYo&t=9911s&ab_channel=MikeWinger. I can give a few responses too. You mention Jesus's strong language in Matthew 10 about hating your family. This is another case of hyperbole. He is using figurative language to show the dedication needed to follow him. Regarding John 6, he is clearly using metaphor to describe how people need to believe in him and follow him. See more here: https://drmsh.com/the-lord-supper-supernatural-constipation-lords-supper-part-2/.
>It might sound arbitrary from an abstract perspective that God chose to get crucified from the Romans in the first century, but since God has all of the available information, I just assume he knows best.
>Besides, if Christianity is true, it would be safe to assume that God's method of saving us is the best way, even if we don't understand why.
These are psychological vices designed to keep you believing in something for which a factual investigation wouldn't let you keep believing in.
God has all of the available data. I do not. Therefore, God is more likely to make optimal decisions than I am.
But this is just circular, since the plausibility of God’s omniscience and goodness is what’s under dispute.
I think I need to clarify what I am saying. It sounds like I am making an ontological claim, but really, I am trying to make an epistemological claim.
Since I do not have anywhere close to the amount of data required to model the optimal decision making of a God, I am unable to make those kinds of arguments regarding a God's optimal decision making (or lack of it).
So I can't evaluate God's goodness (or whatever) based on empirical observations about the world, for I don't know enough about this world, nor do I know enough about all possible worlds. For all I know, God has made optimal decisions, from an empirical perspective.
In order to argue that God is (or isn't) omniscient, I would have to make an argument that does not rely on empirical data.
Now for what you regard to be the most problematic passages. For the first, you could watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnNJXMkwx4w&ab_channel=InspiringPhilosophy. The main point is that they did not think about prophecy in the way we do. Prophecy was more complicated than prediction. They were conditional on the proper response of the community.
Again, the family hating is hyperbolic language.
Hell is an interesting topic. A lot of figurative language is used to describe hell (which, by the way, is a catch-all term for multiple places, like Hades and Gehenna). I won't give an exegesis of every passage about hell here, but it is noteworthy that evangelical/fundamentalist Christians assume hell is Eternal Conscious Torment based on Jesus's parables and other clearly figurative sayings. This is a poor understanding of what Jesus is saying about hell. Instead, he is talking about the psychology of hell (namely, what kind of thinking gets you there). Take the parable of the rich man in Luke 16 for example. In this parable, the rich man goes to hades, where he is being tormented, and yet, he is able to ask Lazarus for some water. If he was truly being tortured, how could he even talk? The actual lesson of the parable is that the rich man, instead of asking to be freed from hell, wanted the poor man he treated badly to come and serve him in while in hell! It is a moral and psychological lesson, not a lesson on hell. Watch how Jesus talks about hell, and you will realize that he is not focused on ontology.
Another thing, if Jesus is claiming to be the Son of Man from Daniel 12, then he is claiming to be one of the Two Powers of Heaven, as I mentioned earlier. In fact, there are many instances where he claims to be God, but it is not obvious to contemporary readers. For example, when Jesus quotes Psalm 82: https://www.thedivinecouncil.com/Heiser%20Psa82inJohn10%20RegSBL2011.pdf.
I have noticed that you mainly have a problem with interpretations of some Biblical passages, interpretations that I believe are incorrect. Unfortunately, the best interpretations tend to be stuck in a sea of academic articles, but thankfully, some scholars have managed to popularize important ideas. You should read Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm, and then you can jump into that rabbit hole. That is how many (intellectual) Christians nowadays got introduced to good Biblical scholarship and theology, so if you want a comprehensive view of the story of the Bible, as well as better interpretations of passages, compared to typical evangelical and fundamentalist views (which become well-known because they are loud, sort of like how moderate liberals can be lumped in with the much louder Marxists), you can start there.
>Perhaps God is an infinite set of persons, or he contains an infinite set of persons, but only three of them are God.
>Also, the concept of the Trinity did not come out of nowhere. It has precedence within ancient Judaism, called the "Two Powers of Heaven" doctrine. Alan Segal wrote a book called "Two Powers of Heaven" arguing that ancient Judaism, including in the first century, had this idea that there were two persons of God: The Angel of the Lord and the Lord.
This is better evidence for a sociohistorical debunking of the trinity. A nearby and interrelated religious group - the Jews - made the same silly contradictory statement that God is both 2 and 1 persons. You believe this claim is false because the Jews offer little evidence for it. Christianity makes the same claim except it's 3 instead of 2 persons. It similarly gives very poor justification for understanding the asserted contradiction. This is because early Jews and Christians were just making shit up to differentiate themselves from others and there was some crosstalk between them due to geographic proximity that resulted in them asserting similarly false things that functioned as ingroup-outgroup identifiers.
"made the same silly contradictory statement that God is both 2 and 1 persons. "
That is not what the doctrine is.
Great post! Just three quick points:
(1) One correction about the Trinity - it isn't clear that the identity involved in the Trinity requires transitivity. In his article on Aquinas's view of the Trinity, Paasch points out that "Aquinas thinks the kind of sameness that occurs in the Trinity is not transitive." That is, the identity relation here isn't strict classical identity, but something weaker. Similarly, Koons's view of the Trinity denies the divine persons are strictly identical --- instead of being strictly identical, they lack real distinctness, which is "a weaker condition than strict identity." This is something Koons gets from Aquinas - "Lack of real distinction corresponds to Aquinas's notion of identitas secundum rem".
(2) One can be a Christian and reject inerrantism - Lydia McGrew is one example of a staunch Christian evidentialist who is an errantist (I know you've interviewed her, but you probably have many readers who haven't heard of her).
(3) It seems strange to reject the resurrection because one rejects other traditional Christian claims. The objections against the Trinity, atonement, etc. don't tell us anything about whether the resurrection accounts are reliable. If it turns out Jesus wasn't perfect, that wouldn't raise or lower the probability of "These accounts are reliable." If I tell you Jack made a mistake, you can't conclude that my testimony is worthless. Of course, you could argue the case for the resurrection fails by itself, but you have said in another comment that "I would accept the resurrection if I didn't think there were independent powerful arguments against Christianity."