CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
Part I. Philosophy and History
Erick Nelson
For J.W. Montgomery
September 17, 1977
Text Re-Entered December, 2007
Kepler undertook to draw a curve through the places of Mars; and his greatest service to science was in impressing on men’s minds that this was the thing to be done if they wished to improve astronomy; that they were not to content themselves with inquiring whether one system of epicyces was better than another but that they were to sit down by the figures and find out what the curve, in truth, was.
C.S. Peirce, Collected Papers (ed. By C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss), Vol V.; preserved in Copi, Readings on Logic, p 63.
There is no virtue in being clver, if by being clever we are merely being wrong.
W.S. LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, p 27.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE: THE CRITICS
1. Bertrand Russell
2. Ludwig Feuerbach
3. Walter Kauffman
4. Sigmund Freud
5. Paramahansa Yogananda
6. Mahatma Gandhi
7. Hugh Schonfield
8. Erich Von Daniken
9. James Utter
10. Owen Jensen
11. Barry Dank
12. Gerald Larue
13. Summary of Objections
CHAPTER TWO: METHOD OF INVESTIGATION – EPISTEMOLOGY
1. Critics’ notion of faith
2. N.T. notion of truth
3. N.T. notion of faith
4. Assumptions
5. Conflicting assumptions
6. Starting point: cogito, plus experience
7. Symbolic representation
8. Equivalence of mathematics and symbolic logic
9. Deduction and induction
10. Summary of epistemological approach
CHAPTER THREE: THE POSSIBILITY OF UNDERSTANDING REALITY – METAPHYSICS
1. The existence of an objective world
2. Ordering experience
3. Fallacy of materialism
4. Kant: the noumenon is beyond possible experience
5. Ethics – subjectivism
6. Naturalistic objectivism
7. Judging between pleasures – importance of metaphysics
8. Self-discolosure of the noumenon
9. Theistic model
10. Monistic model
11. Summary of metaphysical problem
CHAPTER FOUR: METHOD OF VERIFICATION – EVIDENCE
1. The ontological proof
2. The cosmological proof
3. Modes of self-disclosure of the moumenon
4. Miracles
5. Myth and symbols
6. Verification and alsification
7. Standards of legal evidence – competence
8. Standards of legal evidence – veracity
9. Burden of and degree of proof
10. Historiography
CHAPTER FIVE: MATERIALS CONCERNING JESUS
1. Pagan authors
2. Jewish sources
3. Textual criticism
4. Uncial MSS
5. Papyri MSS and miniscules
6. Versions
7. Patristic quotations
8. Lectionaries
9. Analysing the text
10. Comparison with classical MSS
CHAPTER SIX: JESUS’ CLAIM
1. Messianic prophecy
2. Son of Man in Jewish literature
3. The Zealots
4. Qumran and the Essenes
5. Jesus’ application of Messiah and Son of Man
6. Jewish and Hellenistic concepts of Son of God
7. Jesus’ application of Son of God
8. Pre-existence of Jesus
9. Relationship of Father and Son
10. Sin and worship
11. Pau; “I Am”
12. Religious leaders, relative to this claim
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE ALTERNATIVES
1. Resurrection in Acts’ kerygma and the epistles
2. Gospel resurrection accounts
3. Discrepencies and contradiction
4. The three lternatives to the truth of this claim
5. The Pot hypothesis
6. The Misled hypothesis – the resurrection
7. The Misled hypothesis – Jesus’ claim
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE LEGEND HYPOTHESIS
1. Four evidential points
2. Pericopae
3. Life-situation – didn’t want to preserve truth
4. Legends – weren’t able to preserve truth
5. Hellenistic notions added to aJewish framework
6. Method of interpretation: Cath 22
7. Basis – anti-miraculous presuppositions
8. Summary
CHAPTER NINE: EYEWITNESS CHARACTERISTICS
1. Councils and the canon
2. Paul’s letters
3. Mark – niternal evidence
4. Mark – external evidence
5. Dating the New Testament
6. Mark – dating
7. Luke/Acts – internal
8. Luke/Acts – dating
9. Matthew – internal and external
10. Matthew – dating
11. John – internal
12. John – external
13. John – dating
14. Legend hypothesis: evaluation
15. Application of legal nd historiographical evidential standards to this problem
CHAPTER TEN: CONTRA THE CRITICS
1. Emotion, not reason
2. Belief-system
3. Verifying God’s existence
4. Miracles
5. Proofs of God
6. Historical Jesus, interest
7. Private interpretation of documents
8. Textual corruption
9. Existence of historical Jesus
10. Hellenistic additions
11. Councils
12. Legend hypothesis
13. Summary of rebuttal
Footnotes
Appendix A:
A. Interviewing College Professors
Appendices B thru M:
B. Faith and Truth in the New Testament
C. Greek Papyri, Uncials, and Miniscules
D. Early Patristic Quotation of the New Testament
E. Bibliographic Evidence: Time Spans and Extant Copies
F. Disputed, Undisputed, and Spurious Works
G. The Accuracy of Mark’s History
H. The Accuracy of Luke’s History
I. The Accuracy of John’s History
J. Similarities Between the Gospels and Epistles
K. Symptoms of Schizophrenia
L. Concerning a Late Date for Mark
M. Logical Fallacies
Bibliography
Chapter One: The Critics
1
Bertrand Russell, well-known for his work in philosophy and mathematics, gives an explanation of his criticisms of Christianity. First, he offers a critique of the traditional “proofs for the existence of God”, showing that each is faulty logically and/or semantically. In doing so, he feels that he is destroying one of the major props of theism [1]. Further, he believes that fear is at the root of all religious belief, and therefore explains this belief. He says, “Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes.” [2] And also, “Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.” [3]
Moving from philosophy to history, it is Russell’s position that there may never have an historical Jesus, and that - even if there were – “we do not know anything about Him, so that I am not concerned with the historical question, which is a very difficult one.” [4]
Russell does not profess to be able to show that there definitely is no God, but thinks the problem too difficult for any determinative solution:
I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian God may exist; so may the Gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them. [5]
2
Ludwig Feurbach is a major source for the anti-Christian position of Karl Marx, [6] and is a significant philosopher in his own right. He basically feels that Christianity is in reality wish-fulfillment: the belief in the reality of that which one desires.
The fundamental dogmas of Christianity are realised wishes of the heart – the essence of Christianity is the essence of human feeling. It is pleasanter to be passive than to act, to be redeemed and made free by another than to free oneself; pleasanter to make one’s salvation dependent on a person than on the force of one’s own spontaneity; … pleasanter, in short, to allow oneself to be acted on by one’s own feeling, as by another, but yet fundamentally identical being, than to regulate oneself by reason. [7]
He bolsters his argument by appealing o three things. First, he denies the reality of miracles, which he calls “the inconceivable.” [8] He argues that we mistakenly think the concept “miracle” to be conceivable because it operates with observable, material objects and events; however, “I first see water and then wine; but the miracle itself, that which makes this water suddenly wine – this, not being a natural process, … is no object of real, or even of possible experience.” [9]
Second, he moves into the realm of history and thinks that there was a growing Christology, added to Jesus by the early church (incorrectly reflecting his nature in Hellenistic terms).
Third, he (like Russell) feels that there is no empirical way to judge the ontological status of a God: in order to know if something really exists (apart from one’s imagination), there must be some way of verifying that existence.
Real, sensational existence is that which is not dependent on my own mental spontaneity or activity, but by which I am involuntarily affected, which is when I am not, when I do not think of it or feel it. The existence of God must therefore be in space – in general, a qualitative, sensational existence. But God is not seen, not heard, not perceived by the senses … if I do not believe in a God, there is no God for me. … Thus he exists only in so far as he is felt, thought, believed in – the addition “for me” is unnecessary. … Or: he is a sensational existence, to which however all the conditions of sensational existence are wanting … To existence belongs full, definite, reality.
A necessary consequence of this contradiction is Atheism. The existence of God is essentially an empirical existence, without having its distinctive marks; it is in itself a matter of experience, and yet in reality no object of experience. [11]
3
Walter Kauffman, contemporary philosopher and author on Nietzsche, is indebted to Schweitzer in his understanding of Jesus. [12] He admits that Jesus’ claims concerning himself were not those of a mere moral teacher: if those claims are accurately recorded. “ … if he said half the things about himself that the Gospels relate, it must have seemed the most shocking blasphemy to the Pharisees. … Whether this is how it actually happened, we have no way of knowing for sure; but this is the Christian story, as related in the Gospels.” [13] He explains the allocation to Jesus of this incredible saying by the alteration by Paul the Apostle of the basic truth taught by somewhat timid disciples:
Never having heard the preaching of Jesus, he felt free to develop a new teaching about Jesus; and he transformed a message of parables and hyperboles into a theological religion. What he said was clearly different from what Jesus had said; but Jesus’ teaching had been so utterly elusive that neither Peter nor James, the brother of Jesus, nor the other disciples who had listened to him day after day were able to point to anything clear or definite to combat Paul. [14]
Kauffman, unlike many of his fellow-critics, is open to changing his mind. “See if it is lack of thoughtfulness that accounts for our disagreement. And if there are experiences that I have not had, books I have not read, that have helped to form you, tell me about them so I can read them and think about them.” [14a]
4
Sigmund Freud is, of course, known for his contributions to psychology. He seeks to explain Christianity as the fulfillment of primitive unconscious desires, rather than sober fact. “I have tried to show that religious ideas have arisen from the same need as have all the other achievements of civilization: from the necessity of defending oneself against the crushingly superior force of nature.” [15]
He adds to this the charge of textual corruption, [16] the refutation of miracle-claims by science, [17] and refers to the similarities borne by various religions. [18]
His real argument is that Christians will not provide a reasonable ground for their claims:
All teachings like these [scientific statements], then, demand belief in their contents, but not without producing grounds for their claim. They are put forward as the epitomized result of a longer process of thought based on observation and certainly also on inferences. If anyone wants to go through this process himself instead of accepting its result, they show him how to set about it. Moreover, we are always in addition given the source of the knowledge conveyed by them, where that source is not self-evident, as it is in the case of geographical assertions. For instance, the earth is shaped like a sphere; the proofs adduced for this are Foucault’s pendulum experiment, the behavior of the horizon and the possibility of circumnavigating the earth. Since it is impractical, as everyone concerned realizes, to send every schoolchild on a voyage around the world, we are satisfied with letting what is taught at school be taken on trust; but we know that the path to acquiring a personal conviction remains open. [19]
5
Paramahansa Yogananda, contemporary Hindu guru to Americans, mentions Christ thirty-nine times, and the Bible fifty-nine times, in his autobiography. He seeks to re-interpret Christ along the lines of a Hindu sage and yogi, even re-interpreting terms like “Son of God” and “I am the way” to refer to cosmic consciousness rather than the person of Jesus.
“Theologians have misinterpreted Christ’s words,” Master said, “in such passages as ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’ Jesus meant, never that he was the sole Son of God, but that no man can attain the unqualified Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond creation, until he has first manifested the ‘Son’ or activating Christ Consciousness within creation. Jesus, who had achieved entire oneness with that Christ Consciousness, identified himself with it inasmuch as his own ego had long since been dissolved.” [20]
According to Yogananda, Paul, St. John, and Jesus himself all practiced his particular form of Kriya Yoga, the source of their illumination; [21] and John the Baptist was Jesus’ guru. [22]
6
Gandhi, the former Premier of India, takes a fairly traditional Hindu line concerning Jesus: “It was more than I could believe that Jess was the only incarnate son of God, and that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life. … God cannot be the exclusive Father and I cannot ascribe exclusive divinity to Jesus. He is as divine as Krishna or Rama or Mohammed or Zoroaster.” [23]
He takes up a familiar historical criticism of Christianity: the notion that Jesus’ message was distorted by his followers, “He was an Asiatic whose message was delivered through many media, and when it had the backing of a Roman Emperor it became an imperialist faith as it remains to this day.” [24] Further, he can’t believe that miracles are a possibility, as all things occur according to law. [25]