Arguments, The Bible, and Smart Apologists

[I Am The Scum]

Something has been rolling around in my mind lately, and I thought I'd share it with the board to see if I'm on the right track. Criticism is welcome. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

This discussion will be framed as a discussion about Christian apologetics, but the argument I'm outlining is not exclusive to any one religion. What follows applies to pretty much any revelatory religion that contains a text that is purported to be written/inspired by their deity. In other words, pretty much all the major religions.

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There is certainly a clear divide in the style that apologists take. On one side, you've got your thinly-veiled preachers. Your Ray Comforts. The most thought-provoking question these guys can muster is, "Haven't you ever looked at the trees?" Any criticism of their religion will undoubtedly be met with, "Well, the Bible says..." These guys shouldn't be treated as anything more than clowns.

On the other hand, you have your guys that have a better understanding of the world around them, and of philosophy and logic. Your William Lane Craigs. These guys can not only recite various arguments for God's existence, but they are ready and willing to defend your criticism of it, and they're not going to resort to their holy text in order to do so. I'm calling these guys "smart apologists," to distinguish them from the stupid apologists outlined in the previous paragraph.

You may not appreciate these people being referred to as "smart." Deal with it.

Smart apologists don't resort to The Bible at the drop of a hat, and I'm sure we would all agree, that is a good thing. If I was willing to believe something just because The Bible said so, then I wouldn't be an atheist. I wouldn't need to be convinced. But I think there may be a problem here. Let's look at the big picture.

When it comes to arguments in favor of God's existence, there are some that are better than others. In terms of an argument's ability to influence its listener, there are some arguments that are very poor, such as TAG or the ontological argument. Others, on the other hand, are better, and they are usually noted by mirroring the ways in which people perceive the world around them. We've all heard someone say, "All of this had to come from somewhere," and this is the same fundamental concept of cosmological arguments, which tend to be better than average.

In other words, there are good arguments. I don't mean to say that there are arguments that are flawless. Rather, I am saying that, in terms of a given conclusion, some arguments are more influential than others.

Given that, let's look to The Bible. Do we see these good arguments? No, we don't. We see assertions that are cosmological in nature, but we do not see cosmological arguments. Why is that?

If The Bible really is the word of God, and it is the manual by which we come to an understanding of him, then why don't we see the good arguments? Since God wants us to know that he exists, why would he refrain from including the more influential arguments in his book?

Add to this the fact that many Christians are quick to criticize atheists for poorly understanding The Bible. They'll tell you that you can't just read it by itself, and that to fully grasp it's meaning, you must also have an understanding of the people at the time, the way they lived, the language they used, etc. On its face, this doesn't seem unreasonable. These are the same methods by which we would analyze any ancient text, religious or otherwise. However, let us once again analyze this within the framework of the religion itself. Why would God author a text, in the hopes that you could come to understand him (at least in part) by reading it, and then make it impossible to do so? If there was more information needed to understand God, then why didn't he put that in the book?

Logically, there is an issue brewing here known as necessity and sufficiency. I'll briefly summarize these concepts in the following paragraph for those unfamiliar with them.

When we say that an object or a set of objects is sufficient for something, we are saying that we only need those objects for a given outcome. In other words, we are saying that no other objects are necessary. For example, is oxygen sufficient to cause a fire? No, we need other things - heat and fuel. The composition of heat, oxygen, and fuel is sufficient to cause a fire, because we don't need anything else.

My point is that any time our smart apologist appeals to non-Biblical arguments, or appeals to extra-Biblical sources for understanding the Bible, then he is tacitly admitting that The Bible is insufficient at coming to an understanding of God. If it is the case that this is why the Bible exists in the first place, then this leads one to wonder why God's authorship is lacking. This puts our smart apologist on very uncomfortable footing. The very thing that distinguishes him from the Ray Comforts of the world is his ability to go outside the text, but if he succeeds in influencing others by doing so, then he only ends up undermining the very text he's trying to prove.

Kinda weird, I think.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, for a start, "good" and "bad" arguments are a subjective thing, and depends on the audience.

As a trivial example, try convincing someone that God must exist because the Hoyle resonance of the Carbon-12 nucleus is tuned just right for Carbon (and for that matter Oxygen) to be formed via the triple-alpha process in stars, e.g., during a runaway helium flash. Right. Dunno about you, but I bet half the people reading this went "WTF is that?" and/or ran to Wikipedia to even understand what it's about. It's not a good argument if you're speaking from a stage or on radio.

Ditto for complex logical and/or philosophical arguments, really. Most people seem to go through their whole life without even discovering why logic would even matter in a conversation, and don't even understand basic philosophy. Too complex arguments would just alienate that audience.

Or in fewer words, when talking to people as stupid as Ray Comfort, the banana argument is a good argument for that audience.

Which brings us to ancient religions of the illiterate masses. Well, those didn't have the education, time or inclination for anything more philosophical than, basically, "god wants a bigger goat." Or, I kid you not, this was actually an argument used for Christianity vs Judaism, the religion with more miracles is the real one.

Sure, there were more complex philosophical systems even for Christianity (check out some Gnostic mess of planes, aeons, spheres and layered divinities), not to mention better religions for appealing to educated and philosophical, wealthy, male Romans and Greeks. E.g., Mithranism not only appealed to those, but actually solved a philosophical dilemma at the time about the sky. By comparison, for Christianity we even have Paul's word that those smart and educated guys found his message retarded.

But then something funny happened. Mithranism was very popular with the educated and rich, and with some of the military, but virtually nobody else. Whereas the version of Christianity which appealed to uneducated slaves with not much time or energy for complex mental exercises won. There are a lot more of the latter than the former, and even more importantly, some of the latter got to educate the children of the former.

So why aren't there better arguments in the bible? Because of a kind of natural selection of religions. Those "better" versions went the way of the Mithranism, Gnosticism and the Dodo, by having limited appeal. The simple and miraculous versions, that every uneducated slave could understand, those won the lion's share of the market.

 

[AvalonXQ]

My point is that any time our smart apologist appeals to non-Biblical arguments, or appeals to extra-Biblical sources for understanding the Bible, then he is tacitly admitting that The Bible is insufficient at coming to an understanding of God.

Not really -- it just means he's tailoring the message to his audience.

After all, you started with this:

Smart apologists don't resort to The Bible at the drop of a hat, and I'm sure we would all agree, that is a good thing. If I was willing to believe something just because The Bible said so, then I wouldn't be an atheist. I wouldn't need to be convinced.

Not all people are the same, and we don't all respond to the same arguments in the same way.
Note that the "smart apologists", as you call them, are expecting that if you come to believe their arguments and accept Jesus, you will then turn to the Bible and gain wisdom from it, as they have. So the Bible isn't being discarded in general, but it is understood that for some people, the Bible isn't the best way to begin the discussion.

An acknowledgement that you, as a person for whom study and intellectual understanding are important, need to study the background and understand the historical basis of the Bible, isn't an assertion that everyone has to do this.

It doesn't even imply that everyone should do this. Many people can get everything they need to for a relationship with Jesus without understanding hardly anything about ancient languages or cultures. But because of the person I am, these parts of the process are important to me.

Apologists and evangelists learn to come to people on the level that they are. For some people, it's being able to enjoy a night at the pub while treating the folks around you with respect, generosity, and decency -- that can be an outreach that will bring some to Christ. Others need to hear the stories about the person that Christ was. Some need to the community afforded by the church and will come to Christ through the love they encounter there.

And still others need to see that there are good reason-based arguments to accept God, and have their heads in the right place before their hearts will follow. I was one of those people, and those are the people that the "smart" apologists are tailoring their arguments to.

 

[Bikewer]

Sometimes even intelligent apologists resort to silly platitudes. I listened to a pair of Jesuit astronomers who decided that their observations of the universe had convinced them that "God is love."

 

[Ethnikos]

*snip*
. . .why the Bible exists in the first place, . . .
*snip*

To maintain loyalty with the believers.

 

[Leumas]

To maintain loyalty with the believers.

Actually most believers in the past could not read.

The Catholic and Anglican churches did not even want the bible translated into common languages. They even BURNT guys who did translate the bible.

The bible was never meant for the masses to read.

Even today, the protestants, who started the whole mess of reading the bible for yourself, maintain that you need to become an ANCIENT HEBREW not just in language but also in cultural mindset to actually glean any information from it which was intended by god.


So what loyalty...if anything it was meant to be a HOCUS POCUS TALISMAN kind of thing to give the IMPRESSION that the holy parasitic sycophants are LEARNED and INITIATED and know what they are talking about and that they have a LETTER FROM GOD to go by that the SHEEP are not meant to understand… just listen and obey.

It could have been gibberish for all the people knew.....oh wait....it was.

 

[catsmate]

I would say not that there are "smart" apologists with "good" arguments but that there are smarter apologists with better arguments. Against any objective standards apologists aren't really smart¹ and their augments are rubbish but, still, some are smarter and better than the vast majority.


¹ That's not to say that apologists are, per se, invariable stupid; however their habit of using their beliefs as a filter tends to eliminate any signs of intelligence from their arguments.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

When it comes to arguments in favor of God's existence, there are some that are better than others. In terms of an argument's ability to influence its listener, there are some arguments that are very poor, such as TAG or the ontological argument. Others, on the other hand, are better, and they are usually noted by mirroring the ways in which people perceive the world around them. We've all heard someone say, "All of this had to come from somewhere," and this is the same fundamental concept of cosmological arguments, which tend to be better than average.

The ontological argument(s) beat the holy crap out of any cosmological argument.

 

[Ethnikos]

The bible was never meant for the masses to read.

Revelation has a blessing to everyone who reads it and who hear it read.
Jews have a tradition of reading daily from the Torah and the Haftorah.

 

[Leumas]

Revelation has a blessing to everyone who reads it and who hear it read.
Jews have a tradition of reading daily from the Torah and the Haftorah.

Ethnikos..... I am sure you already know the argument against the above statements by you...no?... if not then you are not as informed as I thought you were.

 

[Dessi]

On the other hand, you have your guys that have a better understanding of the world around them, and of philosophy and logic. Your William Lane Craigs. These guys can not only recite various arguments for God's existence, but they are ready and willing to defend your criticism of it, and they're not going to resort to their holy text in order to do so. I'm calling these guys "smart apologists," to distinguish them from the stupid apologists outlined in the previous paragraph.

I think you'll find most or all smart apologists hold very unconventional religious beliefs, mostly attributed to them being smart, or at least their religious views are very strongly tempered away from the indefensible "fundamentalist" garbage we're used to seeing.

William Lane Craig, for example, is a "progressive creationist": he accepts that the earth is millions of years old, that there are lots of intermediate forms of life consistent with observations by evolutionary biologists (god creates intermediates required for macroevolution), incorporates the Big Bang into modern spins on the Kalam Cosmological arguments. His beliefs are fairly close to vanilla theistic evolutionists, he believes the development of the universe and the Earth in particular is gently guided by the hand of God. Naturally, these beliefs make him very popular with liberal Christians, will offend the goodly number of fundiegelicals who argue that he's not a real Christian and he's definitely going to Hell for preaching false gospel.

John Paul Meier is a Catholic Priest and author of the incredibly detailed book, Jesus Christ: A Marginal Jew. It describes evidence for the Historical Christ, but includes non-Canon works like Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Thomas, arguing that these works should not be considered separately from the existing canon. Meier argues that many of the miracles described in the Bible meet the criteria for being historically accurate; at the same time, he rejects some events, like Cursing of the Fig Tree, as having no historical basis in anything, he rejects Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus and suggests Nazareth is more likely, argues that Jesus had brothers and sisters, and that his apocalyptic message referred to something in the very near future (within one generation) than an event to unfold 1000s of years later. Meier's book is the standard against which all other books on the historical Jesus are measured against, but vanilla apologists are likely to consider Meier too wishy-washy that they'd argue he's not in fact a real Christian and he's definitely going to Hell for preaching false gospel.

JD Crossan is a Catholic Priest, a biblical archeaologist, and author of a number of books on the historical Jesus (I personally like his books, the writing style isn't especially dense, its very accessible to general audiences like me). He makes a very powerful case for the historical Christ, provides the best descriptions of how the early Gospels are dated, yet he denies that we know anything about where Jesus was born, insists that the virgin birth and raising of Lazarus are non-factual, argues that Jesus was illiterate, and that he was a follower of John the Baptist rather than the other way around. He argues that the gospels are not intended to be taken literally, that there is exaggeration and myths deliberately worked in, and that the important part is the message Jesus preaches rather than the intimate details of life. Needless to say, most Christians are going to find Crossan to be so far out on the fringe that they'll insist he's not a real Christian and he's definitely going to Hell for preaching false gospel.

There are a handful of other guys, like EP Sanders, Robert Funk, Gerd Theissen, whose work I haven't read, but as I understand, they hold some fairly unconventional beliefs as well.

 

[Dessi]

Now, for what its worth, I'll agree that William Lane Craig is a smart apologist. I've seen Craig in debates, actually taken the time to read large chunks of his websites. The largest part of his argument for the existence of God is based on the cosmological argument:

1) everything which begins to exist has a cause
2) the universe has a beginning
3) therefore it has a cause
3.1) actual infinities do not exist
3.2) an infinite regression of causes is an actual infinity
3.3) the universe cannot have an infinite regression of causes
(Craig refers to a number of scientific observations to explain how we know the universe is not infinitely old, essentially making the case that the Big Bang happened.)
4) following 3.1 to 3.3, ulimately there must be one primal cause
5) a primal cause cannot cause itself
5.1) a cause which causes itself would is incoherent (it would be an infinite regression of causes)
5.2) before the universe, there is simply nothing to exist to cause the primal cause
6) as such, the universe cannot cause itself
7) following 5, 6, the primal cause must exist external to the universe.

Craigs explains that there are no possible scientific arguments to account for Big Bang. In order to rectify the existence of the universe with deductions above, the existence of God must be a brute fact, and his personal will is the primal cause.

The sketch above is probably the best account for the cosmological argument I'm aware of -- its not without criticism, but its arguments like which have such a mainstream appeal and influence among lay people and scholars.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Craigs explains that there are no possible scientific arguments to account for Big Bang. In order to rectify the existence of the universe with deductions above, the existence of God must be a brute fact, and his personal will is the primal cause.

I don't really see how that is supposed to work. At best the conclusion (spelled: G,o,d) is about as vague as what you get from any given ontological argument. (At worst it is a glorious own goal (libertarian free will).) With an OA however, you will have far less chance of having any scientific or otherwise nonsense running through your premises.

It is merely a show.

ETA:
OA 2 - 0 KCA
St. Anselm 1’
Craig 91’ (OG)

 

[Bikewer]

This Meier fellow sounds like he's pretty much on the same page with Bart Ehrman, the well-published NT scholar.
Ehrman maintains that this information has been well-known to the scholarly community for over 100 years, but that it is not transmitted by clergy to the "faithful". It remains for scholars to mull over, or for authors like Ehrman to expose to a larger audience.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I don't read any arguments in the OP let alone better arguments.

My point is that any time our smart apologist appeals to non-Biblical arguments, or appeals to extra-Biblical sources for understanding the Bible, then he is tacitly admitting that The Bible is insufficient at coming to an understanding of God.

Duh!

Did I miss anything else?

 

[tkmikkelsen]

The main problem that I see with “smart” apologist, like William Lain Craig, is that their belief and reasoning is no longer connected to the god of their chosen scripture. That Mr. Craig wants to believe that there was a universal presence that started off the universe and laid out the natural laws, so that intelligent life could evolve, in at least one instance in the cosmos, has nothing to do with the god of any scripture.

Many of the “smart” apologists reject large part of the scripture as not being factual correct. William Lain Craig has at one point or another completely refuted the whole of Genesis. Since he has already thrown the whole foundation for the rest of the story out, it doesn’t make much sense to then start defending the rest of the bible or any god contained therein. He clearly does not believe in the god of the scripture. If you do not believe in the god of any scripture, then you are in essence much closer in mind set to the atheist, then you are to the devout religious person.

This is the problem that William Lain Craig, and to some extend Kenneth R. Miller, has to deal with. They are smart enough and enlightened enough to know that the old stories contained in the bible are not factually true, but they are not brave enough to take that knowledge to its final conclusion, that the god of scripture is a lie. They then stick to the universal spark god, which started the universe, set the laws of nature and then simply took a break for something like 13.7 billion years. Basically this leaves you with a god of no importance, so why then bother with even invoking such a god. Should we learn that a creator of the universe did set it in motion, once we have the elusive theory of everything, then what difference does it make. The creators started the show, but have since then not had anything to do with it and are certainly not interested in the well being of puny humans.

Once you have rejected scripture as being pure fiction and mythic storytelling, then you might as well take it to the simplest conclusion that there is no creator of the universe, but keep your mind open for the fact that you could be proven wrong.

 

[Brainache]

This Meier fellow sounds like he's pretty much on the same page with Bart Ehrman, the well-published NT scholar.
Ehrman maintains that this information has been well-known to the scholarly community for over 100 years, but that it is not transmitted by clergy to the "faithful". It remains for scholars to mull over, or for authors like Ehrman to expose to a larger audience.

Albert Schweitzer wrote a very influential book about the Historical Jesus in 1910. He was certainly no dummy. I'm not sure how the book stands up against the modern ones though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quest_of_the_Historical_Jesus

 

[Ethnikos]

Ethnikos..... I am sure you already know the argument against the above statements by you...no?... if not then you are not as informed as I thought you were.

You were talking about the Church of Rome and the Anglican Church which is not very far removed, theologically, and in my opinion this system is an aberration, what happens when the state gets total control of the religion, and is not true of Christianity in general.
The thread is about apologists admitting that the Bible is not sufficient.
I think it was Philip, a disciple of Jesus traveling and came across an Ethiopian who was studying the scrolls and asked him how to understand them. Philip explained them with what then would have been external evidence. My point would be that the books were not intended to convince people who did not believe in God, just to guide the ones who already do, into a particular brand of god.
My opinion would be that pointing out the flawed nature of their books, to the apologist is not going to make them feel bad about themselves or to give up their brand or to give up on god.
I would suggest something like pointing out that the people claiming to be God in the Bible are not God but Archons which are created beings and they never created anything out of nothing. There was not a single Archon who did the separating and the forming but was a cooperative effort among the various Archons. Later on, there arose a liar who was not even an Archon but a lower being who was an angel, who claimed to be higher than an Archon. He had to go to people to make this assertion because any one above an ordinary person would have exposed his lie. People are always in conflict and looking for tactical advantage over their enemies so an angel, no matter how false, is a good weapon as long as you give it sufficient worship to keep it on your side. So it boils down to pointing out that the followers of the books, if they claim this angel as God, are in fact followers of Satan.

 

[tsig]

You were talking about the Church of Rome and the Anglican Church which is not very far removed, theologically, and in my opinion this system is an aberration, what happens when the state gets total control of the religion, and is not true of Christianity in general.
The thread is about apologists admitting that the Bible is not sufficient.
I think it was Philip, a disciple of Jesus traveling and came across an Ethiopian who was studying the scrolls and asked him how to understand them. Philip explained them with what then would have been external evidence. My point would be that the books were not intended to convince people who did not believe in God, just to guide the ones who already do, into a particular brand of god.
My opinion would be that pointing out the flawed nature of their books, to the apologist is not going to make them feel bad about themselves or to give up their brand or to give up on god.
I would suggest something like pointing out that the people claiming to be God in the Bible are not God but Archons which are created beings and they never created anything out of nothing. There was not a single Archon who did the separating and the forming but was a cooperative effort among the various Archons. Later on, there arose a liar who was not even an Archon but a lower being who was an angel, who claimed to be higher than an Archon. He had to go to people to make this assertion because any one above an ordinary person would have exposed his lie. People are always in conflict and looking for tactical advantage over their enemies so an angel, no matter how false, is a good weapon as long as you give it sufficient worship to keep it on your side. So it boils down to pointing out that the followers of the books, if they claim this angel as God, are in fact followers of Satan.

What's wrong with following Satan?

 

[Ethnikos]

What's wrong with following Satan?

The idea being, the Christian apologist will think it is bad.
The ultimate goal is the abandonment of God, as harsh as it may seem.
I should also note I did not invent this formula, but it is just in my own words, but is something I learned from a couple proper atheists who use this argument.