I'm beginning to perceive a pattern in Christian theology, as manifested in some debates I've heard recently,* and that is the total reliance on the Resurrection of Christ. Both Wilson and Lennox placed ultimate importance and authority on the 'fact' of the Resurrection. Wilson, particularly, begged the question by saying, basically, that if you believe in the Resurrection you have to believe in all the other miracles in the Bible. But at no time in his debate with Christopher Hitchens at the Westminster Theological Seminary did he explain why he accepted the 'truth' of the Resurrection in the first place. (I strongly suspect that, if pressed, he'd claim it was true because it was in the Bible.)
Hitchens was genial but incisive, and on great form, though a lot of what he says in these debates is no longer new to me. Of the so-called New Atheists he's probably the most willing to debate anybody anywhere, and it's understandable that his thesis is familiar to anyone who's heard him debate on several previous occasions. Nevertheless, when his form is this good he's a special pleasure to listen to - literate, erudite and pointedly wry.
*Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson
(via RichardDawkins.net)
John Lennox and Michael Shermer
(via eSkeptic)
Monday, 1 December 2008
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Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteA good case can be made for the historicity of the resurrection and of course it is central to christianity. Christianity stands or falls on the historicity of that event. Email me if you want to discuss it further.
Jason
I'd need more than "a good case" - rather, I'd need an extraordinarily good case to support a claim for something as extraordinary as becoming alive again after spending three days dead.
ReplyDeleteBut I appreciate that some people, if they have faith, don't require the same kind of evidence.