Judas: the ultimate betrayal of Dembski and Licona

So we come to the end, the final chapter, the ultimate culmination, the concluding, cogent case for the existence of God. At least, that's what I'd expect, in a tome touted as convincing evidence for the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, everywhere-present and perfectly good deity who created the universe. Evidence for God: 50 Arguments for Faith from the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Science, edited by William Dembski and Michael Licona, begins with this introduction (copied from Google Books):

 

Given the intention of the book as stated by the editors in their introduction, I'm surprised to find that the final chapter (number 50) is Craig A. Evans' "What Should We Think About the Gospel of Judas?" Evans' conclusion is that the Gospel of Judas should be pretty much ignored as non-canonical and untrue, so it makes for a limp ending — almost as if the editors ran out of material to make up their 50 "arguments". The chapter itself is not uninteresting, being a narrative of the discovery and subsequent chequered history of a papyrus manuscript, but it's entirely inappropriate as a concluding chapter to a book with such lofty declared aims. I can't help wondering if its editors lost not only interest in their project but also their will to live.

The story told of Judas Iscariot in this gospel is at odds with the Judas from the canonical gospels, and therefore has a fascination of its own, but it's irrelevant to the book's stated purpose, so it seems pointless to go into it any further. Evans says the story isn't true, for a variety of reasons (which with a little thought — and honesty — could also be applied to most of the New Testament).

So what are we left with? This book was presented as good evidence for faith, for God, for Jesus, for the Bible. It's none of those. If this is the best that Christian apologetics can produce, those students in Bart Ehrman's class are destined to be atheists.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952746
Click here for my reviews of the other 49 chapters...

In our universe, nothing beyond physics

This is from last month, the final episode in the current series of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief, with host Ernie Rea and three studio guests: John Lennox, Usama Hasan and Mark Vernon. The subject they're discussing is the origin of the universe, apparently triggered (the discussion, not the universe) by the success of Lawrence Krauss's new book, A Universe from Nothing. It's a shame they didn't get Krauss himself on the show, as he might have pointed out the elementary error Lennox commits in his very first comments. Here's the blurb from the BBC website:

When asked to defend their belief in a Creator God, people of faith often turn to the argument that there must be a First Cause - you can't create something out of nothing they say, therefore right at the beginning, someone must have been responsible for the first element from which sprang life.

A new book, "A Universe from Nothing", by the American theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, turns this argument on its head. Not only can something arise out of nothing, but something will always arise out of nothing because physics tells us that nothingness is inherently unstable.

The book has made an enormous impact in the States, making the New York Times' best sellers list, and it prompted Richards Dawkins to observe that it was "Potentially the most important scientific book with implications for atheism since Darwin".

So does it knock the argument for God on the head? Are physics and God irreconcilable?

Joining Ernie to discuss whether modern physics leaves any room for God are Dr John Lennox, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford, Dr Usama Hasan, Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University and a part time Imam, and Dr Mark Vernon, Honorary Research Fellow at Birkbeck College, London who has degrees in physics, theology and philosophy.

And Lennox's error?

"Having looked at Lawrence Krauss's book, I think the title from the start is very misleading, because the nothing he claims that is a nothing, is not actually a nothing."

Other theists have jumped on this bandwagon, despite Krauss being very clear precisely what kind of nothing he's discussing. The problem with Lennox's objection is that the nothing he thinks Krauss should be addressing — the total absence of anything whatever — is merely a philosophical construct with no possibility of being real in any sense that makes any sense. Lennox presumably believes that God exists, and is not nothing, and is eternal. If God — or indeed anything at all — is eternal, then Lennox's "nothing" is clearly an impossibility. Such being the case, it's disingenuous of him to complain that Krauss is studying some other kind of nothing.

Streaming audio of this episode of Beyond Belief is available here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01gf5w7

Not for the first time Lennox comes across as a barely disguised old-earth creationist, while Mark Vernon's mild atheism is reasonable but diffident (maybe he's being careful to avoid being labelled as "gnu"). Usama Hasan claims atheists cannot say where the laws of physics come from, as if they ought be inscribed on stone tablets somewhere up a mountain. In the middle of the episode Ernie Rae plays an interview with Graham Swinerd, an agnostic astronautics engineer who found Christ as a result of the fine-tuning argument — though as he also credits attending an Alpha Course one might perhaps consider him as already on the brink.

As is usual at the end of an episode Rae asks all three of his guests one question; this time it's whether the universe has a purpose. Hasan claims it's to declare the glory of God and to produce conscious beings able to choose between good and evil. Vernon doubts that the universe has an overall purpose, except as a container for people who have their own purposes. Lennox, however, goes into eccentric preacher-mode:

"The Universe is a temporary home for human beings created in the image of God. He's conveyed on us that immense dignity, and ultimately, for me, the whole purpose of life in the universe is to enjoy the fellowship of the creator that invented the atom."

Burnee links for Sunday

From the Mailbag: A Reply to “Why Does Religion Always Get a Free Ride?” | Greta Christina's Blog
In response to her responder, Greta asks,"Why should religion be the exception?" and quotes Daniel Dennett:

“I listen to all these complaints about rudeness and intemperateness, and the opinion that I come to is that there is no polite way of asking somebody: have you considered the possibility that your entire life has been devoted to a delusion? But that’s a good question to ask. Of course we should ask that question and of course it’s going to offend people. Tough.”

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Don't destroy research · Sense about Science
Will it work? Who knows? But destroying the experiment is one way of ensuring we won't know.

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Four Dollars, Almost Five: $ye TenB - it's all about the $$$
I remember seeing $ye appear on Creation Today (or possibly some other video on Eric Hovind's site) and wondering how he could accept creationist nonsense without demur. But it seems PA advocates are also YECs (Chris Bolt, to name another example). At the time I didn't think $ye was mostly monetarily motivated. Lately, however, the evidence suggests otherwise.

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We Won't Be Silent! - YouTube
Stand up for free expression.

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Schools of pseudoscience pose a serious threat to education | letters | From the Observer | The Observer
Woo in schools — young minds at risk.

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Biblical fan-fiction — not to be taken as gospel

In the same vein as Craig L. Blomberg in the previous chapter, Charles L. Quarles asks "What Should We Think About the Gospel of Peter?" (chapter 49 — the penultimate — of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God).

We should, apparently, think that the Gospel of Peter is a knock-off of Matthew (plus part of Revelation). Quarles summarises the Gospel, then proceeds to dismiss it as fanciful embellishment of accepted canon. He mentions a theory propounded by the Jesus Seminar's John Dominic Crossan:

John Dominic Crossan, co-founder of the Jesus Seminar, which is an organization residing on the theological left, has claimed that the Gospel of Peter was the product of a complex evolution. The earliest layer of the Gospel was a hypothetical source called the “Cross Gospel.” Crossan argued that this early layer served as the only written source for the narrative of Jesus’ death and resurrection in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After the production of the NT Gospels, a later editor inserted material from the four Gospels into the Cross Gospel. An even later editor noticed tensions between the original and newer material in this patchwork gospel and polished up the document.

Although Crossan’s theory has convinced few in the scholarly community, one scholar recently claimed “one can expect that all future research on Gos. Pet. will need to begin with a serious consideration of Crossan’s work” (Paul A. Mirecki, “Gospel of Peter,” ABD 5:278-81, esp. 280). If true, Crossan’s theory would have a devastating effect on confidence in the historical reliability of the accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection in the four Gospels. According to Crossan’s theory, the sole source for the accounts of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection in the four Gospels was a document that was already so laced with legend as to be wholly unreliable even before it reached the hands of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The four Gospels would be unreliable adaptations of an unreliable tradition replete with talking floating crosses and a super-sized Jesus whose head bumped the heavens when he walked out of the tomb!

Such amazing (dare one say "miraculous"?) occurrences would surely be out of place in a "Gospel" — so therefore they didn't happen. Quarles goes on to claim that the Gospel of Peter must be something written much later, based on the original(s) but including invented and incredible extra details — a biblical version of fan-fiction. As far as it agrees with canon, it's true — where it differs, it's false. This doesn't seem to be a very rigorous examination of the evidence, such as it is; the veracity of the Gospel of Peter is assessed on the basis of whether or not it confirms what is already believed — a classic case of confirmation bias.

How much of this is of any consequence? At this stage, with only one more chapter to go, it makes no difference. I've already raised my concern at the editors' decision to place The Question of the Bible at the end of their book; these final chapters do nothing to allay that concern.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952754

Burnee links for Sunday

A duty to raise a new generation of bigots | Butterflies and Wheels
Everyone I know who's aware of this thinks it's an abomination.

I propose that states seize all the Catholic schools | Pharyngula
Who will rid us of these meddlesome priests?

Four Dollars, Almost Five: Analyse religion, and you'll reject it
Obvious, perhaps; but then, the analytical amongst us will still insist on looking at the evidence.

Donohue’s success | Butterflies and Wheels
Perhaps a better name for the League would be "Catholic Hubris".

The Consolation of Philosophy: Scientific American
The philosophy of nothing. Philosophers and theologians objecting to Lawrence Krauss's definition of "nothing" cannot have it both ways. If they maintain that Krauss's "nothing" is not really nothing, then they must admit that their definition of nothing cannot contain a god. If God is eternal, then their idea of "nothing" is an impossibility — and they should therefore stop complaining about Krauss not addressing it.

Of hats and horses

It is always amusing to hear some of the language that non-Christians, and especially atheists, use in their assaults on the Christian faith and defenses of their own position.

Thus begins a post by Chris Bolt at Choosing Hats. Interesting to see that “Christianity is a Man-made Religion”— the title of the post — is considered an assault, when it's no more than a statement of belief — an interpretation of reality, based on the available evidence.

Presumably the atheist thinks it is somewhat problematic and perhaps even insulting to the Christian to dismiss his or her position as “man-made.” We can set aside the obvious “problem” with using “man” this way in the current academic climate. We can also set aside that the unbeliever almost always merely asserts without argument that Christianity is man-made. We may then note that the statement as it stands is no insult or argument against Christianity anyway, for there is a sense in which Christianity is man-made. The Bible, for example, was written by men. But it does not follow that it was not also God-breathed.

Presumably? Why presume, when one can ask? I'll save Chris the trouble and state that no, saying Christianity is man-made is not meant as an insult. It is, however, problematic more than somewhat, in that there's a lack of evidence for Christianity being other than man-made. (This is most clearly embodied in the statement, "Man is made in the image and likeness of God," when an impartial observer of Christianity can see that the reverse is obviously the case.) Chris then switches horses to claim that an accusation of being man-made is not, in fact, an insult or an argument anyway, but switches back again to use "man-made" as an argument against atheism. It's all very confusing:

But turn the apparent attempt at an objection around. What is it about unbelief and atheism in particular that is not man-made? Logic is generally considered conventional. It is man-made. Science is one of the greatest tools for advancement that the human race has ever devised. It is, of course, man-made. Morality is often thought to be subjective. It is man-made. And even where different approaches to logic, morality, and science appear in the atheist bag of tricks they are ultimately reducible to the allegedly autonomous subject. Take away autonomy and you do not have atheism anymore. Everything in atheism is made up. By definition.

Most of that could be true, but the last two sentences don't make sense. The definition of atheism I use is "lack of belief in a god or gods". There's nothing to make up there. My atheism does of course imply more than just a lack of god-belief; my worldview, based on lack of such belief, involves founding my beliefs about the real world on what I can reasonably infer to be an accurate representation of that reality. This is the exact opposite of making stuff up.

Of course the immediate response is that the empirical world somehow dictates our logic, science, and morality to us. But the view that the empirical world speaks to us in such a way that our thoroughly theory-laden approaches to knowledge do not come to bear upon our understanding of it is helplessly naïve. Atheists are out to set us back hundreds if not thousands of years with that ridiculous suggestion!

Methinks the godly are too tied up in notions of diktat to appreciate that the empirical world is not in the business of dictating to anyone — in logic, science, morality or anything else. I, on the other hand, do indeed appreciate that I'm a product of my environment, and it behooves me to be mindful of my evolutionary heritage.

Chris's next few paragraphs delve into a series of strained analogies that I can't be bothered to unravel, save to suggest a fable of my own: when Chris and his PA ilk eventually get to Heaven they'll find it's a very small place bounded by an unscalable high wall, which God has built around their particular patch of Paradise to fool them into thinking they're the only ones there.*

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*Not a statement of belief.

New Testament canon — a boat that must not be rocked

Craig L. Blomberg continues his exposition of scriptural arbitrariness with "What Should We Think About the Coptic Gospel of Thomas?" — chapter 48 of Dembski & Licona's Evidence for God.

The answer appears to be, "Whatever you'd like to think." Again Blomberg demonstrates the circularity of deciding what is or is not canonical. The Gospel of Thomas is taken to be "true" where it exhibits a measure of agreement with the so-called canonical gospels, and contentious where it disagrees. This inevitably makes the Gospel of Thomas not much use to anybody, because if it's only true where it agrees with the other gospels, and false otherwise, it doesn't add anything. If biblical scholars have already made up their minds, why should they give any attention to something that contradicts what they already know? This is the very essence of confirmation-bias and cherry-picking. It's as if the scholars know what the story in the New Testament is supposed to say, and therefore anything that doesn't agree with that story is excluded. If you cut out the stuff you disagree with, you will by definition be left with things you agree with. This is scholarship? Whatever else it might achieve, this doesn't inspire confidence in the Bible as a historical document.

The Bible says some outlandish things, to be sure. It may have been merely politic, therefore, to reject Thomas as a gospel that might push the entire collection over the edge of credibility:

Thomas, or Gnosticism more generally, can at first glance appear more "enlightened" from a modern (or postmodern) perspective than parts of the New Testament. But if one is going to accept a Gnostic world view, one has to take all of it. And the final saying of this enigmatic Gospel has Peter telling Jesus and the other disciples, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life." Jesus replies, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Modern appropriations of Thomas seldom incorporate this perspective! Indeed, Thomas can appear superior to the canonical Gospels only by highly selective usage of its teachings. Despite what some may claim, it does not open any significant window into first-century Christian history and origins, only into its later corruption.

At the very least, I can't see that running well with the "women bishops" faction.

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4truth.net:
http://www.4truth.net/fourtruthpbbible.aspx?pageid=8589952748