“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
- Marcello Truzzi
The Gospel of John represents quite a departure from the synoptic gospels, so prior to shifting gears, I want to examine the statement above which is often cited as justification for rejecting the gospels. Truzzi’s claim appears to be quite reasonable and I don’t think that many of us would bother to debate its merits. If you claim something extraordinary or peculiar, you should expect the claim to be challenged, and you should expect your challenger to require an overabundance of evidence as support. The difficulty with Truzzi’s statement, however, is that “extraordinary” is inherently subjective.
We have discussed mathematical probabilities in several of the previous posts; however, sometimes mathematical probabilities are not the only things that should be taken into account. If we were to encounter historical documentation that told of the whereabouts of Abraham Lincoln when he was shot, a reasonable person would not question the historicity of the account based on the mathematical probability. Let’s assume that the balcony was about 10 square yards. If there are 3,097,600 square yards in a square mile and approximately 30% of the Earth’s surface is land, the prima facie odds that Lincoln was in the balcony at a particular instance in history would be about a 1 in 5 X 10^-14. Still, how many of us doubt Lincoln’s whereabouts? If you were to examine a historical claim, you
could cast immeasurable doubt on the claim via mathematical probability. Yet, we know that historical claims can and do supersede probabilities.
BACK TO SQUARE ONEI tried to make it clear in my first several posts that to believe in things that are not of this universe is quite reasonable. You must look no further than the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy to know that natural law prohibits the manufacture of the elements of the universe (i.e. nothing that is confined to the laws of the universe could have caused the universe). Further, unless you have severe doubts regarding the merits of the scientific community, it is also exceedingly probable that the universe is not static (i.e. it had a beginning). From these two notions, you must conclude that some event or entity which is not confined to the laws of the universe resulted in the universe. Though several have questioned what this “catalyst” might be, there has been little debate as to the necessary existence of this catalyst.
I don’t plan to rehash these posts; rather, I want to include this paragraph as a reminder of where my definition of “supernatural” stems.
Supernatural: That which is not confined to the laws of the universe. I’ll be discussing the evidentiary requirements for supernatural phenomena this week, so I want to ensure that we’re all on the same page when we discuss this topic and to remind each of you that by acknowledging the validity of the Big Bang, we are, in essence, acknowledging the existence of the supernatural.
RECAPI. The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy governs those things that exist within the universe.
II. The Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy states that neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed.
III. The Big Bang Theory coupled with the Theory of General Relativity (strongly supported by observable evidence) shows that the universe had a beginning.
IV. (From III) As matter and energy are elements of the universe, matter and energy had a beginning.
Because III/IV eliminates the possibility that matter and energy have always existed, the only reasonable explanation that remains is this:
There must exist (or there must have existed) something that is/was not governed by the Law of Conservation of Matter and Energy which resulted in the existence of the universe. This thing would (by my definition above) be supernatural.
THE SUPERNATURAL EVENT?The supernatural is real. The universe is proof. Still, for some there exists the notion that a natural explanation is always the most reasonable… no matter how
unreasonable the naturalistic explanation might be. If you concede that supernatural is true (again, as evidenced by the truth of the existence of the universe), why would you make the assumption that it is likely there was
only one supernatural event? If historical evidence points to a supernatural event, is it reasonable to dismiss the event solely because of its supernatural nature? Is it sufficient to simply manufacture a natural explanation that could explain a so-called supernatural phenomenon?
DUPEDAs I outlined in the Matthew post, there is zero benefit for the gospel authors to write the gospels unless they believed them to be true. As such, this week I want to begin with the assumption that the synoptic gospel authors were truthful in their accounts, but that they were themselves duped by Jesus and/or the apostles. I will work to incorporate the most plausible explanations that do not require any supernatural explanation. Some blanket assumptions that are necessary if we assume no supernatural events:
1. God does not exist.
2. Jesus is not the Son of God.
3. Neither Jesus nor His disciples possessed the power to heal or any other supernatural abilities.
4. Jesus is dead and did not “conquer death.”
I have already spoken to the truth of Jesus’ existence, so I will begin here with the idea of Jesus the Deceiver. Whether Jesus truly believed Himself to be the Son of God, He was able to perform apparent miracles that were so great He succeeded in convincing 12 men (with the possible exception of Judas) to follow Him for a number of years and to believe that He was the
Son of God. His numerous healings can of course be explained using one of two possibilities:
People in His employ feigned illness then feigned miraculous recovery from these illnesses. OR
He was able to convince unsuspecting folks that He did indeed heal people using cleverness and guile (perhaps he “healed” them then called attention elsewhere while the “healed” were ushered away a la Chevy Chase in
Fletch).
The rest of His miracles must have simply been later fabrications from the disciples. In any case, his ruse was so convincing that the 12 believed Him to be the messiah… that is until he was killed. Following His death and unceremonious burial, a distraught Judas killed himself. The others decided that they would save face by telling everyone around them that they saw Him raised from the dead. The group of disciples traveled the countryside regaling crowds with stories of how they too could heal people and could even cause people to drop dead. They knew that if they could convince enough simpletons of these acts, the masses would tell others of what they swore they had seen with their own eyes. Their tales were so convincing that they even led Saul of Tarsus – a leading Christian-hunter – to believe that he had learned the entirety of the scriptures via a direct revelation from the risen Christ (Saul/Paul must have obviously read the accounts before, but his belief was so real that he remained convinced of the divine revelation). Paul was then responsible for a series of letters that served to give further credence to the words of the disciples.
Here’s where it gets tricky…
The disciples found themselves in a conundrum. Saul was not the only one who had been sent to round up the Christians. People were being killed and imprisoned and they were at the top of the list. The disciples were responsible for a multitude of deaths and theirs would be right around the corner. There was only one way out:
Admit to their collective lie and move somewhere else.Sneak away under false identities and let those who believed them fend for themselves.Continue to lie and make a pact with each other that each would not be the one to squeal.
This wasn’t an easy decision of course. After all, if a disciple was Jewish prior to Jesus coming to fetch him, he would have little doubt he was now destined for hell. The Gentiles of the group had a little easier time… until they were caught and sentenced to death. Each went about his business watching fellow “Christians” die horrible, painful deaths. So, naturally, the horribly sadistic disciples decided to continue to preach and to recruit
more Christians. After all, what did it matter at this point?
In Week 17, I recapped several of the attestations of the disciples via the gospels:
1. They attested to knowing Jesus first-hand.
2. They attested to witnessing and performing first-hand miracles.
3. They attested to seeing Jesus die.
4. They attested to seeing Jesus alive three days later.
We can effectively throw out #1. After all, if He wasn’t really a miracle-working messiah, the disciples didn’t
know Jesus at all. Obviously, they were deluding themselves when it comes to #2. Tales of walking on water and resurrections were flat-out lies and, in retrospect, none of the healings could have been real (Gosh, I thought I saw the same guy get healed for blindness, leprosy, and gout in three different places… I really should have put two and two together then). The only one that was really truthful was #3.
The truly amazing part is that the disciples managed to confound the masses so thoroughly without ever producing a true miracle that thousands upon thousands were willing to give their lives… martyrdom soon became a fun little pastime for the early Christians and they were even allowed to be center stage in the Colosseum. Sure, there were plenty of other religions that promoted orgies and drinking, but how often does one get to be eaten, gored, or trampled in front of
thousands of people by
really cool wild animals?! Though no one they knew had ever really seen the disciples do anything beyond heal a headache or put some aloe on a sunburn, soon the masses were lining up to profess their collective faith, give up those despicable activities, and await their eminent deaths.
EXTRAORDINARY CLAIMSIf we don’t dismiss the supernatural straight away, there is simply no reason to contest the claims made in the gospels. The claim that supernatural events are rare and thus wholly unlikely is one that stems from not having directly experienced the supernatural. It’s almost like we’re caught in a loop:
We can’t believe in the supernatural because it is so very rare; yet, there are a plethora of supernatural events recorded in the Bible and tons more reported by people from all over the globe. Still, each event is so unlikely because the supernatural is so rare…
Further, if the events were ordinary, we would simply say that God was not needed to perform them. If, for instance, people were resurrected daily, a resurrection would simply be considered a regular, natural phenomenon. Doubt, in this case, often stems from doubt.
If we look at the New Testament as we would any other historical document, there is little doubt that each of the principle players believed in the divinity of Jesus. So, what is it that sets Christianity apart? Let’s revisit the core premises discussed over the last few weeks:
Virgin Birth
Miracles
Adherence to Scripture
Authority as Son of God
Great Commission
Prophecies
Crucifixion
Resurrection
(Add to this the fact that the disciples themselves were responsible for performing miracles after Jesus’ death.)
The claims made in the gospel writings are indeed extraordinary. To believe these claims, the early eyewitnesses would have almost certainly required extraordinary evidence. Modern Christianity relies upon documentary evidence written within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses of Christ… those who were the very founders of the early church. The membership of the early church is extraordinary. The sheer number of authors and the recreation of their accounts are extraordinary. The historical accuracy of the accounts is extraordinary. In fact, there is very little that can be called ordinary with regards to the church of the first century.
The actions of the disciples, too, are extraordinary. It is extraordinarily difficult to believe that
one man could be so obstinate as to die for a lie… much less the plethora of Christian martyrs who were killed shortly after the death of Christ. Jesus and the disciples were visible. Their claims were verifiable. It is more likely that the early Christians were so very devoted because they had seen the evidence with their own eyes or because they were very close to others who witnessed the events directly.
It is perhaps even more difficult to believe that the disciples could literally believe that they had the ability to perform miracles if this was not the case. Certainly such a delusion would not beget the massive early Christian church. If the disciples
merely believed they had supernatural powers, this wouldn’t translate to the masses.
A Physics professor I once had used to implore us to ask a simple question after we answered a problem:
Does this make sense? For instance, if the question asked for the height of a building and your answer was given in light years, it would behoove you to check your work (probably didn’t need to divide by Planck’s constant). Does it make sense that the disciples died (sometimes torturous deaths) for a lie? Does it make sense that the disciples had no real power, but were able to convince thousands upon thousands to turn away from comfortable lives as citizens of the Roman Empire and give their lives to Christ? The realities of our universe necessitate the probability of the supernatural. The probability of the supernatural necessitates the possibility of God. The possibility of God helps us to understand the stories of the New Testament. If you don’t blind yourself to that which you already know (there is something beyond our universe), the supernatural ceases to be a weak explanation by the ignorant faithful and becomes a valid explanation from the early eyewitnesses.