Cold Case Christianity: Biblical “Faith”: Trusting What Can’t Be Seen on the Basis of What Can

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled

Cold Case Christianity: Biblical “Faith”: Trusting What Can’t Be Seen on the Basis of What Can
Posted: 16 Dec 2019 01:50 AM PST  

The Christian concept of “faith” is often either misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented by skeptics and critics of Christianity.

It's also misunderstood by Christians, which makes it more difficult for atheists to define such monster "objectively".

Christians are not called to believe blindly.

Bullshit, in two places the NT praises the kind of faith that is unable to "see":

 29 Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed." (Jn. 20:29 NAU) 

 24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?
 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. (Rom. 8:24-25 NAU)

Wallace continues:

In fact, the Christian worldview is an evidential worldview grounded in the eyewitness testimony of those who saw Jesus provide evidence of His Deity.

It's also grounded on a view that cannot account for eyewitnesses who thought Jesus' miracles were total bullshit, such as his immediate family, see Mark 3:21, 6:4 and John 7:5.  In that honor/shame society, they would not lightly dismiss Jesus' claims, they would more than likely have investigated/observed them, since in that culture dishonoring Jesus was to dishonor his family too.  They would not deny Jesus' claims unless they had good reasons to consider his miracles fake.

Sometimes Christians contribute to the misunderstanding by failing to see the evidential nature of Christianity and the reasonable nature of “faith”.

Probably because they are new creatures in Christ who have the mind of the Holy Spirit.

As I teach on this topic around the country, Christians often offer this passage in the Book of Hebrews to defend a definition of blind faith:
 Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.
 Is the writer of Hebrews commending a form of blind faith in which we simply hope for “things not seen”? No. The author is encouraging his readers to continue to trust in the promises of God, in spite of the fact they haven’t yet been fulfilled (and might not even be fulfilled in their lifetimes). This trust in “things not seen” is not unwarranted, however. The promises of God are grounded in what God has already done. In other words, the author of Hebrews is asking his readers to trust what can’t be (or hasn’t yet been) seen, on the basis of what can be (or has been) seen.

Then Christian faith is not really different from skeptical faith, as everybody is using what they believe is already settled to draw inferences about what remains unsettled.

To make this point clear, the writer of Hebrews offers a short list of historic believers who trusted God’s promises for the future on the basis of what God had done in the past: Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph are described as believers who “died in faith, without receiving the promises” (verse 13).

Included in this faith hall of fame was Abraham, and the reason was his quick trust that whatever voice was telling him to kill his son was from God (!?)

Abe did not have faith that God would stop the knife from being plunged into the boy, but he had faith that God was able to raise the boy from the dead:

 17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son;
 18 it was he to whom it was said, "IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED."
 19 He considered that God is able to raise people even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type. (Heb. 11:17-19 NAU)

The blindless of such faith may be inferred frm the fact that nothing is stated about how Abraham knew this "kill your kid" voice was coming from "god", yet Abe's obedience to it was instant:

 1 Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, "Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am."
 2 He said, "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you."
 3 So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. (Gen. 22:1-3 NAU)

The NT will also label Lot as godly, which means his offering his virgin daughters to a sexually violent mob was an act consistent with men who deserve the title of "righteous" in the New Testament sense of the word, compare:

 4 Before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, surrounded the house, both young and old, all the people from every quarter;
 5 and they called to Lot and said to him, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may have relations with them."
 6 But Lot went out to them at the doorway, and shut the door behind him,
 7 and said, "Please, my brothers, do not act wickedly.
 8 "Now behold, I have two daughters who have not had relations with man; please let me bring them out to you, and do to them whatever you like; only do nothing to these men, inasmuch as they have come under the shelter of my roof." (Gen. 19:4-8 NAU) 

 7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men
 8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),
 9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, (2 Pet. 2:7-9 NAU)

Neo-fundamentalists will trifle that Lot's offering of his daughters was merely a case of Semitic exaggeration, that is, ancient Semitic peoples were always overstating facts and beliefs.  But if so, one wonders how many Christian doctrines about god's nature, derived as they are from a literal interpretation of the bible, are in fact a case of misrepresentation of the bible?  When the bible says God has been god from eternity into eternity (Psalm 90:2) is that literal, or Semitic exaggeration? 

And of course, neo-fundamentalists provide no criteria for distinguishing biblical claims that are meant literally from biblical claims that are mere Semitic exaggeration.

The promises of God were yet “things not seen”.

True, but that's not an exhaustive list of what qualifies under 11:1.  Blind faith would also qualify. 

And we have to ask...if an adult DOES have authentically "blind" faith due to some stirring sermon and ends up believing Christian claims on the basis of nothing more than biblical quotations, does THAT kind of faith "save", yes or no?  In other words, what can we deduce about you and your god if your god honors faith that is truly "blind"?  Will god withhold salvation from the sincere sinner until the sinner reads a few books about apologetics?

Or maybe we should worry about certain dogshit fundamentalists who think like Catholics, and say salvation is not certain until death?   Gee, how long must the skeptic trifle wth fundies about "already but not yet" crap before they become justified to start drawing conclusions about these scriptural 'tensions' that nobody wants to call actual contradictions?

In spite of this, these believers held firm to the promises of God on the basis of what they had seen.

And yet you despise skeptics who hold firm to the promises of science on the basis of what they have seen.

The author of Hebrews demonstrates this point with perhaps the best example of a believer who possessed a reasonable, evidential faith: Moses.

Nobody said the author of Hebrews was logically consistent.  11:1 is a blind faith by definition.  Whether the author cares, whether the author supports the point properly or uses evidence-based faith examples to support the point, is another question.

Hebrews 11:24-27
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.
 Moses repeatedly responded obediently (albeit sometimes reluctantly) to the yet unseen promises of God on the basis of what he had already seen God do in his life. In fact, years later when the Israelites complained or expressed doubt, Moses told them to move forward toward promises yet unseen on the basis of the evidence God had already given them:
 Exodus 13:3
Moses said to the people, “Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the Lord brought you out from this place.
 Deuteronomy 5:15
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.
 Deuteronomy 7:18
You shall not be afraid of them; you shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt:
 Deuteronomy 15:15
You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.
 Deuteronomy 24:18
But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing.
 Moses was the supreme example of a man who had a deep, reasonable trust based on the evidence God had provided him. His faith wasn’t blind, it was evidentially reasonable.

Maybe that's why he ordered babies to be slaughtered in Numbers 31:17.  Sure is funny that fundamentalists never think baby slaughter is morally good...unless it is ordered by god or a biblical character alleged to be in the will of God. Then suddenly, the magic of the bible soaks their brain and prevents them from giving a shit about being consistent.

He had seen God in the burning bush, watched how God used him in front of pharaoh, saw miracle after miracle, and witnessed the power of God. On the basis of this evidence, his confidence grew and Moses was ultimately transformed from a coward to a champion.

It's a great story.  And we also know that you have no interest in defeating skeptical arguments, rather, you only say what you think will suffice to keep Christians in the faith.

Christianity is grounded in the evidence of the eyewitness gospel accounts.

No, "Christianity" has become an infinitely splintered religion whose advocates contradict each other's interpretation of the bible on nearly every subject except perhaps Jesus' gender.   Even NT "Christianity" is contradictory, compare Jesus' requirement of works for salvation (Matthew 5:17-21) with the antinomianism of Paul in Romans 4:4-5 (salvation even for those who do not work).

These documents make claims about the history of the First Century and the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. As such, these claims are both verifiable and falsifiable. As we grow in our confidence related to the reliability of the Gospels, our reasoned trust in what they claim (and what they promise) will also grow. The gospels describe many “things not seen”. God is immaterial and invisible, and many of the promises of God are yet unfulfilled. But we can trust the things we can’t see on the basis of the things we can. We can move in faith toward the future on the basis of what God has demonstrated in the past.

Leaving skeptics wondering why you chide them for having faith in the unseen naturalistic explanations for phenomena which science cannot yet explain, when in fact inferring "god did it" violates Occam's Razor far more.

My response to THE BEAT by Allen Parr

Allen Parr encourages the reader to engage in discussion:

Biblical Encouragement And Truth (The B.E.A.T) is an online video ministry dedicated to communicating God's word in a creative, practical and easy-to-watch format. These short 5-minutes-or-less videos seek to address questions most Christians have and to provide a forum for people to discuss various theological concepts and ideas. This channel also encourages people by challenging them to live out their true calling as a Christian. We release a new video EVERY TUESDAY and FRIDAY. I hope you'll enjoy these videos, share them and engage in the discussion! (see here)

He tries to give superficial Christian apologetics arguments a shot in the arm with displays of confidence and the kind of posturing one normally sees in videos entitled "Fast Food Freakouts" (i.e., he is pandering to a younger crowd, who cannot be expected, despite their "new creature in Christ" status (2nd Cor. 5:17) to act like new creatures in Christ.  See here.

-----------Here is the reply I posted, just in case it gets deleted.

Well first, there is not the least bit of intellectual obligation upon anybody today to grant the benefit of the doubt to an ancient historical document. Christians don’t care what we do with Lucian of Samosata, so whether we are ‘required’ to believe ancient documents is apparently decided merely based on the personal preferences of whatever person happens to be doing the preaching.

Furthermore, since the OT came first, and the NT doctrine of hell-fire positively contradicts the sense of divine justice in the OT, I have the perfect right to label the NT as heresy, that god’s wrath upon me will never consist of more than permanent extinction of consciousness, and therefore, my rejection of Jesus is not in any way “dangerous”.

Second, Christian scholars routinely try to get rid of early church father beliefs they don't like by saying the father was biased or writing with apologetic tone, but then these Christians turn around and pretend as if the gospel of Matthew is the equal of video tape. This guy in the video is acting like there’s just no way Matthew might be biased or writing with apologetic tone.

Third, nobody manifests a concern the disciples might steal the body, until a full day after the Romans gave up custody of the body to Joseph of Arimathea, plenty of head-start for the disciples to commit foul play. Matthew 27:58-64.

Fourth, if the guards could be so easily bribed to tell a shockingly unbelievable story (they were asleep when the disciples stole the body...but if asleep, how would they know?, Matthew 28:13), the guards could just as easily be bribed by Joseph of Arimathea to lie and say they rolled back the stone to visually verify the corpse was still inside before they stationed the guard. Did Joseph have enough money to achieve such a bribe? Yes, he was “rich” (28:57). And by being rich, the claim that he was a “secret” disciple of Jesus (John 19:38) makes it sound like he only preferred some of what Jesus taught, and wasn’t a true disciple...which increases the probability that Joseph was willing to engage in some foul play in effort to help the disciples concoct a lie in accord with their “visions”.

Fifth, if the guards sealed the tomb then later claimed the disciples stole the body, they would be obligated to have broken their own seal so as to fabricate evidence of grave robbery. But this guy in the video says if any unauthorized person broke the seal, they were subject to the death penalty, so the guards had to have been very stupid and corrupt to accept the Jewish bribe and actually report such story...which makes such guards even more likely to be subject to a bribe from the rich Joseph of Arimathea, a bribe asking them to falsely testify that they visually verified the corpse was still in the tomb before they sealed it.

Sixth, Joseph wrapped Jesus' corpse in a new cloth (27:59), so even if we are to believe the guards rolled away the stone to check that the body was still there, that only requires they would have seen a new linen cloth wrapped around the outline of a body. Given the tremendous significance of laws against grave robbery, the trifle that the guards would also have peeled back the cloth to visually verify there was a real body underneath or to look at Jesus' death face, is not very likely. If they looked inside, all they likely did was view the shape of a body wrapped in this cloth, and conclude this was the body of Jesus. Their hasty generalization fallacy is more likely if they were sufficiently corrupt as to accept bribes to motivate them to engage in dereliction of duty and straight up lying.

Seventh, this guy in the video is blindly assuming that unless skeptics can positively contradict the gospel accounts, then those accounts "must" be entitled a presumption of truth. There is no such presumption, and since the fates of most apostles are unknown, the legends late and contradictory, you cannot even pretend that they willingly gave up their livesa martyrs. In the case of specifically Matthew, some legends say he merely died. Skeptics don't really care if this or that historian says the benefit of the doubt must be granted to the document. That's about as stupid as saying you should believe every claim you hear until you can positively disprove it. You don’t do that, especially when the claim is one that contradicts your experience of how the world works.

Eighth, the alleged "fearfulness" of the disciples is not consistent with their having seen Jesus raise people from the dead (Lazarus, John 11) and their own ability to raise the dead (Matthew 10:8). Since these miracles aren't really "lesser" than Jesus' own resurrection, we have a right to expect either that the disciples stand their ground when jesus was on the cross and openly confess they were Jesus followers even if this meant death...or that the "miracles" of Jesus the disciples experienced were not very convincing, and so they acted scared exactly the way any followers would when their leader is proven to be a liar. Add to this the ceaseless reports of Jesus' other miracles (what did that loaf of bread look like as Jesus caused it to produce a twin of identical volume?), and the notion that the disciples remained so thickheaded as to remain "scared" after Jesus died, is about as believable as Pharaoh driving his chariot in between the columns of water to chase the Israelites through the parted Red Sea. Sorry, we are entitled to say some stories are just too unlikely to deserve trust.

Ninth, the post-crucifixion faith of the disciples does not mean they saw Jesus with their physical eyes, as religious fanatics can gain a desire for martyrdom solely on the basis of visions. Paul's experience of Christ on the road to Damascus was a 'vision' (Acts 26:19). Visions get rid of the "why would they die for what they knew was a lie?" apologetic: they didn't know it was a lie, like every other religious visionary.

Tenth, the guy in the video quotes Acts 1:3 as if this was one of the most convincing "proofs", but the comment that the risen Christ spoke about the kingdom of God to the disciples over a period of 40 days probably implies something more than 15 seconds of speech...yet Matthew 28 provides no more speech from the risen Christ than what can be mouthed in 15 seconds. Given Matthew obvious love for quoting Jesus extensively, and his love for the "kingdom of God" sayings in particular, it is highly unlikely Matthew would merely "chose to exclude" most of the risen Christ-sayings. It is also highly unlikely, given Matthew's tendency to quote extensively, that he would "chose to condense" the risen Christ's kingdom of God statements to a mere 15 second summary. Matthew’s risen Christ gives us only 15 seconds of speech because that’s all the speech such author believed Jesus spoke. It’s not “excluding” and it’s not “condensation”. If Matthew wrote in 55 a.d., which is a date much earlier than what most fundamentalist dare argue for, this Matthew is still writing at least 20 years after the apostle Paul started all the mess about Gentile salvation, so it is highly unlikely Matthew would chose to deprive the reader of most of the risen Christ's kingdom of God sayings, it is more likely he would have found the risen Christ's specific statements about the kingdom of God much needed to balance out the fact that Paul is running around trying to prove everything about the subject without ever quoting Jesus.

Eleventh, Galatians 2:9 asserts that the leaders among the original Jewish disciples chose to stay away from the Gentile mission field and allocate the entire business to Paul...which means they were then collectively disobeying the risen Christ's command that THEY evangelize the Gentiles (Matthew 28:19-20).

Twelfth, the Great Commission, which requires the original 11 apostles to evangelize Gentiles, specifies that such teachings shall consist of their telling new Gentile converts to obey all the things Jesus had previously taught the disciples. That means these original Jewish disciples had a greater responsibility to conduct the Gentile mission than Paul, whose johnny-come-lately status, and dislike for basing doctrine on Jesus’ words, positively disqualify him from obeying the Great Commission. See Matthew 28:20, and compare with Paul's own statement that he didn't get his gospel from any person, but only by divine telepathy(Galatians 1:1, 11-12). Clearly Paul’s gospel to the Gentiles was NOT “teaching them everything Jesus taught the original apostles” (Matthew 28:20).

Thirteenth, Jesus’ alleged appearance to 500 brothers all at once is suspect since it only comes from Paul, and he leaves it ambiguous whether or not Paul was with them at the time, so that the reader cannot be reasonably certain whether this alleged appearance allegation is coming from hearsay or a first-hand source.

Fourteenth, as an example of what “visions” were like for the original Christians, you might ask yourself how believable you’d find the fool who says that, 14 years ago he flew up into the sky without any mechanical means, but that when he thinks about it now, he still cannot tell whether such flying was physical or spiritual. That’s not a credible witness, yet it precisely what apostle Paul claimed (2nd Corinthians 12:1-4, using the same Greek word optasia that he used in Acts 26:19 to describe his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus as a “vision”).

Fifteenth, Josephus' claim about Jesus is a textual corruption, and the likely recoverable form of the original merely reports that the disciples said they saw Jesus alive after he died. Josephus’ refusal to grant more attention to Christianity makes it all but certain he was not a Christian, therefore, the basis for his reporting what Jesus’ disciples believed, is likely nothing more than popular rumor, rumors he did not himself find very convincing.

Sixteenth, Thomas Arnold of Rome is an 18th century historian, which the guy in the video seems to have confused with a 1st century Roman historian who allegedly mentions Christ, such as Tacitus.

Seventeenth, I am not affected by lesser works by Morrison, Strobel and McDowell, because I have already extensively critiqued the latest arguments given by actual genuine Christian scholars such as Mike Licona, Gary Habermas, and William Lane Craig. The guy in the video appears to be pandering to a younger crowd of emotionalist juveniles who find more significance in posturing than in scholarly-level investigation. Any person who converts to Christianity on the basis of this video is a fool indeed.

Eighteenth, the guy in the video can find atheists who eventually became Christian? Exactly how hard would it be to find fundamentalist Christians who eventually became atheists? Why don’t stories of ex-fundamentalists’ apostasy mean as much as stories of an atheists’ coming to Christian faith?

Nineteenth, the fact that the missing body of Christ was never found, is hardly relevant. First, Christians who said Jesus rose from the dead had a motive to conveniently forget where the real corpse was. Second, the honor/shame dialect would require the second generation Christians to uphold the beliefs of their teachers/parents, which is sort of like kids today who continue hanging onto the faith taught them by parents and youth pastors despite not knowing dick about how to refute skeptical arguments that are easily found with two google clicks. Moreover, the fact that crucifixion was normative in Jesus’ time means there were others who were also crucified, helping increase the complexity of any but the original Christians being able to verify that any particular body was that of Jesus.

Twentieth, the guy in the video makes a big deal about how easy it would be, if Jesus didn’t rise, for the Jews or Romans to simply exhume the body and wheel it around Jerusalem to disprove the resurrection claims. But the problem is that the disciples didn’t start talking that shit until 40 days after he was crucified (Acts 2:1 ff), by which time the corpse would have decomposed enough to become unrecognizable. But it is probably more important to point out that the guy in the video is fallaciously presuming the original Christian claims would have worried the authorities sufficiently to motivate them to violate grave-robbing laws merely to prove wrong the new claim of yet another religious cult in Palestine. The only people who think Christianity made a powerful impact on unbelievers within one year after Jesus died, are those who do little more than blindly trust the book of Acts. Likely because they only obey the falsely alleged “granting the benefit of the doubt to the document” rule whenever expediency dictates.

This “beat” guy’s argument and demeanor indicate he either doesn’t know what the rules of historiography are, or he doesn’t care.  If he is willing to engage in actual scholarship, as opposed to simply giving us a Christian preaching version of  "How Homies in da' hood resurrect failed arguments", I’ll be delighted to have a formal debate with him.  

See https://turchisrong.blogspot.com for more scholarly articles refuting Christian "apologetics" arguments.

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Demolishing Triablogue: Hume's abject failure, even if real, does not hurt skeptics in the slightest

Triablogue's Steve Hays posts a link to a discussion with a Christian author James N. Anderson, who wrote a book called "David Hume", wherein he argues the standard Christian apologist party line that Hume's famous argument against the credibility of miracle-reports involves fallacious reasoning, therefore, skeptics lose, and there cannot be any reasonableness to one's a pirori dismissal of any particular miracle claim.

John Frame's Amazon.com review of the book boasts:

But James Anderson's book shows that it is the followers of Hume who should be frightened. Anderson presents an account of Hume that is accurate and comprehensive, yet concise. It is easy to follow. And it shows clearly where Hume went wrong, and how his errors illumine the biblical alternative. Hume fell into skepticism because he failed to think God's thoughts after him." --John M. Frame

See here

Before we even start, the whole "hume-bashing" thing is irrational for Christian apologists, because their own bible leaves the distinct impression that the unbelievers go to eternal conscious misery at death.  So since unbelievers cannot know when they will die, and the stakes are ostensibly this high, the bible appears intended to foster the belief that the unbeliever does not have 5 minutes from now or 5 weeks from now to 'get saved'.  If they are always one mere heartbeat away from the gates of hell, such extremely urgent danger means the only possible rational choice is to "get saved" now, right now.

But getting saved as quickly as possible necessarily means getting saved upon the basis of the limited biblical knowledge the sinner has at the point of decision, thus increasing the risk that "getting saved" might end up causing the new Christian to join the wrong denomination or hold the wrong theology, leading to a risk that they will go the rest of their natural lives never appreciating that they just heaped even more divine curse on themselves than they did as unbelievers (Galatians 1:8-9).

If the same bible counsels that unbelievers take the time to study, that is no more significant than the Christian apologist of today who encourages the same:  If the unbeliever really is in such horrifically urgent danger of eternal damnation, then the reasonableness of speeding oneself toward salvation is going to remain, whether or not the bible elsewhere counsels any amount of prepartory "study".  If you really are hanging over the edge of a cliff by a thread, how could "take your time to think about it to make sure you make an informed decision!" coming from the person offering help, possibly "prove" that you can safely delay accepting that help?  So if the bible teaches both the terrible urgent danger that unbelievers are in, but elsewhere teaches that it is reasonable for the unbeliever to take the time to study up on the subject, then the bible is simply contradicting its own message of urgent danger.

The point is that the apologist's own bible would make it "reasonable" for the skeptic to scream in horror at his own spiritual peril and "get saved" in the quickest manner possible...which means the bible is making a person reasonable to engage in an impulsive sort of conduct that is decidedly anti-intellectual, not to mention spiritually dangerous given that the act occurs without any serious prior study, thus increasing the risk the unbeliever will join the wrong church and forever be blinded to their own ensuring perdition.

So because the bible's pretense that the unbeliever is in horrifically urgent danger, is likely to set the unbeliever on the very course of hell the bible allegedly wants the unbeliever to be rescued from, this is such a colossal violation of common sense and self-consistency as to alone justify the skeptic who chooses to use the bible for little more than practicing kicking 80-yard field goals.

Furthermore, I have already extensively examined the pro-resurrection arguments of Licona, Habermas, and William Lane Craig, and have forceful reasons to disagree with their conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead.  Thereore, even assuming some miracles are real and atheism is false, so what?  that's not going to render resurrection-skepticism the least bit unreasonable, and if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, the mere basic existence of 'god' will always be insufficient to pretend that this god is angry at those who deny his existence. 

Finally, Triablogue will inevitably default to the OT YHWH in case Jesus didn't rise from the dead, but in light of Deut. 13's requirement that the false prophet who works true miracles be put to death, the OT is clearer about YHWH's anger at those who misrepresent him, than toward those who simply deny his basic existence.  So not even the reality of miracles and god can do what Triablogue wants, and render one's apathy toward Christian claims unreasonable.

So let's get started with the more specific rebuttals:

(I attack mostly the hypercalvinist Steve Hays in this post, since he pipes up so much about the fallaciousness of naturalism and how atheists cannot account for some miracle claims.  So the Christian reader should remember that I have tapered my attack here to Hays' CALVINISM.  That is, I often use Hays' Calvinism against him in the rest of this article.  I'm quite aware that Arminians would not feel threatened by an attack on Calvinism, but it is the plight of every atheist that Christians contradict each other so much, that a rebuttal to one style of Christianity does nothing to affect the others.  Don't take this article to mean I can only demolish miracle claims by bashing Calvinism. That might indicate you don't know how to read English.  The vast majority of my miracle research criticisms herein are reasonable and epistemically warranted regardless of which exact form of Christianity is true).

First, no Christian apologist has ever asserted how long or intensively a person confronted with a miracle claim "should" investigate it before they became reasonable to start drawing ultimate conclusions about its truth or falsity.  Would the reasonable person surely always spend more than one day researching any particular miracle claim?  Might the possible danger in joining the wrong church (Galatians 1:8-9) make it reasonable to avoid drawing conclusions about the miracle of Jesus resurrection until one has studied the matter for at least 25 years?  What's 25 years compared to eternity, right?  So apologists have no moral or intellectual justification to condemn skeptics who don't spend as much time bothering with miracle claims as the apologists subjectively wish.

Second, rejecting miracle claims a pirori can certainly be justified by appeal to past experience, just like the Christian Trinitarian at Triablogue do not automatically go into objective-robot-mode whenever they meet a Jehovah Witness.  They have already determined that the Trinity is a real thing and truely biblical doctrine  hence, when the JW says "the trinity is unbiblical", Triablogue dismisses the criticism a priori.  Deciding that you already know enough to know that another claim is false, is otherwise called "learning".  You'd never learn, if you forbade yourself from automatically dismissing claims.  What good does it do to learn?  After all, if somebody else comes down the pike and argues in favor of something you deny, you wont' be objevtive unless you respond to their contentions on the merits.

The problem here is that the bible does not allow apologists to be that objective.  You are supposed to be beyond any possibility of changing your mind when you become a Christian:

 39 But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. (Heb. 10:39 NAU) 

 19 They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us. (1 Jn. 2:19 NAU) 

 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom. 8:38-39 NAU) 

 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2 Cor. 10:5 NAU) 

 21 and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. (Rom. 4:21 NAU) 

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb. 11:1 NAU)

Therefore, Christian apologists are hypocrites for characterizing the skeptic's similarly confident certitude as fallacious.

If the girlfriend knows from prior experience that her boyfriend is abusive, you cannot really blame her if she a priori dismisses his latest claim to have changed for the better.  Common sense does not always counsel that you objectively examine the merits of every possibly true claim that comes down the pike.

And a priori does not apply to my own skepticism, since I do not dismiss anything without analysis.   So if other skeptics committ this error, the apologist errs by broadbrushing these amateurs as if they represent what all skeptics do.  Count me out.  If you are honest.  The vast majority of us are willing to review any miracle-claim you pretend is the most convincing, so we can no more be lumped in with the few stupid skeptics than you can be lumped in with Pentecostal snake-handlers.

Third, Hume's allegedly "abject failure" is irrelevant, I myself have been challenging Christian apologists for years to produce the one single biblical or non-biblical miracle claim that they believe is the most impervious to falsification, including direct requests to Craig Keener (i.e., author of the two-volume work "Miracles", which does little more than merely catalog thousands of reported miracle claims).  See here.  I issued the same challenge to Steve Hays of Triablogue, who constantly rants and raves about the alleged fallacies of miracle-skepticism, who also thinks Keener's "Miracles" work is a "game-changer". See here.  As expected, in both cases, I've gotten zero response. 

So skeptics like me lose precisely NOTHING even if we admit Hume's particular argument against the credibility of third-party miracle claims was less than perfect.

Fourth, Anderson falsely charges Hume with arguing that no amount of evidence could possibly be good enough:

Anderson:I think it is, and I think most commentators on Hume’s argument say that it does stack the deck in advance. Hume acts like it doesn’t; he acts like he is just applying general principles of evidence to the particular case of miracles, but when you look closely at it, what it means is that no amount of evidence could possibly weigh in favor of a miracle. This is, in a sense, how absurd it gets: even if you witnessed a miracle with your own eyes, right in front of you, you shouldn’t believe your own eyes, according to Hume’s argument.
Zaspel:It’s just gratuitous.
Anderson:You can’t win. When it’s set up like that, you can’t win.

That's false, because Hume was talking about what basis we have to believe miracle reports from other people.  He was not talking about what one should conclude if one witnesses the miracle with their own eyes.  He in fact made clear that he was prioritizing how much a person should trust their own senses:

Our evidence, then, for the truth of the Christian religion is less than the evidence for the truth of our senses; because, even in the first authors of our religion, it was no greater; and it is evident it must diminish in passing from them to their disciples; nor can any one rest such confidence in their testimony, as in the immediate object of his senses.

...To apply these principles to a particular instance; we may observe, that there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of men, and the reports of eye-witnesses and spectators. 

Third, Christian apologists have never supplied sufficiently indisputable criteria for evaluating miracle claims.  Mike Licona says the claim must occur in a context charged with religious significance (here), but he only demands this because he knows that the miracle of Jesus' resurrection is charged with religious significance.  What he is doing to trying to give the reader a reason to avoid any paranormal claims made in absence of a religious context, so that the reader will be more likely to narrow their focus to just "religious" miracles.  But if mircales be concluded to occur in non-religious contexts, that opens the possibility that miracles can be real for purely naturalistic reasons.  You run the risk of discovering an explanation for miracles that needs no "god" or "Jesus".  That's contrary to the purposes of Christian apologetics, of course.

Fourth, Christian apologists routinely remind us that Jesus' miracle of resurrection, if true, automatically justifies concluding that the debate is over and Christianity is true.  Starting with Licona:

However, if Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true and Islam is false.

If Jesus really did rise from the dead, then he alone must know what is on the other side.

WHAT IF JESUS REALLY DID RISE FROM THE DEAD?This would have profound implications for our understanding of the universe, existence, morality, God, and everything else

If Jesus rose from the dead, Christianity is true and any worldview or religion that contradicts Christianity is false.

But the bible says some prophets who work genuinely supernatural miracles deserve the death penalty:

 1 "If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder,
 2 and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,'
 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
 4 "You shall follow the LORD your God and fear Him; and you shall keep His commandments, listen to His voice, serve Him, and cling to Him.
 5 "But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has counseled rebellion against the LORD your God  (Deut. 13:1-5 NAU)

Paul apparently believed it was a real possibility for an angel from heaven to give somebody a false gospel:

6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;

 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!

 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! (Gal. 1:6-9 NAU)

Indeed, the boys at Triablogue are all about "The catholic miracles at Fatima can be genuinely supernatural but also performed by demonic power", which is the absurd trifle they are forced to make, since otherwise they are proven hypocrites by automatially discounting non-Protestant miracle claims.

When Steve Hays pretends that Catholic miracles don't validate the Catholic faith, what he forgets to do is tell the reader how they can tell which cases of genuinely supernatural miracles are "from god" and which are "from the devil", if that distinction even means anything to such a hyperCalvinist as Steve.  See here.  

He also fails to answer the same concern in his similar article here.  Steve will trifle that he was only dealing with cessationist objections, but if that be the case, then why hasn't Steve Hays ever provided the world with a biblical criteria for knowing when real miracles come from "god" and which come from "the devil"?

Did he write an article somewhere that says "If the person doing the miracle insists that Calvinism is biblical, you can be sure the miracle is being done by holy power"?

Or maybe Steve is open to the possibility that god does miracles for non-Calvinists in contexts that do not motivate people to worry about 'biblical theology' probably because God doesn't find theological accuracy to be as important as Triablogue does?  Gee, dogmatic, asshole know-it-all Christian sinners have never misunderstood god's will or the bible, have they?  Gee, when you learn to mistake your blog for an actual life, all you can do is discover more and more divine truth, amen?

So us skeptics are smart to reject the knee-jerk conclusions of Christian apologists.  If Jesus really did rise from the dead, that does not justify an automatic inference that he correctly represented YHWH.

But if so, then what more must a person do to help decide whether the miracle came from god or satan?

Would it be smart for the unbeliever who recognizes the legitimacy of that question, to put it on a back shelf until some Christian apologist answers it?  After all, Steve Hays thinks unbelievers are incapable of understanding spiritual truth, therefore, he can do nothing but support me as I wait for a spiritual person to figure it out.

What if the miracle doesn't provide any guidance as to what theology is true? Might we justifiably infer the supernatural entity doing the miracle fails to provide such answers because it thinks simple obedience to what one already knows is more important than "orthodoxy"? Oh, of course not.  Isn't it clear that when Jesus preached to Gentiles, he drew up a clear list of 'essential' doctrines and warned that failure to understand the Trinity and salvation by grace was a sign of the anti-Christ?

And in light of orthodox Jews condemning the NT and Jesus for the last 2,000 years, skeptics have more than sufficient justification to first study the Jewish objections to Jesus and the Christian responses, before making a decision on which person has the more robust position.  Unfortunately, that could take months or years...while the unbeliever is also supposed to believe that the longer they delay accepting Jesus, the more they put themselves at risk of eternal damnation.  LOL. 

For me personally, I've already read Justin's Dialogue with Trypho and have evaluated the arguments of Dr. Michael Brown and found them wanting, along with about 20 years of responding to Christian attempts to extract Jesus out of Micah 5:2, Daniel 9, Isaiah 53 and Psalms 16 and 22.  I just haven't set forth my criticisms of such matters in this blog very systematically.  Steve Hays cannot really say whether I need to do "more", so he has no moral basis to condemn me or any other skeptic for thinking the paucity of Brown's arguments justifies concluding that getting Jesus out of the OT requires wild stretches.  I'll take the NT methods of exegesis of the OT as my first case in point.  There's a very good reason Gleason Archer spent significant time trying to warn Christians away from adopting the methods of exegesis used by the NT authors:  you do that, and you wind up in stupidville real quick, and mistaking mere typology for actual substance.

Fifth, Hume's argument was basically sound even if one could trifle that he overstated a few things or otherwise erred.  Nothing in the New Testament qualifies as meeting Hume's common sense test:






The undeniable truth is that 

• It violates common sense to believe every miracle report you hear

• If you are going to avoid being gullible, you have to already have in place criteria to distinguish likely true from likely false miracle claims

• According to Steve Hays, the miracle investigator msut also have criteria for being able to distinguish genuinely supernatural miracles done by god, and genuinely supernatural miracles done by demonic power.  Yet Hays is a presuppositionalist and Calvinist, and thinks the unbeliever cannot possibly understand such spiritual things...yet he pretends as if they are under some type of intellectual obligation to go research something he says they cannot possibly understand.

• Hays is stupid because hsi logic would require that unbelievers first become spiritual (born again) so they can understand spiritual things enough to figure out which mriacles are godly and which are satanic, but if that happens, no miracle investigation will be necessary, DUH

• Hays never say how we can recognize the point where we can be justified to start drawing ultimate conclusions about such criteria and move on to evaluating actual claims?  5 minutes?  3 weeks? 

• No Christian apologist can provide usefully specific criteria for how long one must study miracle claims before being justified to start drawing ultimate conclusions.  Will one day of 8 hours of googling be sufficient?  They simply ask you to "check it out", as if you should just cover your eyes, reach into the bag, and begin your research in all the intenteional blindness of the way people win the lottery.  Well gee, with so many dogshit miracle claims in history and in the present world, where shall I start?  Fatima?  Benny Hinn?  Mel Tari and his "Like a Mighty Wind" book?  Or must I hold back and first develop criteria for knowing when a certain alleged miracle worker is too likely unreliable to deserve any serious consideration?  

• Does the fact that god also does miracles through non-believers complicate the process?

• No apologist, including the fools at Triablogue, has any criteria by which a person can tell how much time, money and resources they "should" (DING!  moral claim!) expend in researching miracle claims.  If an internet search shows a potentially viable claim, but no further information is available, how much intellectual obligation does god think is upon the unbeliever to pursue that lead with his own money? 

• If the bible doesn't say, isn't it true there is a substantial risk your own recommendation might disagree with god's own personal opinion?  you are a sinner, correct?  Your recommendations don't carry canonical authority, correct?  And yet what do you tell yourself about drawing conclusions about god that can possibly be true, but which cannot be supported from the bible?

• If the skeptic locates contact information for one alleged miracle witness, how much should he pursue contacting them?  Is shooting off one email to their last known email address sufficient?  or must he followup any silence with a paper letter to their last known mailing address?  If Calvinism is true, wouldn't that mean that whatever degree of laziness the unbeliever exudes in any miracle investigation, this was infallibly predestined by God, so that the unbeliever never had the ability to do more than what he ended up actually doing?  What then, will you fault a person for fulfilling God's secret will exactly as God intended?  "Shame on you: you obeyed me in the exact way I expected!" LOL

• Suppose an internet search yields a website of miracle claims that provides working links to downloads of testimony and medical files, is it enough to read all such material and then start drawing conclusions about likely truth/falsehood?  Or is the skeptic being too skeptical by delaying belief until they can authenticate such downloaded testimonies and medical files?  Gee, are courts of law just stupid for demanding "authentication"?  Of course they are, isn't it obvious that miracle-frauds never happen, so that automatically trusting anything from the internet claiming to be testimony or medical evidence is the more objective way to proceed?

• I kicked Steve Hays' theological ass all over hell and back in a debate years ago on the precise topic of how the skeptic is supposed to know when the evidence they uncovered has become sufficient to justify drawing ultimate conclusions, or even whether there is any intellectual obligation upon them to give one holy fuck about any such claims in the first place.  See here.  The smartest Calvinist in the world wisely refused to engage after posting his one single criticism, for reasons that will be obvious to anybody who reads the debate.

• Christian apologists cannot agree on where to "start" the miracle investigation (i.e., the resurrection of Jesus?  Or the fallacies of empiricism?  Would Steve Hays suggest that the methodological errors in naturalism make it reasonable for the naturalist to focus first on Christain critiques of naturalism?  What about the non-Calvinist Christians who take the parable of the Sower seriously, and conclude that there's more "magic in the air" by hitting the unbeliever with the straight gospel dope, as opposed to reading presuppositionalist rebuttals to certain philosophical beliefs?  

• If both should be pursued, which one should be first, how do you know, and how long should the unbeliever put forth effort to see whether or not your recommendation is sufficiently robust as to likely lead to useful conclusions?  Therefore Christian apologists have no moral or intellectual ground to chide a skeptic who makes their own subjective decision about precisely what subtopic of miracle investigation they should look into first, if any.  If the skeptic thinks seeing rebuttals to naturalism is the logical place to start since it will kick out their naturalistic foundation and motivate them to be more open to a supernaturalist foundation, there won't be any way to "prove" that he "should" have started with the resurrection of Jesus.  

• After Steve Hays makes all of his presuppositionalist Van Tilian-esque recommendations, how long should the skeptic compare this with the recommendations of other Christians who oppose presuppositionalism, before he can be rationally warranted to draw ultimate conclusions about whether Hays's recommendations were a prudent and smart starting point?  How long must i listen to the presuppositionalist Steve Hays and the evidentialist William Lane Craig give me contradictory advice on the "best" place to start, before i become justified to start drawing my own conclusions about the matter?  Must I first become a scholar of John Calvin and memorize all the ways that John Frame and Van Til disagree with each other before I dare make a judgment call?  After all, if I don't do that level of research, there will be enough questionable holes for Hays to come back in a blog article and say "he didn't cover this subject, he avoided that topic, he overlooked that over there..."  But if Hays is not god, then eventually he has to admit that common sense is going to require I reach a point at which I start making my own decisions.

• If you try to research some miracle claim, whether healings at Fatima or Jesus' resurrection, you are just choosing to do something else with your time than actually repent and believe the gospel.  If you are still an unbeliever as you go to the library to check out a book Steve Hays recommended, and you die in a car crash along the way, you go to a hell of eternal misery even if not "flames, according to Hays, because Hays does not believe the bible teaches there is any third option in the afterworld for "sincere" unbelievers who died while in the process of checking out apologetics claims, but before arriving at actual faith.  So, how long "should" the unbeliever "check out" why Lydia McGrew believes there is a special third place for just such people despite the obvious lack of biblical justification?  Should the unbeliever consider that McGrew has a Holy Spirit witness that must be as seriously considered as the bible?  If so, how long should that investigation take place?  Isn't it true that for every second the unbeliever spends investigating some Christian bullshit, the more they delay the day of their repentance, and therefore, the more they risk dying before repentance and ending up in hell?

• Hopefully neither Hays nor any Christian thinks unbelievers need to give up their spouse, kids, job and home and just sit on the internet all day homeless in a coffee shop googling miracle claims like crazy, all worried that the longer they delay repenting, the more they risk going to hell 9while yet knowing that to hurry up and repent requires them to limit their study, and possibly repent in a way that is not sufficient, or believe in a false Jesus which will then blind them the rest of their lives to the fact that they remain unsaved).  Yet Christians are forced to insist that the more you ignore Christ and pay attention to anything else (job, family, life) the more you DO increase the risk you'll die before getting saved (and thus go to hell).  Perhaps Jesus in Matthew 19:29 was being just a bit more consistent with his fanatical message of salvation-urgency, than are his modern-day defenders?

For all these reasons, skeptics need not have the slightest worry whether or not that Christian apologist over there accused Hume of violating common sense.  We have more than sufficient reason and justification to ignore bible and miracle claims until we start seeing biblical-style "miracles".  Especially in the mind of Steve Hays, who is a hyperCalvinist, who says every error unbelievers engage in, was infallibly predestined by God, so that the unbeliever could not possibly have done anything other than commit those errors.  Yet his god still bitches at human puppets for moving in the same direction this god had pulled their strings.  LOL.

Gee, how many miracle-claims did I ignore in the effort to write this blog piece?

How many Arminian YouTube videos did Steve Hays ignore when writing any of his Triablogue bullshit?

Cold Case Christianity: Answering Hard Questions About Christianity (Podcast)

This is my reply to an article by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Cold Case Christianity: Answering Hard Questions About Christianity (Podcast) 

Posted: 11 Dec 2019 01:40 AM PST

In this episode of the podcast, J. Warner joins Bill Arnold on Faith Radio to respond to listener questions. How do we present the Gospel to people who are dying of a terminal disease?

You tell their relatives to follow Jesus, and use the phrase "let the dead bury the dead" to discourage their attendance at the inevitable funeral:

 21 Another of the disciples said to Him, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father."
 22 But Jesus said to him, "Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead." (Matt. 8:21-22 NAU) 

 59 And He said to another, "Follow Me." But he said, "Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father."
 60 But He said to him, "Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God." (Lk. 9:59-60 NAU)

Then you tell them Jesus came for the purpose of breaking up families:

34 "Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
 35 "For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW;
 36 and A MAN'S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD. (Matt. 10:34-36 NAU)

Jesus being the perfect example of such since his own immediate family saw nothing compelling about his miracles and continued failing to properly honor him:

 4 Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household." (Mk. 6:4 NAU)

Then you tell them exactly what actions Jesus thought this information implied, such as Jesus promising that those of his followers who abandon their own children will receive salvation and other rewards:

 29 "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name's sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life. (Matt. 19:29 NAU)

That's how you act when you want to be more "Christ-like".   Wallace next asks:

Can we make a decision for Jesus even though we have big, unanswered questions?

Can we make a decision for Mormonism even though we have big, unanswered questions?

Can skeptics be reasonable to make a decision about the resurrection of Jesus, even if they have big, unanswered questions?

That puts Christian apologists in a pickle, as they are rather hypocritical and arbitrary. as the following represents how most "apologists" feel:  

"you can always be rational to make a decision for Christ no matter how stupid you are, as putting off the day of your salvation is quite dangerous in light of even the non-flame version of hell, and the fact that you could die any second.  But skeptics?  They are not reasonable to deny the resurrection of Jesus even if they delayed that decision while they conducted 20 years of research into the arguments of Habermas, Licona and William Lane Craig.  Such blind dogmatism is the way we fundies continually foster a protective 'us v. them' mentality, keeping them in the faith is more important than whether their reasons for staying are academically rigorous.  But only for Protestant Trinitarians.  All other "Christians" are intellectually obligated to keep saying "I don't know", no matter how much research they do, until they find a reason to join the Protestant Trinitarians."

Except that a skeptic could easily undercut such self-serving idiocy by raising the specter of the unbeliever who is tempted to make a decision for Christ... that is, the Christ of Jehovah Witnesses.  Ahhh, then suddenly, you "must" recognize that Jesus is god or else the Christ you accept will false and thus insufficient to actually save you, and picking the wrong form of Christianity increases how much trouble you are in with God (Galatians 1:8-9).  FUCK YOU.   Wallace continues:

Why does the Bible seem to condone slavery?

There's no "seem" about it:  the kind of slavery Moses wanted his Hebrews to practice was as follows:  Go make war against that nation over there, kill everybody including the male babies, spare only the prepubescent girls so they can become your house slaves, and remember, if any such recently traumatized girl refuses to do the dishes like you ask her to after you get her back to your house, "rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft":

 12 They brought the captives and the prey and the spoil to Moses, and to Eleazar the priest and to the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the camp at the plains of Moab, which are by the Jordan opposite Jericho.
 13 Moses and Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the congregation went out to meet them outside the camp.
 14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army, the captains of thousands and the captains of hundreds, who had come from service in the war.
 15 And Moses said to them, "Have you spared all the women?
 16 "Behold, these caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, so the plague was among the congregation of the LORD.
 17 "Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately.
 18 "But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves. (Num. 31:12-18 NAU)

 23 "For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.  (1 Sam. 15:23 NAU)

That is how you say "fuck you" to Paul Copan, Matthew Flannagan, and other allegedly Christian "apologists" who prefer to spend their every waking moment pretending there's nothing more to say about Hebrew slavery except what can be extracted from the more politically correct portions of the "Law".

I could go on on that subjet alone, for example, Moses in Numbers 31 is reasonably construed as thinking that those little girls did not have the stain of the sexual sin at Peor which was being avenged (Numbers 25).  But even assuming the girls' virginity was still intact, did Moses not realize there are other ways to sexually sin beyond vaginal intercourse?  If one of those prepubescent Midianite girls engaged in cunnilingus with a Midianite man, wouldn't this count, in the eyes of Moses, as making her guilty of sexual sin?  What, did Moses think the sin of pedophile cunnilingus was more forgivable than the sin of pedophile intercourse?  How would that help the apologist who wants to eliminate every possible vestige of pedophilia from the Israelites?

How would the Hebrews have determined whether a girls' hymen was still intact?  If it was typical back then for virgin girls to wear clothing distinctive from the clothing worn by non-virgin girls, then all of the Midianites would have known this, and if as Christian apologists allege, rape was an inevitable war atrocity among the pagans, then the non-virgin Midianite women would have recognized the value of dressing in the clothing of virgins as soon as they detected their nation was under attack....in which case we have to wonder how many Midianite woman, non-virgin and stained with the Midianite sexual sin, brought their sinful selves into the homes of the Hebrew army men.

In light of how important virginity was to the Hebrews, they might have felt this justified using their eyesight to confirm the virginity of the spared girls...just like nobody likes to stick something up their ass, but when you doctor says its time for a checkup, you generally subjegate your normative preferences for others, for the sake of higher good.  So it doesn't matter if you can't stand the thought of the Hebrew army men viewing the vaginas of kidnapped prepubescent girls recently traumatized by watching their families be slaughtered by the same Hebrew men, skeptics are more worried about actual reality, than in helping you spin history to make yourself feel better about what must have been horribly brutish culture wars that now stain the pages of your bible.

Notice also, Moses didn't need a specific word of the Lord, his men would obey his atrocious orders even if he didn't specify that he was speaking for God at that particular moment. So the Hebrews would that much more stupid and brutish for being willing to kill kids merely on command of their human leader, in absence of any proof that such command was required by their 'god'.

Christian apologists know perfectly well that if what happened to those poor Midianite girls happened to themselves in very similar circumstances, they would immediately conclude, from the barbarity alone, that their captors are nothing but brutish sociopathic slugs.  They would not trifle about all the possibilities that the bible-god willed this and perhaps their sinful imperfect selves might have read too much evil into the possible "good" of massacreing people and kidnapping some to use as slaves.

But no, when its in the bible and approved by god, you cannot do anything else except automatically call it good. You have all the objectivity of a hysterical Pentecostal during an exorcism during a 1960's tent-revival.  FUCK YOU.

What did early Christians believe about hell?

Irrelevant, the one place where Jesus (the gold standard by which anything else must be judged, at least as far as Christian apologists are concerned) most clearly presented eternal conscious misery as a possible fate for Gentiles is Matthew 25, and after the quote, I follow with some disconcerting concerns:

 31 "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.
 32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;
 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
 34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
 35 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in;
 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.'
 37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink?
 38 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You?
 39 'When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'
 40 "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.'
 41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;
 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink;
 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.'
 44 "Then they themselves also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?'
 45 "Then He will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
 46 "These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matt. 25:31-46 NAU)

The following considerations are reasonable, and their reasonableness is not going to disappear merely because a desperate Christian apologist misrepresents some other legitimate possibility as if it was the only "correct" interpretation:

First, my rebuttals to Licona, Turek, Habermas and Craig on the resurrection of Jesus are weighty and substantial (e.g., the 1st Corinthians 15 "creed" has no historical value, there are only 3 eyewitness testimonies to the resurrection of Jesus, all three of these are easily falsified on the merits, nothing in the NT or extrabiblical historical evidence such as Josephus justifies inferring Jesus' brother James ever actually converted to Christianity, Paul was a deluded maniac who thought he could physically fly up into heaven, the kind of witness any juror would not only disbelieve, but murder as well, the multiple attestation of Jesus' burial is rather weak, Jesus' family not finding his miracles the least bit credible and their committing the unpardonable sin justifies concluding Jesus was more like Benny Hinn than a truly miracle working prophet, Deut. 13 reminds us that even false prophets can work true miracles so that Jesus' miracle of resurrection would not answer the question of whether he was truly the son of God, The earliest gospel did not allege the risen Christ was seen by anybody, there is no rule of common sense or logic that requires any living person to ever give two fucks what is stated in religious documents more than 1,000 years old, etc, etc, etc), so in light of how reasonable it is to view evidence of Jesus' resurrection as incredibly weak and unworthy of credit, what exactly Jesus taught and what exactly he meant or how best to interpret his surviving words, is about as relevant to a person's eternal safety as is which box of cereal they should buy to shut up their screaming tykes.

Second, even assuming Jesus rose from the dead and therefore unbelieving Gentiles endure a real risk of entering an eternity of misery and shame upon death, nothing about "faith" is expressed or implied anywhere in this Matthew 25 "judgment of the nations".

Third, those who according to this teaching make it into heaven likely did not have specifically Christian faith, because they honestly did not realize what anybody with Christian education would know, that to help the poor is to help Jesus (vv. 37-39).  Jesus certainly cannot be talking about the Gentiles who actually heard him teach, since they would then not expres that ignorance on judgment day.  So Jesus was likely mostly talking about Gentiles that never actually heard his teachings.  Inerrantist Craig Blomberg trifles:

25:37–39 Many of the sheep are understandably surprised. No doubt several of these conditions did characterize Christ at various stages of his earthly life, but the vast majority of the “righteous” will not have been present then and there to help him. So how did all this happen? Many interpreters have seen this surprise as indicating that these people were “anonymous Christians”—righteous heathen who did good works but never heard the gospel. But the text never says they were surprised to be saved, merely that they did not understand how they had ministered so directly to Jesus.

Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 377). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

What Blomberg is missing is that the one kind of people most likely to fail to realize that their helping the poor constituted helping Jesus, would be non-Christians.   And since Jews wuld likely know that Proverbs 19:17 defines helping the poor as helping God, it is highly unlikely that the righteous crowd expressing surprised at Jesus are Jews.  "The least of these my brethren" more than likely means the poor in general, which is consistent with Luke's Christ-Beatitudes, where the author does not qualify "poor" or "hungry", reasonably implying that Jesus thinks just anybody that is poor and/or hungry in any way, deserves to be called "blessed".

Fourth, this teaching on 'how to get saved' is perfectly legalistic: not only is there evidence against the righteous here having any 'faith' whatsoever, that is the context within which Jesus makes clear that it was because they engaged in good works that they are given salvation (vv. 34-36). What theory best explains the tendency of 90% of fundamentalist Christians to immediately quote from Paul but never Jesus on the subject of "how to get saved"?  Easy:  Jesus was a legalist...today's protestant fundamentalist are not.  You tend to avoid quoting authorities you disagree with.

Fifth, I have very good reasons for saying bible inerrancy is a confused hurtful doctrine that cannot even be resolved by those who adopt it, and is likely false anyway, therefore, I am reasonable to regard it a false doctrine, and therefore, obviously disqualified from consideration as a hermeneutic (i.e., there is no intellectual constraint upon me to worry that I need to reconcile my interpretation of a bbile verse with the rest of the bible, before I can be confident my interpretation of the verse is accurate). 

So if I can be reasonable to avoid using bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic, then there is no intellectual compulsion on me to "harmonize" my interpretation of this "judgment of the nations" Christ-teaching with anything else in the bible.  So I don't give a shit if concluding Jesus was a legalist would require that he taught contrary to apostle Paul.  I have definite reasons to assert, on the merits, that Paul's gospel was in contradiction to the one Jesus taught.  Therefore I remain reasonable to limit my interpretation of Jesus' words to just the teaching itself, and not give a fuck whether that interpretation would make the bible contradict itself.

that Jesus taught leglism sure seems clear if we allow the immediate context to have primary importance when interpreting Matthew 5:17-20:

 17 "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
 18 "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
 19 "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
 20 "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:17-20 NAU)

Fundies will insist righteousness is imputed to us from the cross, but unfortunately:

a) what Jesus meant must first be gleaned from the "immediate context".  Romans 4:4-5 and Galatians 2:21 are not the "immediate context" for Matthew 5.  Slopping different parts of the bible together the way a little girl makes one big ball of ice-cream out of two scoops might be the manner of a fundamentalist who thinks "proof-texting" is the human body's only hope of processing oxygen,  but I prefer a method that is a bit more exegetically responsible.  The immediate context here would be Matthew 5:21 ff, where Jesus makes it clear that he demands his followers evince actual personal righteousness.  The burden is therefore on the fundie who would trifle that nobody can produce righteous works until they first undergo righteousness by imputation.  once again, with good reason, I'm not an inerrantists, so I'm not the least bit unreasonable in refusing to "harmonize" my interpretation of Jesus in his own context, with anything the apostle Paul taught.

b)  Since the allegedly risen Christ said ALL of his pre-Cross teachings apply to Gentiles after the Cross (Matthew 28:20), and since, obviously, the alleged author Matthew certainly seems to believe the gospel to the Jews is identical in every way to the gospel to the Gentiles, you cannot even escape the legalism with dispensationalism and pretending "the cross changed the covenant".  What Jesus actually meant in his own context is probably more important than the fallible inferences you draw based on your equally fallible and more than likely false belief in biblical inerrancy.   Wallace's next question:

What does it mean to “trust” the Gospel?

Whatever it means, it cannot mean "Lordship salvation", and it doesn't mean "walking daily with Jesus", since Jesus explicitly forbade the Gentile Gerasene demonic, who converted to Jesus and wanted to become his close compansion, from staying near him, and in such a charge Jesus did not express or imply that the man ever needed to get near Jesus in the future:

38 But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying,
 39 "Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him. (Lk. 8:38-39 NAU)

Therefore, Jesus thinks one can reasonably be construed as trusting the gospel even if the way they converted did not and does not lead to them "walking daily with Jesus".

Fudies will scream that this is false, but on the contrary, Jesus' interactions with actual gentiles in actual instances consistently show that he felt he needed no more association with them than to grant their particular request.  The real Jesus had nothing to do with the fundamenetalist Jesus that demands a close daily walk with Gentiles, and warns them to constantly study the scriptures, etc, etc:

 22 And a Canaanite woman from that region came out and began to cry out, saying, "Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed."
 23 But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, "Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us."
 24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
 25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, "Lord, help me!"
 26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
 27 But she said, "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."
 28 Then Jesus said to her, "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once.   (Matt. 15:22-28 NAU)

 5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him,
 6 and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented."
 7 Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him."
 8 But the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed.
 9 "For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it."
 10 Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.
 11 "I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven;
 12 but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
 13 And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very moment.   (Matt. 8:5-13 NAU)

Jesus interacts with the Samaritan woman in John 4, but she leaves with intent to tell others (v. 28) and we never hear about her again.

Jesus had an initial ministry to Gentiles (Matthew 4:15) and was often followed by large crowds likely including Gentiles, but according to Mark 1:45, Jesus didn't always want fellowship with those who desired to hear him preach.  That doesn't mean such crowds were only superficially interested in Jesus, as he refused to immediately dismiss such crowds (John 6:26, where John unwittingly testifies against the credibility of Jesus' miracles by alleging that that lots of people were following Jesus not because he did "signs" but because he gave them food).

Once again, the babies will scream that our interpretation cannot be correct unless it can be harmonized with everything else in the NT, but this is false on two fronts:

a) as I already explained, bible inerrancy is not nearly so clear that it deserves to be exalted in our minds to the status of governing hermeneutic, so that failure to do so does not render us "unreasonable" as inerrantists would otherwise scream, and

b) when you seek to harmonize your interpretation of one verse with the "rest of the bible", it is more correct to say you are trying to reconcile your interpretation with your interpretation of the rest of the bible.  Fundies often say "this part of the bible is so clear it doesn't need interpretation', but that's just ignorance.  When it comes to correctly understanding ancient texts, by necessity they cannot ever be as automatically clear in meaning as, say the headline for yesterday's edition of the New York Times.  The very fact that smart Christian scholars and apologists disagree with each other about nearly every biblical matter (except perhaps Jesus' gender) robustly witnesses to the fact that "letting the bible speak for itself" is nothing more than a dangerously stupid colloquialism.  Therefore, using bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic really IS a case of insisting there is harmony between your interpretation of a bible verse, and your interpretation of the rest of the bible.

But if this be a more accurate way to describe the "inerrancy-as-hermeneutic" phenomenon, then this boils down to merely you trying to make the whole collection of your interpretations of the bible harmonize...which means you are blindly assuming that your imperfect interpretations are indeed correct beyond question.

c) KJV Onlyists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, Disciples of Christ, Oneness Pentecostals Calvinists, dispensationalists and others you accuse of inaccuracy or "heresy" also believe in biblical inerrancy and use it as a hermeneutic.  But since you agree their using bible inerrancy as a final check on any one of their particular interpretations has not helped them to see the true biblical light, you can hardly blame the outsider or skeptic for concluding that bible inerrancy really isn't a legitimate tool of hermeneutics, it only looks like that because of the dogma that naturally comes with preaching inerrancy.   You can hardly blame the skeptic who thinks bible inerrancy is, at the end of the day, a completely useless tool, and perhaps a harmful tool; one that would help insulate them from reason should they pick the wrong church and then start insisting that their particular doctrines are "consistent" with the "rest of the bible". 

Therefore, the skeptic has full rational warrant to reject bible inerrancy and limit their tools of interpretation to simply grammar, immediate context, larger context of the author, genre of the book and perhaps insights from the social sciences.   Any interpretation that results from use of these universally acknowledged tools of interpretation is going to remain reasonable regardless of how much a fundie can trifle otherwise.  Wallace next asks:

Is Christianity “anti-science”?

Some factions are more so than others.  Young Earth creationists are high on crack.  Old Earth creationists have not done worse than chug a few beers.

However, the very fact that the Roman Catholic Church cited scripture against Galileo's heliocentric model and found nothing persuasive in Galileo's trifle that maybe scripture speaks "phenomenologically", conclusively proves that, where one is not already aware of scientific facts supporting heliocentricity or the stationary status of the sun, they will more than likely conclude the bible teaches the geocentric model.

Sure is funny that before heliocentricity was confirmed scientifically, no Christian ever noticed that scriptural statements about the movement of the sun were mere "language of appearance".  They didn't start wondering about that until they learned about scientific findings suggesting a spherical earth or a stationary sun.. except of course Galileo, a person who believed the bible was the word of God and thus felt forced to find some way to harmonize the bible with truths he saw through his telescope.

In other words, the pre-scientific people who were the original addressees would never have thought such bible texts were mere "language of appearance".  And every Christian knows about that hermeneutic that says we need to ask ourselves how the originally intended audience for the biblical books would likely have interpreted them.  So it cannot possibly be unreasonable to interpret the bible as teaching geocentrism.