Cold Case Christianity: Rebuttal to J. Warner Wallace's arguments for the existence of the soul

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

A Very Brief Review of Arguments for the Existence of the Soul (Free Bible Insert)

Posted: 23 May 2018 01:23 AM PDT

We’ve created a free Bible insert that is a short review of the philosophical arguments for dualism (articulated more fully in a podcast). As Christians, we believe hold a dual view of world around us. We believe in the existence of the brain and the mind, the body and the soul, a material world and a spiritual realm. This concept of dualism, the recognition of two co-existent realms and realities, is critical to our faith as Christians.

And it is denied by Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists, both of which teach that the soul is simply the life-force that ceases conscious awareness at death and doesn't become self-aware again until the day of resurrection or judgment.  We would hardly expect significant Christian groups to deny dualism, if its basis in the bible were "clear".  This is sufficient to rationally justify the average unbeliever to conclude the classic mind/body problem is too fraught with uncertainty to think studying it will yield anything useable, and to therefore walk away from what appears to be a furiously useless exercise in sophistry.

If dualism is not true (the opposite view is often called ‘monism’ or ‘physicalism’), there is no realm in which God exists, we are not souls designed for salvation and life with God, and there is no life beyond this one.

That only sounds bleak and repulsive to those who have already been nurturing a Christian faith for years aand have high hopes of being snatched up into the air to live on cloudy streets of gold forever.  It doesn't sound depressing at all to those who smartly refused to set their hopes unrealistically high.  When you tell a Mormon the book of Mormon is a fraud, the fact that they just cannot imagine such a negative thing being true, doesn't mean it isn't true.  It means the Mormon has set their hopes far higher than reality would have allowed.  Nothing is different in the case of the typical Christian, nor in the case of anybody who sets their hopes too high, then starts finding out that reality refuses to comply with their dreams.

So how can we begin to prove the existence of something we cannot see?

Maybe like you prove the existence of air, by tests that can detect things invisible to the naked eye?  Or did I forget that what you are talking about also cannot be physically detected in the first place?

What kind of science could we possibly use?

Did you forget that there is nothing in the NT that expresses or implies that you should ever try to make such arguments, while in fact if you simply did what Jesus and Pual clearly told you to do, you'd be too busy to indulge such trifles as the present one?

Are you positively certain that this mind/body dualism bullshit you bring up doesn't qualify as the 'word wrangling' Paul so strongly forbade in 2nd Timothy 2:14, and the sinful interest in controversial questions he forbade in 1st Timothy 6:4?

After all, science deals with the natural, physical realm, and we are trying to investigate something immaterial.

You are also trying to use science to investigate something that is "spiritual".  But this is your problem.

Is science even the right instrument to get this job done? Probably not.

Translation:  "the idea that the human body has an immaterial soul, is unscientific".

Instead, let’s examine the case from a philosophical perspective to see if there is any rational reason to believe dualism is true.

I wonder how many homeless people on the street end up in hell because you prefer to trifle about controversial philosophical topics on the internet instead of prioritizing the face-to-face preaching Jesus clearly commanded.  What if an unbeliever is so intrigued by this article of yours, that they wish to investigate further, and while on their way to the library, they die in a car crash?

Now if you hold to the standard conservative Christian view that ALL people who died before repentance go to eternal hell, then because this unbeliever died in a car crash before actually having repented and believed the gospel, he not only goes to hell, but stays there for all eternity.  And the reason he delayed repentance is because your argument here made him more interested in figuring out whether you were right or wrong, and less interested in the danger that he is always one heartbeat away from the dates of hell.

Doesn't it bother you that the more you indulge in theological controversies, the more you imply to unbelievers that they actually DO have tomorrow and the next day and the next few years to safely delay repentance without fear of the horrific consequences?

But once you try to duck this argument by parting ways with conservative Christian scholars and pretending you think some unbelievers are allowed a second chance to repent in the afterlife, you help skeptics and unbelievers confidently conclude that the bible-god probably isn't as fearsome and sadistic as Jonathon Edwards and most fundamentalists say, and therefore, another justification to delay repentance.

While much can be written on this issue, this short post will simply review the case for the soul based on the evidence from the Law of Identity:

A = A

The Law of identity simply states that something on one side of the equal sign is identical to something on the other side of the equation if they have the exact same qualities or properties.

Yes.  When we say the mind = the brain, we are not equating a non-material thing with a material thing.  The mind is purely physical.  What fool thinks there's no molecular basis to memory?  What fool doesn't notice that as Parkinson's disease erodes the physical brain, the memories stored there, which make up most of the the "mind" also disappear?  No reason to see this as any different than a computer memory card which no longer holds certain data because it was erased by a computer virus. What fool would say maybe the data still exist in the spiritual realm, and it only uses the physical disk as the doorway through which to enter into the physical world?  FUCK YOU.

If this is true, we can say that they have an “identity relationship”. When applied to our examination of the soul, monists describe the following identity relationship:

the brain = the mind

the body = the soul

If this is true, all the properties and qualities on one side of the equations should be identical to all the properties on the other side of the equation.

Not true.  Apple = fruit.  But not everything true about "fruit" is true of "apple".  Fallacy of equivocation.  So the mind can = the brain, without implying everything true about the brain is true of the mind.  But regardless of your technical error, there is no evidence that the mind is anything other than the physical brain, except of course the dualists whose controversial theological opinions motivate them to define "mind" more esoterically than most people.

If there are differences in the qualities and nature of the items on opposite sides of the equation, we have two realities, just as Christians have argued all along. Here then, is the brief summary of arguments describing the differences between our bodies and who we are as souls:

Difference One: “Public” Versus “Private”

(The Private Knowledge Argument)

Physical Properties Can Be PUBLICLY Known

We can look at a piece of sculpture, for example. The sculpture is physical and can be seen (accessed) by everyone.

Maybe that's why scientists and geologists disagree about what makes up the core of the earth...because these physical properties can be publicly known?

Mental Properties Are Only PRIVATELY Known

Not true.  When your mind is shocked by a frightening thing, your body reacts, even if only subtly, so even if dreams are private, not all mental properties are restricted to the private realm.  When we see a baby jump, twist her face, then start crying, its pretty obvious that her mind had perceived some type of pain or fright or frustration.

And if the private nature of mental properties be true, you just proved that insects and lower animals have souls that survive death, since according to your logic, if their mental properties are private (and they surely are no less private than human thoughts), such properties cannot be equated with the bug's physical brain and thus necessarily imply, under your reasoning, that their sense of identity arises from something more than their physical brain.

Will you go where your own logic leads?

Or will you insist that your reasoning can only be validated where it agrees with the bible?

If the latter...so much for your pretense of objectivity.

How the sculpture makes you feel is impossible for us to access publicly.

Not true.  If the man is heterosexual and the sculpture is of a scantily clad sexualized woman, a penile plethysmograph would detect what's going on in his mind, even if not perfectly.   Suppose you know a local man was convicted of child rape and went to prison and was released.  You see him on the sidewalk, staring at your kids for no earthly reason.  Your inability to be positively certain what his thoughts are, wouldn't slow you down from being confident that your suspicions about what's going on in his mind are likely correct, and reacting accordingly. 

Again, many people react physically to nightmares when sleeping.  Pretty easy to tell what they were thinking even if not perfectly so.  Mental events are not always private.  You lose.

You would have to tell us. We cannot determine this from a physical examination of your brain unless you tell us what you are feeling.

See above.

THEREFORE: Mental Properties Are NOT Physical Properties

The physical brain is something different than the immaterial mind. They are different because one possesses privately held knowledge (the mind) and the other (the brain) does not.

That doesn't follow.  you also cannot see the atoms responsible for exerting force on a piston in an engine as the result of a gasoline explosion, but you hardly conclude that the exerted force and the responsible atoms are different from each other.  

Or gee, I don't know...maybe you'll argue that the force that drives the piston down comes from the spiritual dimension and only uses the exploding gas as an interface by which to enter the physical realm?  How different is that from the trifling stupidity that says our thoughts originate with our soul/spirit in another dimension and only come into the physical world through the portal of the brain?

Difference Two: “I” Versus “My Body”

(The First Person Argument)

Like Everyone, I Only Use First Person Possessive Pronouns to Indicate Possession of Something Other Than “Me”

I use expressions like, “This is my toothbrush,” or “This is my mom,” because I am describing someone or something other than me.

Like Everyone, I Commonly Use First Person Possessive Pronouns When Describing My Body

I also find myself using expressions like, “This is my body,” or “This is my hand” when describing my physical body or some portion of my body.

A theory that, if true, would wreak havoc on the justice system.  Apparently, when the intruder said "this is my gun", he was describing someone or something other than himself, hence, his testimony, captured on home video, is inadmissible.  

Gee, Wallace, did you ever consider becoming an attorney? There's big bucks in dishonest sophistry.

THEREFORE: My Body Is Something Other Than “Me”

So because courts of law require the pursuit of actual truth, it would behoove you to convince America's courts of the "truth" that the criminal suspect's body is different than himself.  Under your Christan assumptions, adding this truth to the justice system can only help the cause of truth.  What a laugh.

Just like my toothbrush is something other than me, my physical body is also something other than me. I am not my body.  These are two different things.

Use that excuse as your alibi in a criminal trial. See what happens.  You'll soon find that the devil has blinded the minds of the jurors to spiritual truth...and maybe God decreed from all eternity that you conduct your ministry from a prison cell.

There are two realities, the material and the immaterial.

No, the "immaterial" constitutes an incoherence no less foolish than "dark matter", an thing its supporters admit they cannot even coherently define.

(By the way, although we sometimes use the expression, “my soul” this is an inaccurate use of the term. We don’t have souls, we are souls.)

That's exactly what Jehovah's Witnesses and 7th Day Adventists believe.

Difference Three: “Temporary Parts” Versus “Transcendent Identity”

(The Parts Argument)

Physical Entities Are Dependent on Their Parts for Their Identity

We know the difference between our car and someone else’s car in a parking lot, and we know the difference between our cell phone and someone else’s phone left behind in a library. We know this because we recognize parts are what establish the identity of physical objects

Which makes a powerful argument that my body parts are what establish my own identity.  Or maybe you never heard of DNA?  Your identity isn't lost if you lose an arm or all four limbs...but what if you lose your head?  Does the remaining torso still constitute "you"?  Probably not.  Hence, the physical head/brain are essential to identity.

But We, as Humans, Are NOT Dependent On Our Parts for Our Identity

But no matter how much we have changed (even if we have an organ transplant), we know our identity is not at risk.

But if we managed to succeed in transplanting a brain (cell phones were absurd ideas 1000 years ago, god only knows what breakthroughs await us in the future, there appear to be few absolute limits), you'd be quietly shitting yourself with worry that a man actually became another person solely for physical reasons.

I am still me, regardless of the fact I am now made of a completely different set of cells compared to my youth.

But the cells will always have your DNA and genetics. The day we can replace a person's DNA with different DNA, we will be looking at one person becoming a different person.  Sorry, but you cannot defeat the problem of human identity being tied to the physical.

THEREFORE: Humans Are NOT Purely Physical Entities

For this reason, we know that we are more than mere physical entities, dependent on our parts for our identity. Once again, we know intuitively we have a transcendent identity. We are souls.

Now you aren't being biblical.  First, you don't know whether the bible distinguishes soul from spirit.  Are you a dichotomist or trichotomist?  Second, Peter clearly taught that the flesh wars against the "soul", apparently teaching that the flesh can exhibit desires and motives independently of the "soul", 1st Peter 2:11.  That's contrary to your own belief that it is from our soul that we make choices. The biblical view is that the man who chooses to use the services of a prostitute has made a choice independently of his "soul".  This is parallel to apostle Paul's teaching that the flesh and the spirit are contrary to each other in Galatians 5:17.  You don't really know from the context whether "spirit" there should have a capital or lower-case "s".

That the bible does little more than mislead on this issue may be legitimately inferred from the horrifically confused self-deluded speech we get from Paul, who says sometimes when he sins, it isn't him doing it:

 14 For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.
 15 For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
 16 But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good.
 17 So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.
 19 For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want.
 20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.
 21 I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. (Rom. 7:14-21 NAU)

 If that spiritual concept is true, then that truth should be lobbied by Christians into America's court system. After all, if there is a spiritual reality that says if you desire to do good but end up sinning anyway, the sin wasn't committed by "you", but by the sin itself (!?)

Good luck with that.

Note also that this contradicts modern Christian theory on soul and dualism.  Paul believed some choices could be made solely by the "sin that dwells in me", contrary to the popular modern view that all choices we make, are made at the level of the soul, and the body is merely reacting.  Apparently Paul believed it legitimate to credit nothing but "sin" as responsible for his body choosing to do something immoral.

Difference Four: “Measurable” Versus “Immeasurable”

(The Measurement Argument)

Physical Entities Can Be Measured Using Physical Measurement Instruments

We can take out a ruler and measure the width and length of your brain. We can weigh it and calculate it’s mass.

But As Humans, We Possess Mental Entities (Thoughts, Wills, Desires and Sensations) That Are Not Measurable By These Methods

We cannot use physical measurement tools to examine our thoughts. Propositional content cannot be measured in this way.

Not true.  Thoughts are formed mostly of memories, and memories are encoded in molecules, and molecules, being physical, have obvious detectable sizes.  So you and Frank Turek and other apologists are wrong, thoughts are physical.

THEREFORE: Humans Are More Than Physical Beings

There is a physically immeasurable dimension to our beings. We are more than matter. We are physically immeasurable souls.

If it keeps junior on the straight and narrow, he can go on pretending to be whatever combo of moisture and invisible man he pleases. Atheists should be practical, not militant.  Leave the Mormons alone, some fools bring much good, and even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Difference Five: “About Others” Versus “About Themselves”

(The Self-Existence Argument)

Mental Entities Are Not Self Existent

Our hopes, fears, concerns and worries are always about something else; something outside of themselves

Not true, delusional people have brain disorders that often cause them fear of things that don't exist, this is also true with many children who irrationally fear the dark and the monster under the bed that always goes invisible when mom checks...and therefore, the feared thing did not originate from anywhere except within their physical brain.

But Our Brains, As Physical Entities, ARE Self Existent

Physical things are not about something else; they simply exist on their own and do not rely on other physical objects for their definition

THEREFORE: Our Brains Are NOT The Same As Our Minds

Brains are physical, self-existent entities, minds contain mental entities that are dependent on outside entities for their definition.

Nope, see above.

Difference Six: “Morally Determined” Versus “Morally Free”

(The Free Will Argument)

Oh fuck you, this is where not even many Christians agree with you.  Unbelievers can reasonably decline an invitation to become involved in one of Christianity's numerous in-house debates.

No Physical System is a Free Agent

They are either determined (one event following the other) or random

Therefore No Physical System Has Moral Responsibility

Because moral responsibility requires moral freedom of choice

Moral responsibility cannot exist unless somebody insists that somebody else is morally responsible.  So moral responsibility can just as easily be a social fiction necessarily conjured up to make socities like America possible.   Children can be just as easily raised to feel no moral responsibility as raised to agree they have moral responsibility.  Babies and toddler need to be 'taught' to mimic the morality of the parent, because the morality they are born with is selfishness.  A sense of moral responsibility cannot be shown to transcend environmental conditioning.

Human Beings DO Have Moral Responsibility

We have the innate sense that each of us has the responsibility to act morally, and indeed, we observe we are free agents who do choose right from wrong freely

This is not true of sociopaths.  You can get rid of that rebuttal by arbitrarily excluding them as disqualified misfits, but the point is that your theory doesn't account for all the relevant data, you can only make your case by appeal to what some or most humans are like, not all. 

Sociopaths are just as human as anybody else, so we cannot automatically assume their sociopathic condition constitutes a misrepresentation of human reality.  To be human might indeed require that you have little to no concern for other people's feelings.

THEREFORE: Therefore Human Beings Are NOT Simply Physical Systems

If we are purely physical entities, we can only act as a series of events, and we are unable to act freely (this is the nature of physical things). Our free agency demonstrates we are more than simple physical objects.

Tell that to Christians who adopt 5-Point Calvinism, and they'll scream back that the ease with which you assume humans have "free agency" makes it appear you never read the bible in your life.   I suggest god's like-minded ones get their act together before they present their in-house controversies to the world as if they were absolute truth.

Holding's possible farce; an answer to "The Impossible Faith"

For reasons unknown, but likely due to the sin of pride, James Patrick Holding continues to hawk his "Impossible Faith" apologetic as if it was some sort of "smack-down" to atheists and anybody else who say Christianity is false.

I attacked Holding's impossible faith argument in formal debate with him years ago at theologyweb.
I am currently working on a point-by-point rebuttal to Holding's web-based Impossible faith article.  Check back spoon!

First, Holding has configured his website to be inaccessible to the ISP I use to surf the internet.  He knowingly did this soon after I sued him for libel.  If you are a follower of Holding, let me know when you found any legitimately credentialed Christian scholar taking similarly desperate steps to prevent a critic from accessing material.  Go ahead, email Habermas, Licona, Craig, etc, ask them whether they have acted to prevent certain people from accessing their web-based materials.

 The persons who uploaded an interview of Holding discussing his impossible faith, likewise disabled comments to that video:



That video was hosted by a Theology, Philosophy and Science, and by a Dr. Craig Johnson, both of whom have disabled comments to the video.  Even in Christianity, effective marketing is always more important than trusting in the Holy Spirit.

Holding's clamming up like this sounds more like genuine fright than it does any other bullshit excuse he gives for it.  Preventing a critic from accessing one's controversial materials and arguments runs afoul of the basic ethics of Christian scholarship.  But maybe this is just Holding's interpretation of Titus 3:9-11, who knows.

Second, soon after I asserted on this blog that I still access Holding's website through the Google cache, suddenly, the google cache no longer works.  I get paid to be suspicious when I don't have anything to be suspicious about. (Update, June 5, 2018---I verified with the ISP that they prevented all users from accessing google cache since it was being accessed to get around their filters, so I don't accuse Holding of doing something to prevent access through said cache...but that hardly erases the fact that he did take positive steps to prevent me from accessing his website).

Third, that Holding was wasting his time blocking my access to his website,  is seen from the fact that I easily access his website by simply connecting to the internet using any one from among 10 different wireless ISP's within range of my computer.  I hardly exclusively depend on my local library for internet access.  Apparently Holding is right: he does indeed get irrational when he perceives an inevitable smackdown headed his way.  

Fourth, being the fake Christian that he is, Holding accidentally allowed more of his true colors show by hiding his "impossible faith" arguments behind a paywall.  Somewhere along the way, he decided that selling Jesus for profit was more desirable than allowing free access to what he must consider "the gospel".  Despite Holding's claim to be on the cutting edge of apologetics research for the last 20 years, he shows no more spiritual maturity than a televangelist who first tells you how to properly write your check to him, before he starts "healing" anybody.  Money talks, even in Christianity.

Now then, onto more pressing matters...Holding argues that the claims of Jesus and Paul ran counter to what the people in their culture expected of true religion, therefore, if Christianity flourished enough in that context to become world-wide religion, it's survival was against incredible odds, and thus can only be explained on the basis that Jesus' miracles were genuinely supernatural and the first converts knew it.

There are 4 basic fuck-ups in Holding's argument:

1)  Jesus' mother and brothers thought him to be insane and put forth effort to prohibit his public preaching, despite their living in a collectivist society where such activity would bring about a shocking level of shame on themselves if the accusation of insanity was false. Mark 3:21-31.  Let's just say they likely had excellent probable cause to believe Jesus was nothing but a dramatic outspoken extroverted con man, long on surface appearance and short on actual substance.  We find the same in John 7:5, saying even Jesus' brothers were not believing in him. No source of dishonor in that culture was more profoundly shameful than when accusations of insanity come from your own immediate family,  since common sense dictated that the people most likely to know the truth about you, would be your own immediate family.  The point is that if Jesus' miracles were so positively undeniable as Holding alleges, the last people we'd expect to find writing off the miracle-worker as a fraud, would be his own mother and brothers.  Unless Holding suddenly discovers that Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 are mere textual corruptions,  he will have to concede their originality, and their inerrancy, and suffer accordingly from this bit of biblical bad news.

2) There is nearly universal consensus among conservative Christian scholars that James, the Lord's brother, did not believe in Jesus' claims before Jesus died. In other words, during the three or so years that Jesus went around raising people from the dead, walking on water, healing people of diseases, etc., somehow, his own brother saw no reason to conclude Jesus was the Son of God:

Inerrantist G.L. Borchert finds that Jesus’ brothers remained ‘unbelievers’ throughout Jesus earthly ministry:

It is apparent from the text that Jesus’ brothers were not yet to be numbered among the believers. Several writers have seen a confirmation in the similar lack of belief on the part of the brothers in the Markan account at 3:21, 31–35.7 The brothers’ failure to believe in him (John 7:5) was accompanied by a challenge to make evident his messiahship by some public display (7:3–4). In John the demand for signs or public display is an evidence that such persons have an inadequate relation to Jesus, and as a result they are to be reckoned among those who stand condemned (3:18). There is little middle ground in this Gospel for fence-sitters. As far as any believing on the brothers’ part is concerned, it is clear that such would have to await the post-resurrection period when, for example, James, the brother of the Lord, became a leader in the Jerusalem church (cf. Gal 1:19 particularly and also Acts 12:17; 15:13; 21:8).  New American Commentary, Borchert, G. L. (2001, c1996). Vol. 25A: John 1-11 p. 280[3]

From the cd-rom game in Gary Habermas, Mike Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, paperback 352 pages, Kregal Publishers, Grand Rapids, MI. © 2004 (with cd-rom), quiz 1, under the category “Skeptics”, one of the questions was “True or False: Jesus had a brother named James who did not believe in Him before the resurrection”.  The correct answer was “yes”. So Habermas and Licona intend for Christians who are new to apologetics, to believe that Jesus' own brother James somehow didn't find any of Jesus' miracles to be particularly persuasive before Jesus was crucified.

Apologist Norman Geisler agrees:

Finally in addition to appearing to his unbelieving disciples, Jesus also appeared to some who were not his disciples at all. He appeared to his brother James (1 Cor. 15:7), who, with his other brothers, was not a believer before the Resurrection (John 7:5).  When Critics Ask, p. 461[1]

Apologist Josh McDowell is surprisingly specific that James didn't merely maintain unbelief, but "despised" all that Jesus stood for:

Look at the changed life of James, the brother of Jesus.  Before the resurrection he despised all that his brother stood for.  He thought Christ’s claims were blatant pretention [sic] and served only to ruin the family name.]ETDAV, p. 227, par. 4D.

The question that gives apologists nightmares is:  Assuming Jesus’ miracles were genuinely supernatural, what theory best explains his own family rejecting his claims throughout the duration of the earthly ministry?   If your brother began claiming himself to be an angel of the Lord sent to strengthen Christians, and went around gaining fame in your city as somebody who performs real healings, resurrections and other miracles, wouldn't you first have to confirm he was a con artist with sorely deluded followers before you could maintain unbelief toward his claims?  How likely is it that by some quirk, you would just never be in the proper circumstance to watch his miracles or hear testimony of eyewitnesses who claimed healing from him?

Will somebody seriously set forth the trifle that maybe Jesus’ brothers were, for the full 3 years of Jesus’ earthly ministry, always in the wrong place at the wrong time, and never got lucky enough to actually be present when Jesus did any of his miracles?  Perhaps they stayed shut up in their houses so much that they never got around to having a conversation with any of Jesus 12 disciples (Luke 6:13 ff) and never managed to hear anything significant from any of his 70 disciples (Luke 10:1), nor from the entire cities crowded with his supporters who stampeded each other just to get to him (Mark 1:45)?

Maybe his brothers were so unlucky that they never managed to hear testimony from any of the “many” whom Jesus healed of various diseases (Matthew 4:24, etc)?

  Do a search in your NT for "crowds".  There are numerous references to Jesus being found entirely convincing by "large crowds"  (I develop the point in my blog article in rebuttal to Tim Chaffey's "Defense of Easter" book.

Or maybe Jesus’ brothers saw plenty of Jesus’ miracles, but were more obstinately stupid than today’s atheists, and refused to believe their own eyes because they were so intent on assisting the devil in opposing the gospel? 

Can any excuse be too stupid if it favors bible inerrancy?  Not when the bullshit conspiracy scenario comes from the bible:

 19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (1 Jn. 5:19 NAU)

Yup, if yer gonna be a Christian, you have to believe in invisible people who can cause you much trouble without being detected, thus not much different from the toddler who still believes there is monster under her bed and it just turns invisible whenever anybody looks.

  8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pet. 5:8 NAU)

Anyway...

3) the NT records many instances of apostasy that indicate that the type of faith many of Jesus' followers had, was superficial; not what we'd expect if they had concluded, during conversion to the faith, that the miracles of Jesus were genuinely supernatural.  The bible's devil-verse, John 6:66, provides much truth by declaring that, all because of a statement about eating his flesh, which most people would naturally discern to be figurative, "many" of Jesus' disciples nevertheless stopped following him:  

  57 "As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.
 58 "This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever."
 59 These things He said in the synagogue as He taught in Capernaum.
 60 Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, "This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?"
 61 But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, "Does this cause you to stumble?
 62 "What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?
 63 "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.
 64 "But there are some of you who do not believe." For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.
 65 And He was saying, "For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father."
 66 As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.
 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, "You do not want to go away also, do you?"
 (Jn. 6:57-67 NAU)

 If they converted on the basis that Jesus' miracles were undeniably supernatural, how could their faith be disturbed by what was obviously a figurative statement from Jesus, to the point that they actually fall away?  And isn't it rather easy to imagine that those disciples would have asked "when you say we must eat your flesh, are you speaking literally or figuratively?", and Jesus' answer "figuratively" would have preempted the apostasy?

If John 6:66 is historically accurate, it is highly unlikely these disciples had converted to the faith on the basis of Jesus' miracles...in which case it seems more plausible to conclude that the reason they could so easily fall away over such a stupid failure to recognize figurative language, is because they converted to the faith for reasons other than Jesus' miracles.  That makes it sound like not even Jesus' disciples thought his miracles quite as genuinely supernatural as Holding thinks.  This is the part where Holding suddenly discovers that eyewitness testimony doesn't mean shit and never did.  It sounds as if Jesus' popularity had more in common with dramatic extroverted televangelists and their ability to whip up religious zealots into a frenzy of stupidity, and less to do with performing actual miracles.

(by the way, one particularly acute argument against Jesus' miracles is the fact that he could have prevented disease and thus any need to do miracles by simply instructing the people in the realities of germs and disinfecting, truths we recognize today...but he never did.  Wanna watch an apologist squirm with insane gyrations?  Ask him or her how Jesus can be so concerned to go around "healing", but never concerned to give people truth about sanitation? What was Jesus saying in his mind?  "I love you so much I'll heal you of all your sicknesses and diseases....but you 'aren't ready' to learn basic sanitation." (!?)  You will find yourself suddenly in the company of paralyzed idiots who can do nothing more than utter "God's ways are mysterious".  You'll excuse me if I explain this flaw in Jesus' approach on the basis of my presupposition that Jesus didn't know any more about germs than dogs do.  FUCK YOU.)

 4)  Apostle Paul infamously expresses not the slightest interest in the things Jesus did before being crucified.  We have no reason to think Paul's Gentile churches would have more interest in that aspect of Jesus, than their founder Paul did.    So to whatever degree Paul's converts contribute to the flourishing of 1st century Christanity, it was that many people who found reasons other than "miracles" to join the cause.  Maybe you should ask yourself "if the reality of the miracles Jesus performed before he died, was such a powerful argument, why doesn't Paul use that argument?"

 5)  The truth is that Christianity was wiped out by the 5th century and ceased to exist thereafter.  Holding will jump out of his skin and yell "what the fuck!" (when he is sure nobody else is listening; hypocrites have to be aware of their surroundings with great alarm), but it's true:  the gospel Jesus preached contradicts the gospel Paul preached.  Generalizations about how "Christianity survived and flourished" are bullshit, a new form of Christianity that arbitrarily relaxed some rules Jesus had insisted on, to make the religion more palatable to Gentiles, is what "survived".   

 In light of these problems, it is highly unlikely that the 1st generation of Christians found Jesus' miracles to be undeniably genuine.  It is more likely that these early conversions had no more significance than the "conversions" achieved by Billy Graham or other evangelist who manages to attract and convince large crowds despite the bullshit nature of the message.  Therefore, any explanation for Christianity's flourishing, other than "the miracles were real!", must be more probable than Holding's hypothesis.

This page will be regularly updated with quotes from Christian scholars who credit Christianity's survival to causes other than the miraculous.

For now, one such scholar would be Luke:

 28 One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world. And this took place in the reign of Claudius. (Acts 11:28 NAU)

Inerrantist scholars believe this occured around 44 a.d.:

In Antioch Agabus predicted that there would be a worldwide famine.131 Luke added the “aside” that this famine did indeed occur during the time of Claudius, who was Roman emperor from A.D. 41–54.132

The reign of Claudius was in fact marked by a long series of crop failures in various parts of the empire—in Judea, in Rome, in Egypt, and in Greece. The Judean famine seems to have taken place during the procuratorship of Tiberius Alexander (A.D. 46–48), and Egyptian documents reveal a major famine there in A.D. 45–46 due to flooding. The most likely time for the Judean famine would thus seem to have been around A.D. 46. In any event, the Antioch church decided to gather a collection to relieve their fellow Christians in Judea, each setting something aside according to his or her ability.135 Eventually, when the famine struck, the collection was delivered to the elders in Jerusalem by Paul and Barnabas. Actually, v. 30 does not mention Jerusalem, but 12:25 does in speaking of Paul and Barnabas’s return from this visit.

Polhill, J. B. (2001, c1992). Vol. 26: Acts (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;

The New American Commentary (Page 274).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

My theory is that this famine was the prime motive for most unbelievers in Judea choosing to join a religious group such as the Christians, who apparently advocated the communal lifestyle anyway (Acts 4:34).  During a famine, unless you are rich, the people who stock the market with food begin to clam up, charge high prices, and reserve the increasingly scarce food commodities for themselves and their friends more and more.  You are either rich, or lucky, or you join some religious group, or you die of starvation.

Indeed, apostle Paul admits that the leaders of the Jerusalem church told him to "remember the poor" which most commentators take to mean he should give the Jerusalem church a gift of money:

 9 and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
 10 They only asked us to remember the poor-- the very thing I also was eager to do. (Gal. 2:9-10 NAU)

Inerrantist schholar T. George, writing for the inerrancy-driven New American Commentary:

Paul and Barnabas were asked to remember “the poor,” a shorthand expression for “the poor among the saints in Jerusalem” (Rom 15:26). From its earliest days the Jerusalem church faced a condition of grinding poverty, as can be seen from the dispute over widows receiving sufficient food and the practice of sharing all things in common to care for the needy (Acts 4:32–35; 6:1–4). A land of soil deprivation and poor irrigation, Judea was also hard hit in this period of history by famine, war, and overpopulation. To all this must be added the ravishing of the church in the persecutions directed by Paul and other leaders of the Jewish religious community. So chronic was the economic deprivation of the Judean Christians that they became known collectively as “the Poor.”

    Paul indicated that the request to remember the poor was not received as an onerous burden but rather as an activity he had already begun and was eager to carry forward. We know from his later writings that Paul devoted much time and energy to the collection of a special offering for the Jerusalem Christians (Rom 15:25–33; 1 Cor 16:1–4; 2 Cor 8:9). The churches of Galatia were among the Pauline congregations who contributed to this relief effort. For Paul this effort was an important witness for Christian unity, a tangible way for Gentile Christians to express materially their appreciation for the great blessing in which they had shared spiritually with their brothers and sisters in Jerusalem. Paul himself carried this love gift to Jerusalem on his last visit to that city, during the course of which he was arrested and began the long journey to Rome that ended with his execution.

George, T. (2001, c1994). Vol. 30: Galatians (electronic ed.). Logos Library System;

The New American Commentary (Page 165).

Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

If inerrantists are correct that in Paul's day the Jerusalem church was constantly poor and in need of charity, it really isn't that much of a stretch to envision unbelievers, half-starved, arriving at the church, confessing their sins and doing whatever was required in order to reap the benefits of the group, in this case, food. (by the way, why was the Jerusalem church poor?  Didn't Jesus assure his followers that their need would be supplied by God as long as they put the kingdom first in their lives?

 30 "But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
 31 "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'
 32 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
 33 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (Matt. 6:30-33 NAU)

Or did Jesus presume that the people listening to him were experts in systematic theology, and thus aware that God's sovereign will always dictated whether or not they would live or die?

The point is if James Patrick Holding thinks the 1st century unbelievers converted to the church because there was just no denying that the miracles of Jesus and his resurrection, its probably because he never noticed, until an atheist pointed it out to him, that severe hunger has a tendency to motivate dying people to suddenly convert to the views of whatever religious group that happens along and can give them food.

Suppose you think Mormonism is a false form of Christianity.  Suppose you were left stranded in the desert and were dying of thirst.  The only people you've seen in 3 days are Mormon missionaries driving across the desert carrying food and water. You flag them down and they stop...but they are assholes; they are willing to help, but only if you agree that Mormonism is true.  How great would be the temptation to feign agreement with whatever they say just so you can save your life?

So unless Holding magically locates some scholar who disagrees with inerrantist scholars, and says the famine referenced in Acts 11 was a small thing, despite the biblical evidence that it savaged the nascent church, he will have to agree that plenty of people who joined the church in the early period, would likely have done so purely to gain food, and without giving two shits whether or not this religion's miracle claims were true.

And when we remember that Jesus' "miracles" were not even enough to convince his own family, and not enough to retain "many" of his own disciples, it's a pretty powerful case that Christianity's flourishing in the 1st century likely occurred for purely naturalistic reasons.

And lord knows, we have plenty of evidence, historically and contemporary, of how easily religious-minded people can be swayed to believe false things.  Methinks a purely naturalistic explanation for Christianity's rise to fame is far more likely to be the correct one, than Holding's hypothesis "the miracles must have been real!"

FUCK YOU, updated regularly
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Demolishing Triablogue: Grave Robbers? Steve Hays apparently forgot about the full-time skepticism of Jesus' mother and brothers

This is my reply to an article by Steve Hays entitled

Grave robbers!

One thing we can say with relative certainty (even though most people – including lots of scholars!) have never thought about this or realized it, is that no one came to think Jesus was raised from the dead because three days later they went to the tomb and found it was empty.   It is striking that Paul, our first author who talks about Jesus’ resurrection, never mentions the discovery of the empty tomb and does not use an empty tomb as some kind of “proof” that the body of Jesus had been raised.

Moreover, whenever the Gospels tell their later stories about the tomb, it never, ever leads anyone came to believe in the resurrection.  The reason is pretty obvious.  If you buried a friend who had recently died, and three days later you went back and found the body was no longer there, would your reaction be “Oh, he’s been exalted to heaven to sit at the right hand of God”?  Of course not.  Your reaction would be: “Grave robbers!”   Or, “Hey, I’m at the wrong tomb!”

https://ehrmanblog.org/an-easter-reflection-2018/

Depends on who my friend is. If my friend is God Incarnate, if my friend performed astounding miracles at will–including the ability to raise the dead–if my friend predicted his death and resurrection, if Isaiah predicted messiah's death and resurrection (Isa 53:7-12), then the first reaction, the most logical reaction, to the empty tomb shouldn't be “Grave robbers!” Or, “Hey, I’m at the wrong tomb!”

  What if the person doing miracles at-will and declaring himself God incarnate was your own brother?

Would you do what Jesus' mother, brother James and other members of his immediately family did  throughout his entire three year ministry, and draw the conclusion that Jesus was mentally unstable?

From Mark 3

 20 And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal.
 21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, "He has lost His senses."
 22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," and "He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons."
 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan?
 24 "If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
 25 "If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.
 26 "If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished!
 27 "But no one can enter the strong man's house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.
 28 "Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter;
 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin "--
 30 because they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit."
 31 Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him.
 32 A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, "Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You."
 33 Answering them, He said, "Who are My mother and My brothers?"
 34 Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, "Behold My mother and My brothers!
 35 "For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother."
 (Mk. 3:20-35 NAU)

  In the parallel from Matthew 13, Jesus specifies that his enemies includes those living in his own house (i.e., family)

 54 He came to His hometown and began teaching them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, "Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?
 55 "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?
 56 "And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?"
 57 And they took offense at Him. But Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household."
 58 And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief. (Matt. 13:54-58 NAU)

From John 7:

 1 After these things Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.
 2 Now the feast of the Jews, the Feast of Booths, was near.
 3 Therefore His brothers said to Him, "Leave here and go into Judea, so that Your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing.
 4 "For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world."
 5 For not even His brothers were believing in Him.
 6 So Jesus said to them, "My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune.
 7 "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.
 (Jn. 7:1-7 NAU)

Something tells me you'd rather not delve too far into the historically plausible reasons Jesus' immediate family might have had for not finding him the least bit credible throughout his three year ministry...you might discover that they are not likely to have become believers later as the liar who wrote the book of Acts says.

ANNOYED PINOY5/08/2018 10:35 AM☍

...no one came to think Jesus was raised from the dead because three days later they went to the tomb and found it was empty.
Yeah, because the disciples didn't believe Jesus was resurrected because of an empty tomb, but because they SAW and INTERACTED with the risen Lord.

But you aren't answering the argument.  How can today's Christians claim consistency with the apostolic method of preaching, when the apostolic method of preaching nowhere expresses or implies that anybody ever came to faith in Jesus because they were unable to naturalistically account for the empty tomb?

If you want to claim consistency with the apostolic method of truth-proving, show me Jesus, or fuck you.

It is striking that Paul, our first author who talks about Jesus’ resurrection, never mentions the discovery of the empty tomb and does not use an empty tomb as some kind of “proof” that the body of Jesus had been raised.
Because he and the other disciples had better proof than a merely empty tomb. Namely, encounters with the risen Christ.

Things modern Christianity doesn't have, apparently.  No apostolicity for you.

Also, given Paul's purposes of writing, there were no necessary reasons to bring up the tombs being empty. That's already assumed in his Jewish use of the concept of resurrection.

Still doesn't answer the point about why the NT never indicates anybody ever came to faith because of an empty tomb.  If you want to convert people the way the apostles did, stop talking about the empty tomb. 

Moreover, whenever the Gospels tell their later stories about the tomb, it never, ever leads anyone came to believe in the resurrection.
Again, it's because they encountered the resurrected Jesus.

Again, encounters that you don't have to offer today, you lose.

In the same way that a better proof that a baby has just been born is to actually see the baby, instead of focusing on the exhausted mother who had given it birth.

Exactly.  So stop talking about the exhausted mother and show us the baby.  Otherwise, don't expect us to keep listening as you go off into stupid shit like "he's invisible now". God clearly isn't doing his best to convince unbelievers to convert.