(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen
Comments
Every now and then, I translate a journal article into plain talk for my readers. Last time, I did Buckareff and Plug's article on escapism. This time, I've selected The Evil God Challenge.
Lucky for me, you tend to write in plain talk by default, so not much translation is required. :)
"Perhaps the logical problem of evil does not pose such a great challenge to theism. To deal with it, it would suffice to show that an all-powerful, all-knowing and maximally good God might allow some evil for the sake of some greater good."
I know at least one philosopher who finds rationalization extremely contentious. For instance, before God created suffering, the universe was already maximally good because of God's presence. Creating people who could suffer might not have decreased the good (infinite thanks to God) but it certainly increased suffering. That's inconstant with the all good God. I understand not wanting to address both issues in this paper, but I don't think you should dismiss the logical argument out of hand.
"Still, there remains an acknowledgement by many serious-minded theists that it is certainly isn’t easy to explain quite why omnipotent, omniscient and supremely benevolent being, would unleash so much horror on the sentient inhabitants of this planet over hundreds of millions of years. "
"Surely, if a supremely evil being is going to introduce sentient beings into his creation, it will to torture them and have them do evil."
"We suppose there is little of any substance to place on the left had side of the scale, and that, when the boulder that is the problem of good is added"
I think you meant "if," there, but it could be a difference between GB and USA English.
I would argue that Evil God gave us morality so that we might feel guilt. If we didn't feel that something was wrong, we wouldn't feel guilty for doing it, even if we knew in a sense that it was supposed to be wrong.
On "A second moral argument":
If good is good because God says it is, then you have no way of defining God is good by definition. "Good" simply means "in accordance with God." But that has no baring on whether God delights in human suffering.