DIALOG WITH AN ATHEIST: PART 2

REASON AND THEOLOGY

First a general comment. I believe that Pascal was correct in stating that it is impossible to use human reason alone to decide the question of the existence of God. For one thing, if there is a God he is no doubt infinitely superior to us in every way and can be only vaguely comprehended by our feeble intelligence unaided. It would be like expecting a single-celled animal to understand differential equations. That does not mean that one should give up entirely on the process. If there is a God who is above and outside the natural world and its processes, it is possible that he has revealed as much of himself as we are able to comprehend (or need to know) in one manner or another. This might be through our observation of the physical world and its processes (so-called natural theology) or occur in the form of inspired prophets and their writings, the implanting of something supernatural within ourselves (as in the Old Testament story of God breathing into Adam or New Testament language dealing with the implanting of the Holy Spirit within a believer), and/or through God actually entering into our world in human form and leaving the example of his life and teachings. Christianity teaches that God used all of these means and that none can be entirely ruled out as means of enlightenment.

If God does not exist and our mental reasoning processes are merely the present product of random adaptive processes, there is no reason to believe that we can trust our reasoning abilities at all to decide far-reaching questions. It is interesting that both Darwin and Freud inadvertently agree on this point. Darwin gave as his deciding factor in rejecting the God of the Bible his realization that he could no longer trust his own reasons for believing anymore since they might only be an evolutionary quirk built into man to help him cope with the world. However, he interestingly did not follow through with this logic and reject his own observations and theories as possible artifacts of his own admittedly imperfect brain. Similarly, Freud (see his Moses and Monotheism) labeled belief in God as highly suspect since it was obviously a case of wishful thinking—longing for the existence of a benevolent Father in the sky. But he did not logically apply the same reasoning to his own brand of psychology even though it could be equally argued that his theories freed people from restraining creeds, moral codes, feelings of guilt, and the possibility of divine judgment: all examples of wishful thinking.

C.S. LEWIS' TRILEMMA

As you perceptively point out, it should really be posed as a tetra(or quatra)lemma. Here C. S. Lewis can be accused of practicing your definition of apologetics, and I knowingly abetted him by keeping silent on the fourth option. Our only excuse is that the fourth option would take a long book (or several) to adequately address the issue. Lewis, by the way was by no means unaware of the inherent uncertainties in historical accounts since he was a noted Cambridge and Oxford scholar in the area of medieval literature and well acquainted with the Greek and Roman classics, the reading of which actually helped bring him out of atheism into the Christian faith.

If I can paraphrase your stated “objections,” they are probably two-fold: (1) it is possible for a person to be entirely lucid and insightful on a number of fronts and live a spotless existence, but at the same time be totally deluded or lying about an important aspect of his life (i.e. whether he is a mere human or uniquely divine in origin, the king of Israel, the promised Messiah, and sent to save the whole world by dying for it) and/or (2) the biblical accounts of Jesus' life and sayings can be pretty much discounted as history since they were all written decades or centuries after the actual events. A few (far from exhaustive) comments on each of these objections:

Objection 1: I suppose it is possible for a person to indeed be a mixture of extremes of good and evil or sanity and lunacy. The question is, “how probable is it?” To truly address the issue, one would need to read all the gospel accounts (assuming for the moment that they are reasonably accurate) and make one's own judgment in the case of Jesus.

Regarding ethical issues, usually there are hints of the darker side of one's character, and the more noteworthy the insights and behavior of a person, the more skeptical one should be about the actual existence of a cynical underbelly. This is especially true in Jesus' case since his claims or hints of divinity and sovereignty did nothing to increase his following while on earth but only landed him in trouble with both the Roman and Jewish authorities. Also, he spent most of his time paying uncommon attention to those despised by society or having little political or religious clout rather than attempting to build up a power base with more influential parties.

Proof of selective lunacy might be a little easier to accept if it were not for the fact that all of his dealings with other people have a very common-sensical approach, show great insight into the human psyche, and exhibit none of the expected monomaniacal behavior in regard to others. Again, a reading of the gospels with an open mind would probably settle this one.

Objection 2: This would truly take a book or two to address, and I have two to recommend.

F. F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: are they reliable, Eerdmans Publishers

John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament?, Eerdmans Publishers

Both are fairly short summary books available in paperback. Bruce is a noted evangelical scholar (no, that is not a necessary an oxymoron). Robinson is a very interesting Anglican bishop who became notorious years ago with publication of a very skeptical, almost heretical attack on traditional Christian beliefs. The above book is a later product caused by his serious reflection on recent archeological finds which overturned his earlier assumptions to a great extent.

Two comments will suffice for now: Archeological finds in the last few decades have made it all but impossible to dismiss the gospels as products of the second century. The so-called proofs of demonstrated historical and geographical errors (or, in many cases, simple assertions of error without any proof) have over and over been overturned by inscriptions uncovered in recent years. In addition, internal evidence in the texts and external evidence in the form of early manuscript fragments have all but proved conclusively that the gospel accounts were written no later than the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and probably much earlier (even in the case of the assumed latest gospel of John).

So the decades or centuries now dwindle down to less than 40 years after the events. Also most of the letters of Paul, which shed additional light on the teachings and life of Jesus, can be confidently dated to within 20 years of Jesus' death. We have some 5,000 handwritten Greek manuscripts containing all or part of the New Testament (as well as numerous early commentaries on and translations of the NT that can be used to reconstruct the original texts). The differences between all these manuscripts are many, but almost all can be dismissed as obvious scribal errors in transmission. The rest have no effect on doctrinal or historical issues except in a handful of cases. If you are interested in comparing the variations worth discussing, I would recommend Bruce Metzger's A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, United Bible Societies as the last word on this subject. The earliest complete, or nearly complete, copies of the New Testament date to about 250-300 years after the events.

Putting it into context, one can compare some other ancient writings that are accepted without much question as accurately representing the author's words, but on far shakier hard evidence (data from Josh McDowell's Evidence That Demands a Verdict).

Author and Work                 When Written      Earliest Copy          Number of Copies

Julius Caesar--Gallic Wars   100-44 BC          AD 900                         10

Tacitus-- Annals                   AD 100               AD 1100                        20

Pliny the Younger-- History  AD 61-113         AD 850                           7

Herodotus—History             480-425 BC        AD 900                           8

Aristotle--Works                  384-322 BC         AD 1100                         5 each at most

etc, etc.

Very early Christian historical writings outside the NT trace the gospel writings back to the reminiscences of some of the twelve apostles who were eyewitnesses to the actual events. The question remains whether eyewitnesses could accurately reconstruct events up to 40 years after their happening. I would have earlier been a bit skeptical on this point myself if I weren't 67 years old and able to vividly remember what few semi-memorable events occurred in my own life at the time I knew you. [At this point I reminded my friend of something involving four of us friends in high school.]       

The point is that I remember a few things that I doubt you do I am a bit hazier on your actions before and after the event. But between the two of us we could reconstruct the gist of what happened without much trouble. And if our other two friends were asked to comment on the incident, they would no doubt center in on other details more pertinent to them. The same situation can be seen in the variations in the four gospel accounts. 

The most likely reconstruction is that Mark wrote his account first after interviewing Peter, the apostle closest to most of the key events. At a later date, Matthew (another eyewitness) supplemented Mark's account with details that he felt had been left out. Luke was more of a modern historian (as can be especially seen in the second volume of his account: the Book of Acts) and stated that he had carefully sought out various sources close to Jesus before supplementing Mark's data with his own. John could be looked upon as the outsider in the story in that he decided to start from scratch with his account (or perhaps he was not even aware of the other writings) and concentrate on the theological importance of the events in Jesus' life. He also chose to recount much of the internal discussions that Jesus had with his immediate followers rather than mainly relating Jesus' public appearances, as did the so-called Synoptic gospels. To aid in all these efforts, it is also possible that a collection of Jesus' sayings had been written down at an early date and was in free circulation among the believers. The closest we have to such a hypothetical document is the fairly recently discovered Gospel of Thomas.

The result of the above process is much what one would expect: four witnesses whose differing perspectives on the same events add to their historical credibility. Those who would demand word-for-word and detail-by-detail similarity between the four accounts in order to be convinced know nothing of the real world and certainly have little knowledge of what goes on in courts of law.

I realize that the above is by no means a logical proof of anything whatsoever. It is merely indicative and meant to prompt further investigation.

THE CHARACTER OF MUHAMMED

Note that I was careful not to say that Muhammed was any of those things [See Part 1 of this correspondence], just that if any of them could be proved it should make us pause. But I find it curious that you would zero in on the most innocuous charge of all—that of bigamy. I will give you that one, but child molestation is a little more serious. Here one could argue that marriage to a girl aged 12 or younger was perfectly acceptable for the times. And that might be true. But a true prophet should transcend the time he is born in, if he is indeed a true prophet. I look at the case of Thomas Jefferson. He was once revered as America's equivalent to Marcus Aurelius. Today he is widely reviled for having secret sexual relations with one of his slaves.

The most serious, and provable, charge against Muhammed is his use of raw power and intimidation to spread his gospel. A Muslim friend of mine told me years ago that this was a false accusation since Muhammed would not kill a conquered tribesman as long as he chose any of the monotheistic religions: Christianity, Judaism or Islam. He admitted that most of them chose Islam, probably because they knew nothing about any of the religions and had a knife at their throat. We can see the fallout of that approach today. One cannot fault extreme followers of Islam too much for simply following their prophet's example. 

It has also been rightly said that the teachings of the Koran give no provision for following its commands except from within a position of power (i. e. within a Islamic state) whereas Christianity gives no guidance on how to operate as a majority religion free from persecution. Which is probably why the church floundered morally throughout the Middle Ages, the abuses of the Inquisition and the Crusades occurred, and rabid Christian fundamentalists are making themselves so obnoxious today. In each case, the so-called Christians have simply ignored Jesus' clear teachings and his example of humility and have decided to pursue military and political solutions instead.

You are perfectly correct in that God could use anyone he wished to carry out his wishes and act as his prophet. There are several examples one could cite in both the Old and New Testament. But for God to choose a person of low character as the unique prophet of his words is a bit hard to swallow. That is especially true if the most notable writings of the prophet are a mere rehash of something already in the Bible written hundreds of years earlier mixed together with a complete misunderstanding of what those writings said (For example, Muhammed's mistaken impression that the Christian Trinity consisted of the Father, Jesus and Mary). The same thing could be said of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. In both cases, the actions of these “prophets” seem to be quite blatantly designed to gather followers and set themselves up as an earthly leader with all the attendant perks.