I. The Incarnation- The Deity of Christ
Two radically different views on Jesus:
1. The Naturalistic View
2. The Supernatural View
A. Naturalistic View
- There is no God.
- Miracles are impossible.
- Jesus was not conceived of a virgin.
- Jesus may have existed- but he was just a good man who did good things.
- He was crucified, and died. The end.
B. Supernatural View
- There's more to reality than the Laws of the Universe.
- Christ existed before bethlehem- that is- he's eternal.
- He was instrumental in creating the world.
- He is fully God and fully Man.
- He lived a perfect life, performed many miracles, died, and rose again.
So, how do we go about showing that the supernatural view is correct? Well, in this instance, there's really only two options. Either Christ was supernatural, or he wasn't (I'm not going to go into semantics of the definition of supernatural). If we have evidence that tears the Naturalistic view to shreds- than the only other option is the Supernatural view (If you figure out a third option, let me know).
The Naturalistic view says that Jesus was just a good man, but someone who was a "good man" couldn't have, and wouldn't have, done or said the things Jesus did.
Story Time:
Suppose a carpenter moves into your neighborhood. He makes friends with the local children. He never seems to make a mistake- he's always kind, gentle, etc. The children seem to be nicer after spending time with him as well. They listen better, are kind to each other, etc.
One day you start talking with some of the kids. They give you all sorts of information about this carpenter guy. At first it seems normal, but all of a sudden one of the kids says that this guy thinks he's older than Abraham. Eternal, in fact. He told these kids he was God. What's your honest reaction? Holy Crud, he's a maniac. Seriously. No one in that situation is going, "Oh, he's just a good guy".
People try and say, "I can accept the whole moral principles thing. He had some good ideas- but I can't grab ahold of the Savior part."
Here's the thing- because of the things Jesus said and did (Claimed to be God, Forgave people for things they were doing to other people, etc...), he's either a lunatic, just plain evil, or telling the truth. He didn't leave it open for "moral teacher".
If we take a step back, this is reasoning to the best explanation. If we knew a person, with the same character and moral standards as Jesus, and they did the things he did, we'd go to those options (Lunatic, Liar, or Lord).
So, some questions/objections for Nash (from other students)...
Q1: Aren't you sort of taking the Bible's word as law, without questioning the validity of it? What if Jesus didn't actually do what the Bible claims he did?
A: The Bible is great- but it's not the only historical account. There are loads of eyewitnesses, and other historical documents to paint a picture of Jesus- totally separate from the Bible. And to add to that- there were no contrary witnesses. The documents were written in the lifetime of people who had every right to speak up if something was falsely recorded. (My bit- Case for Christ answers this beautifully. If you want to know more about it, check out Lee Strobel's story. Fantastic stuff. He starts the book as an atheist, and ends up finishing as a Christian).
Q2: What if Jesus was just mistaken? Honest, but wrong?
A: There are two kinds of mistakes- Big ones, and Little ones.
Nash's words: A little mistake would be if I believed "Ron Nash is the greatest Golfer in Cleveland". That's little. It can be overlooked. A bit prideful maybe- but not something to be overly concerned about. However- A Big mistake would be if I were to believe, "Ronald Nash is God". That changes things. That is a HUGE mistake. The biggest a human can make by the way. If someone were to say that- we wouldn't humor them. You wouldn't say to me, "That's great Nash, you are God". It's not a matter of being mistaken. If he truly believed it- which his actions show he did- then we come back to the three options- Lunatic, Liar, or Lord.
My bit: So why did people humor Jesus? Because they were all crazy? Satanic? Mistaken? Not likely. No. It was because it was the truth. Really, thats the only thing that makes sense.
Disjunctive Syllogism. (This is a lot simpler than it sounds- I promise).
Two options- A or B. Not A, therefore- B.
For example- life. Something is either dead or alive. If it's not alive- it's dead. If it's not dead (assuming the object has the capacity to live) it's alive.
Two views- Either Jesus was Lord, or just a cool guy who had smart stuff to say. Not B- as Nash has shown- therefore- A.
Tomorrow I'll get into the second miracle- the resurrection. Stay tuned. :)
Be watchful for a type of argument called a false dichotomy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma . It states that the author is claiming there are only two possibilities, when it is possible to have more than two choices. This can force a person into deciding on an answer, when neither may be correct. Actually there are a whole bunch of common fallacies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies on wikipedia. You may or may not agree with them as fallacies, but they are certainly an insightful list to run through.
ReplyDeleteFor your choices, some people may pick one or two of the items from the 'supernatural' list instead of picking the entire list as correct. Or they may pick one or two items from the natural list. Or they might have a combination of both (I don't see how that would work, but a person could attempt it).
Possible reasons why there are no people who say things against Christ being crucified and risen:
Many people don't have a problem getting behind and supporting strange leaders. We have all sorts of weird people that form cults and such. Somehow, the people just get in to the cult and follow it. Its natural for humans to fall in behind leaders that are very persuasive. (Interestingly enough, Christ doesn't try to be persuasive - He actually turns many people away, or scares them off - like the young rich ruler)
Maybe Jesus didn't actually say those things that are recorded in the Gospels. Maybe the Gospel writers embellished a bit. The Gospel writers did in fact write their documents upwards of 50 years after the event.
Maybe the Roman church (3rd century) burned any writings that were against Christ as God. We do have a small number of writings that are similar to the Gospels showing up now. We don't count them as Canon because the 3rd century church didn't count them as canon. Probably most of them were destroyed. In fact, many of them have what we would now consider heretical views. Example: Gospel of Thomas or Gospel of Mary.
Wow, a whole bunch of writing today! Didn't really expect to write this much.
I have given that some thought- and I believe that in this case, there really are only two options. I don’t think this is something Nash is “claiming” on his own- I may be wrong- but I think he’s collaborated with large groups of philosophers with the same conclusion. Regardless of what the word Supernatural describes- I feel like it’s something that either is or isn’t. That’s just my two cents though. And that is an interesting list. I have no idea if any of those apply here, but they seem like good things to be aware of.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with this next paragraph. I don’t think I mentioned this in my post- but that’s very true. Though, I guess Nash does point out what the best choice is under the supernatural view (That’s not to say people couldn’t choose a different point on the list, if they really wanted).
As for the contrary witness thing- I’m a little confused. I guess this post just focuses on the Incarnation- the next post gets to the resurrection. I suppose I can see your point- but I also think it’s missing a piece. That may have been a small piece of the puzzle- but I truly think the reason people didn’t speak out against the crucifixion was because of the sheer number of eye witnesses. As far as the resurrection- I think a fair number of people did speak out against it (not necessarily as contrary witnesses, just doubters of the actual witnesses), though of course there were those who didn’t (the early church). The point I was making in the post though was contrary witnesses- of which there are none. (My post about the resurrection will cover that a bit more too). I can see where you’re coming from- but I think maybe it’s a stretch. Jesus was a strange leader indeed- but I feel like those who didn’t speak out were either followers, or apathetic. Those who did speak out would have been opposed to the whole idea, cult like or not.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree with the possibility of Jesus not having said what the gospels claim he did. (I understand that you aren't the skeptic- but here's what I would say in rebuttal to that argument). There is a lot of corroborating evidence (outside of scripture) for Jesus's teachings, and for specific things that he's said (great examples in The Case for Christ). The embellishing thing doesn't hold much weight either. These men may have loved Jesus, but above all they were historians. Some of them even go the the lengths of reassuring their audience that the account is purely historical. And besides that- they had a lot to loose. It's unlikely that they would have risked their lives and their families lives for a fictional character- or even an embellished one. Another thing: they included a lot of hard and embarrassing things. If someone was going to make something up, chances are they wouldn't make themselves look ridiculous, or say things that would be confusing to explain (again, for specific examples see Case for Christ). As far as the 50 year thing- I have several rebuttals. Firstly- that was only a portion. Some of the earliest writings can be dated closer to possibly 20 or 30 years. This is well within the lifetime of eyewitnesses and would have been overly sufficient time for them to speak out if something was falsely recorded. Secondly- compared to other historical writings of the time, 50 years is incredibly short. The closest to it is a biography of some ruler close to that time period- the earliest manuscript being 200 years from his death, and yet historians still consider it accurate. And thirdly, In that day and age, remembering the sort of detail that many years later (the 50) was completely plausible. It was an oral cultue. Children were taught to commit huge passages to memory, and often adults had the entire old testament memorized. To remember Jesus's teachings wouldn't have been that difficult.
As for the other gospels thing- that is an interesting subject. Case for Christ does a good job of explaining why the four were chosen as canon, and why others were not. I think you'd enjoy reading it (unless you already have).
Wow. I sort of wrote a lot too. Sometimes I just get going and it's hard to stop.
I picked up "miracles" from CS Lewis and started reading it two nights ago. even 50 years ago, Lewis used the distinction of those who have a supernatural worldview and those who have a natural worldview. Those who have a natural worldview would say that everything is under the laws of Nature. If a God existed in this worldview, then God would be under the laws of Nature. And everything that exists, even God, would be considered under the 'cause and effect' of nature. Those who hold a supernatural worldview would say that there exists something beyond nature. There are plenty of things in Nature, but there exists atleast something outside. We as Christians would claim this is our God. But 'supernatural' doesn't necessarily limit itself to that. Lewis then goes on to specify this further. Because of who he thinks the readers of this book are, he starts to talk about the particular version of 'supernatural' that includes the attributes of a Christian God. We can define the argument however we like, and I would still claim that different people can see 'supernatural' in many different ways. But if we are the ones who are creating the argument, then we can certainly only talk about our specific God.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I got a chance to read some of the text from the other gospels in college. Many of the gospels are not complete, and are a little (quite a bit) different than what is canon. But the existence of the other gospels gives us an indication that not everyone in the early church believed the exact same things. Early on, among those who were able to read and write, there were disagreements on who exactly Jesus was. And from what I've seen, I think some of the Gospels were written to counter the claims of several of the other gospels - in order to distinguish that THIS is what WE believe, and THAT is what THEY believe. Whoever said denominations were a recent invention? Splits and disagreements have been with the church since the beginning. Its part of the reason we now have the Nicene and Apostles Creed - to define that WE, even though we disagree on some things, we AGREE on these things.
On a third note, if I remember my history, the letters of Paul and the other disciples are the earliest documents we have in the New Testament. They would have been written in the 50's and 60's. Then comes the Gospels. Most of the references I see date the gospels between 60-100 AD, but some seem to think they had to be written prior to AD 70 because they don't mention the sacking of Jerusalem. And I think the revelation was written the last, 70-100 AD.
My reference of 50 years was just an off-the-cuff estimate. I didn't know the numbers, so I just guessed. The reality is a little more complex than just 50 years. But the time difference makes me think of my 80 year old grandma telling us tales of what she remembered from her 20's and 30's. It seems that even though the actual dates of writing are not entirely agreed upon, almost all agree that they were written in that first century 50-100AD. So if one author claims one particular date for a writing, another would probably claim a different date based upon other evidence.
Oh! and I just found out today - I didn't even think about it until now, that the writers of all four gospels did not have to be eyewitnesses to write the account. The disciples, and whomever was following Jesus certainly were eyewitnesses, but the writers themselves didn't have to be.
ReplyDeletePaul was not an eyewitness to the resurrection, Mark was considered to be a companion of Peter's. Luke lived in Antioch, knew Paul, but may or may not have been an eyewitness.
Matthew and John, however are considered to have been written by (or at least dictated by - I don't know if they were literate or not) two of the disciples themselves.