But let's talk about Jesus' burial for a few moments.8
IN THIS SHORT APPENDIX, I want to illustrate how you can use Bayes's theorem to get a rough-and-ready estimate of what you, with your background assumptions and knowledge, take to be the probability that the resurrection happened. It's an interesting little exercise that enables us to see the vital role that the assumptions we bring to our study play in shaping the final result. At the end I'll give you an easy way to check where you stand on this issue.
The present theorem itself looks a little scary, but don't lose heart. Here is one version of it:
The purpose of the formula is to calculate the probability of the resurrection in light of various relevant criteria.
P(hle&k) stands for the probability of the hypothesis in question in light of the evidence we have and our background knowledge. In this case we will be calculating the probability of the resurrection in light of Habermas's minimal facts and our background knowledgeour shared set of assumed facts, common sense, prevailing assumptions and so on.
The numerator on the right-hand side involves the product of the probability of Habermas's minimal facts in light of the reality of the resurrection and our background knowledge and the probability of the resurrection in light of our background knowledge alone.
The denominator on the right-hand side is the probability of the minimal facts in light of our background knowledge alone.
To perform the calculation, you need to provide three pieces of information. First, what do you consider to be the probability for finding Habermas's minimal facts if the resurrection happened and in light of your background assumptions (your knowledge of human nature and the like)? Remember the twelve facts Habermas cites and his argument for the way the resurrection would explain each one of them. Then assign a number from 0 to 1, with 0 representing impossibility and I absolute certainty. If you think it's 60 percent likely we would find those facts, your probability assignment for P(elh&k) is 0.6. If 30 percent it's 0.3, and so on. Let's suppose we say it's rather likely that we'd find the evidence we have if indeed Jesus arose. Habermas has given us a number of reasons to think so. So let's say we assign a probability of 0.7 here.
Second, assign a probability to the occurrence of the resurrection on background knowledge alone. This is the P(hlh) portion of the equation, and here your background assumptions will play a big role. A really confident atheist will probably suggest a very small probability, like 0.1, whereas a theist open to the possibility of such an occurrence would be hard pressed to insist that the likelihood of such an event is lower than 0.5. For presumably if God exists and wishes to do such a thing, he can. For argument's sake, let's say we assign this a probability of 0.3.
Now multiply those two numbers together. Yours may be different, but our hypothetical numbers were 0.7 and 0.3. Multiplied, they yield 0.21. That's the value of the numerator.
Third, you need to assign the probability of finding the evidence we see if the resurrection didn't happen. Maybe it's the swoon theory, hallucination theory or some combination of naturalistic hypotheses that explains the evidence, but we need to identify the likelihood that we would have the evidence we have, Habermas's minimal facts, once the resurrection is excluded from the pool of candidates. Here again background assumptions play a huge role, because a committed naturalist tends to have a towering confidence in naturalistic explanations. So even if he can't exactly stipulate a very plausible ex planation of all the relevant facts, his confidence in some such theory remains strong to account for the evidence, maybe even something like 0.9. Habermas would instead likely consider the best such theory very unlikely, maybe 0.1. Let's for fun split the difference, erring slightly on the side of the atheist, and say 0.6, which seems to be a way to both acknowledge the confidence of the atheists and the challenges such theories face.
Now, we already have the value of our numerator, and we have to figure out the value to the denominator, and this third figure we just assigned will play a role there. Recall that the denominator looks like this: P(elk). Again, this stands for the probability of the evidence, given background knowledge alone. This involves the idea of the probability of seeing the evidence we see whether or not the resurrection is true. So it involves two considerations. The first is the probability of observing the evidence, assuming the resurrection. The second consideration is the probability of observing the evidence, assuming the resurrection didn't happen. By adding these two items together, we achieve the desired result. The first item, fortunately, is something we already have: the value of the numerator: in our case 0.21. The second item requires a reverse calculation of the top half of the theorem. We have to perform the calculations in the numerator again, this time considering all the alternative hypotheses to the resurrection.
So, again, here's where we are. The numerator is 0.21. The denominator is the sum of 0.21 and a particular product. Let's figure out that product, then add it to 0.21. P(hlh) assuming the resurrection didn't happen is easy; it's going to be 0.3, since earlier we tentatively suggested that P(hlh) if the resurrection did happen was 0.7.
What about P(elh&k) if the resurrection didn't happen? That is, how likely are Habermas's minimal facts if we exclude the hypothesis of resurrection? Habermas would say it's very unlikely, whereas an atheist is likely to say it's quite high. Again, background assumptions play a big role here. Let's not adjudicate this for now; rather let's just split the difference again, erring slightly on the side of atheist, and say 0.6. So the product in the denominator is 0.3 times 0.6, or 0.18. This needs to be added to 0.21, and then we get 0.39 for our denominator.
So 0.21 divided by 0.39 is? Around 0.54. This would make the resurrection about 54 percent likely, slightly more likely than not. Now, this isn't to prove anything; that would be silly. The point to the exercise, besides its being fun, is to help you see the role played by background assumptions. Now let's redo the calculations and contrast thinkers like Habermas and Flew.
First, Habermas would probably assign a very high probability to P(elh&k), the likelihood of the minimal facts in light of the resurrection and background assumptions. Let's say 0.9. As a committed theist he'd be unlikely to assign much lower than 0.5 to P(hlh), the probability of the resurrection in light of background assumptions alone. Let's go with 0.5, so multiplying the numerator becomes 0.45.
The denominator features 0.45 plus the product of 0.4 and the probability of the minimal facts obtaining if the resurrection didn't happen, which Habermas would doubtless consider very unlikely, perhaps even 0.2 or so. Multiplying 0.4 and 0.2, we get 0.08. Adding that to 0.45, we get 0.53. And 0.45 divided by 0.53 would yield around an 85-percent likelihood for the resurrection.
What about Flew? Consider the numerator: P(elh&k) x P(hlh). Flew would probably assign a fairly high probability to P(elh&k), the likelihood of the minimal facts in light of the resurrection and background assumptions. Not as high as Habermas, though, since Flew's background assumptions stand in tension with resurrection. Let's say 0.6. As a theist but a Deist who doesn't believe in special revelation, he'd be unlikely to assign much higher than 0.5 to P(hlh), the probability of the resurrection in light of background assumptions alone. Probably far below that, like 0.2. Multiplying 0.2 and 0.6, we get 0.12.
The denominator features 0.12 plus the product of 0.8 and the probability of the minimal facts obtaining if the resurrection didn't happen, which Flew would doubtless consider very likely, perhaps even 0.9 or so. Multiplying 0.8 and 0.9, we get 0.72. Adding that to 0.12, we get 0.84. And 0.12 divided by 0.84 would yield less than a 15-percent likelihood for the resurrection.
I'm speaking neither for Flew nor for Habermas here, just taking a stab at where they might come out in an effort to show the difference that initial probability assignments make.
Hopefully you can see how important one's background assumptions are in these calculations, especially one's confidence or lack of it in naturalism to provide all the needed explanations. If you want to do the calculation for yourself, follow this procedure:
Stipulate the likelihood of the minimal facts if the resurrection happened and in light of your background assumptions. (Most should put this fairly high, between 0.4 and 0.9.) Call this value A.
Stipulate the likelihood of the resurrection on your background assumptions alone. (If you're an atheist, you're probably going to hover below 0.5, and if you're a theist, you'll probably hover at or above it.) Call this value B.
Stipulate the likelihood of Habermas's minimal facts, assuming the resurrection didn't happen. (If you're convinced by Habermas's argument that the alternate explanations are woefully weak, you'll probably come in low, maybe around 0.1 or 0.2. If you have tremendous confidence that naturalism will provide the right explanation, you'll probably end up high, maybe 0.8 or so.) Call this value C.
Next, multiply A and B. Write that number down, and call it D. Next, subtract A from I (for example, if A is 0.3, then I minus 0.3 equals 0.7). Call that resulting number E. Now multiply E and C. Write that number down, and call it F. Next, add D and F, and call that G. Finally, divide D by G. That's your answer.
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4Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).
'C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960), p. 87.
'Ibid., p. 96.
'John J. McDermott, gen. ed., The Correspondence of William James, ed. Ignas K. Skrupskelis, Elizabeth Berkeley and Frederick H. Burkhardt (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1992-2004), 4:300.
'Gary R. Habermas and Antony Flew, "From Atheism to Deism: A Conversation Between Antony Flew and Gary R. Habermas," in C. S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty, ed. Jerry L. Walls, David Baggett and Gary Habermas (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2008), p. 40.
'Ibid., p. 46.
9Habermas and Flew, "From Atheism to Deism," p. 46.
'Lee Strobel, Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), p. 226.
'Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Resurrected? An Atheist and Theist Dialogue, ed. John F. Ankerberg (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).
"Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
'See Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1996), p. 158.
161.
"Martin Hengel, Crucifixion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), p. 70.
'William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel and Floyd E. Hosmer, On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ," Journal of the American Medical Association 255 (March 1986), pp. 1455-63.
'John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), pp. 145-58.
'David Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 1:412. Albert Schweitzer stated that Strauss's critiques destroyed such naturalistic hypotheses, and he listed no one who preferred the swoon theory after 1840. See Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. W. Montgomery (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 56.
'For an in-depth discussion of Jesus' death by crucifixion, see Habermas, The Historical Jesus, pp. 69-75.
10On Spectacles 30.
'For a list of reasons to believe Jesus was buried in a tomb, see Habermas, The Historical Jesus, pp. 126-29.
'Dialogue with Trypho 108.
"This and all Scripture quotations during the debate are paraphrases.
I2Hans von Campenhausen, The Events of Easter and the Empty Tomb," in Tradition and Life in the Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), p. 44.
Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1972), p. 40.
"For details along with nineteen objections to various forms of the hallucination theory, including "grief visions," see Gary R. Habermas, "Explaining Away Jesus' Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories," Christian Research journal 23 (2001): 26-31, 47-49.
"See Habermas and Flew, Resurrected?, pp. 7-11.
"Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. "miracles," Antony Flew, pp. 350, 352.
"Antony Flew, "Theology and Falsification," in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. Antony Flew and Alasdair Maclntyre (London: SCM Press, 1955), pp. 96-99.
'Also in R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas, eds., In Defense of Miracles (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997), pt. 1.
"Daniel 7:13-14 (NASB): "I kept looking ... and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming, and he calve up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom ... his dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away."
'See Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987).
"Some examples by Antony Flew include "Miracles and Methodology," in his Hume's Philosophy of I3clicf A Study of His First Inquiry (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1961); The Credentials of Revelation: Miracle and History," in his God and Philosophy (New York: Dell, 1966); "Miracles," in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967); "The Impossibility of the Miraculous," in David Hume, Philosophy of Religion (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Wake Forest University Press, 1985); "Introduction," in David Hume, Of Miracles, (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1985); "Neo-Humean Arguments about the Miraculous," in In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for God's Action in History, ed., R. Douglas Geivett and Gary R. Habermas (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997).
'Some examples by Gary Habermas include The Risen Jesus and Future Hope (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003); The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1996); The Resurrection of Jesus: An Apologetic (Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 1984); "Knowing that Jesus' Resurrection Occurred: A Response to Stephen Davis," Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985): 295-302; "Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions," Religious Studies 25 (1989): 167-77; "The Late Twentieth-Century Resurgence of Naturalistic Responses to Jesus' Resurrection," Trinity Journal 22 (2001): 179-96. For a more popular treatment, see Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004).
'Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Resurrected? An Atheist and Theist Debate, ed. John Ankerberg (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005).
'Reprinted herewith permission of The Veritas Forum.
'John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971).
8Telephone conversation with Gary Habermas, September 9, 2004.
10Gerald L. Schroeder, The Science of God: The Convergence of Scientific and Biblical Wisdom (New York: Broadway Books, 1998).
I2Antony Flew, "God and the Big Bang" (lecture, 2000), pp. 5-6; this is a lecture commemorating the 140th anniversary of the British Association meeting regarding Charles Darwin's The Origin of the Species.
"Letter from Antony Flew, November 9, 2000.
13C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1980), esp. bk. 1.
14Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London: Hutchinson, 1948).
"Gottfried W. Leibniz, Theodicy, ed. A. Fatter, trans. E. M. Huggard (1710; reprint, London: Routledge, 1965).
"See Donald W. Livingston, Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium: Hume's Pathology of Philosophy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 150.
"Antony Flew, Social Life and Moral Judgment (New Brunswick, N.H.: Transaction, 2003).
20Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul (Oxford: Clarendon, 1986).
"Antony Flew, "Selves," Mind (1949): 355-58.
"Antony Flew, The Logic of Mortality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
23For many cases, see Gary R. Habermas and J. P. Moreland, Beyond Death: Exploring the Evidence Jor Immortality (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 1998), chaps. 7-9.
24Letter from Antony Flew, September 6, 2000.
22joseph Butler, Works, ed. W. E. Gladstone (Oxford: Clarendon, 1896), 1:387.
21Antony Flew, Merely Mortal? Can You Survive Your Own Death? (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2000).
26Letter from Antony Flew, September 6, 2000.
2'Antony Flew, "God and the Big Bang," p. 2. Habermas's influence on Flew's statement here is noted in Flew's letter of November 9, 2000 (also note 11 above).
25Antony Flew, A New Approach to Psychical Research (London: C. A. Watts, 1953).
30Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae 3, supp. 94, a. 1-3.
29Thomas Aquinas Summa Contra Gentiles 3.67.
"Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae 1, q. 23, a. 3.
34This is the interpretive version by Arthur Arberry, in the Oxford University Press edition.
"Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. J. C. A. Gaskin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 416.
"Bernard Smith, The Fraudulent Gospel: Politics and the World Council of Churches (London: Foreign Affairs, 1977).
"See, for example, Bertrand Russell, Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind, ed. Woodrow Wyatt (New York: Bard Books, 1960), pp. 19-20.
38Ibid., pp. 6-7.
39Flew, God and Philosophy, pp. 10-16.
"Paul Kurtz, foreword to Antony Flew, God and Philosophy (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2005), p. 6.
40Examples include the Associated Press, "There Is a God, Leading Atheist Concludes," December 9, 2004; David Roach, "Famed Atheist Sees Evidence for God, Cites Recent Discoveries," BP News, December 13, 2004; David Roach, "Atheist's Turn Toward God Was a Four-Year Process, Friend Says," BP News, December 22, 2004; Gene Edward Veith, "Flew the Coup," World Magazine, 2004; mention was also made in columns such as "Quotables" and "The Buzz," both in World Magazine, 2004.
42james A. Beverly, "Thinking Straighter," Christianity Today, April 2005, pp. 80-83.
44For some details, see Flew and Habermas, "My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism," reprinted here.
In our discussion for Philosophia Christi, I asked Tony which term he preferred. He was convinced that theism was the better word for the article, even if less accurate, because he thought that the nuances of Deism were not well known and would raise too many definitional issues. But it turned out that Deism was well received, hence its more accurate use in this article.
RAntony Flew and Gary Habermas, "My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: A Discussion Between Antony Flew and Gary Habermas," Philosophic Christi 6 (2004): 197-211.
45Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p. 1.
40Varghese is a long-time philosophical and scientific conference organizer, editor and winner of a 1996 Templeton Book Prize for Outstanding Books in Science and Natural Theology.
49Ibid., p. ix.
17Flew, There Is a God, p. viii.
41Ibid.
501bid., p. X.
"Ibid.
"Ibid., p. 8.
"Antony Flew, "Theology and Falsification: A Golden Jubilee Celebration," Philosophy Now, October/November 2000, p. 28.
53A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover, 1946). In the introduction to this later edition of the 1936 work, Ayer acknowledges that the assault on the verification principle succeeded in pointing out some flaws in the concept (pp. 5-26).
"Flew, There Is a God, p. xiv.
59lbid., p. 2.
"Antony Flew, From Atheism to Deism: A Conversation Between Antony Flew and Gary Habermas," in C. S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty, ed. Jerry L. Walls, David Baggett and Gary Habermas (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2008).
601bid., p. 3.
"Flew, There Is a God, p. xi.
581bid., p. 1.
62Ibid., p. 14.
"This and the previous quote are from ibid., p. 13.
64Ibid., p. 33.
67Ibid., pp. 56-64.
6'Ibid., pp. 22-26.
651bid.1 p. 49.
"Ibid., p. 55.
71Ibid., pp. 118-19.
70lbid.
"Ibid., p. 74.
091bid., p. 90.
74Ibid., p. 107.
75Ibid., p. 112.
78Ibid., p. 129.
711bid., p. 91.
"ibid.', p. 92.
7'Ibid., p. 103.
771bid., p. 121.
82Ibid., p. 148.
"Ibid., p. 132.
80lbid., p. 139.
"'Ibid., p. 145.
84 Ibid., p. 156.
85Ibid., pp. 156-57.
88lbid., p. 161.
8'Ibid., pp. 153-54.
861bid., p. 157; see also pp. 185-86.
17 Ibid., p. 158.
92Ibid., p. 213.
93Antony Flew in discussion with the author, October 3, 2007.
"Ibid., p. 183.
901bid., pp. 187-213.
91Ibid., p. 187.
94Flew, There Is a God, p. 156.
'See Gary R. Habermas, The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ (Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1996), p. 158.
'This anecdote also accentuates an interesting rhetorical disadvantage faced by defenders of the historical argument for the resurrection. Objections meant to cast doubt or to muddy the waters can often be expressed succinctly in a sentence or two. The response, which is usually devastating, might take thirty pages of reasoned and learned analysis, more than enough to exhaust the patience of most listeners. In a sound-bite culture like ours, this gives the skeptics a kind of strategic advantage, but one that's more appearance than reality. Thanks to Tim McGrew for this insight, shared in personal conversation (phone conversation, July 2008).
'See Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Bart D. Ehrman," held at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Mass., March 28, 2006, a transcript of which can be found at <www.holycross.edu/ departments/crec/website/resurrdebate.htm>.
'C. S. Lewis, "Myth Became Fact," in God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 67.
Personal correspondence, June 20, 2008.
'William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann, Jesus' Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Ludemann, ed. Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p. 119.
'Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), p. 71.
"Gerd Ludemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 8.
10Lukc Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), p. 136.
"David Strauss, A New Life of Jesus, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 1:412.
I2Ehrman suggests this scenario in the debate with Craig, cited earlier and available online (see n. 4).
"Interesting historical note: Chauncey Wright, an avid antisupernaturalist who exerted a formative influence on thinkers like William James and Charles Peirce, used the term positive [science], as it is now commonly employed, as a general appellation to designate a whole body of thinkers who in the investigation of nature hold to the methods of induction from the facts of observation, as distinguished from the a priori school who seek in the constitution of the mind the key to the interpretation of the external world," explains his friend Charles Eliot Norton. Fascinating is the role reversal today between the theistic evidentialists and the a priori-driven atheists in this debate. Chauncey Wright, Philosophical Discussions (New York: H. Holt, 1877), p. xviii.
14Robert Greg Cavin has further argued that apprehending the full set of implications of a resurrected Jesus-a glorified body with supernatural powers, for example-makes the conclusion in question here even harder to establish on historical grounds alone, which seem ill suited for providing such an inferential basis. But recall that Habermas's resurrection conclusion is less ambitious, so Cavin's criticism wouldn't apply to his case. See Robert Greg Cavin, "Is There Sufficient Historical Evidence to Establish the Resurrection of Jesus?" Faith and Philosophy 12, no. 3 (1995): 361-79.
"Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Resurrected? An Atheist and Theist Dialogue, ed. John F. Ankerberg (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), p. 61.
"Rudolf Bultmann, The New Testament and Mythology," in Kerygrna and Myth, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper and Row, 1961), p. 5.
'7Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, ed. Terry L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 16-19.
"Craig and Ludemann, Jesus' Resurrection, p. 75.
"Timothy McGrew, "Has Plantinga Refuted the Historical Argument?" Philosophia Christi 6, no. 1 (2004): 7-25; Alvin Plantinga, "Historical Arguments and Dwindling Probabilities: A Response to Timothy McGrew," Philosophia Christi 8, no. 1 (2006): 7-22; Timothy and Lydia McGrew, "On the Historical Argument: A Rejoinder to Plantinga," Philosophia Christi 8, no. 1 (2006): 23-38. Incidentally, that same 2006 issue of Philosophia Christi contains Stephen T. Davis's excellent review article of The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave, a collection of essays by resurrection skeptics (pp. 38-63). Despite its huge faults, this book, as Davis notes, does mark the attempt by skeptics to answer the evidentialists who have been advancing some sophisticated and powerful arguments for the historicity of the resurrection.
20McGrew and McGrew, On the Historical Argument," p. 29.
"The McGrews stress that Swinburne has repeatedly rejected Plantinga's characterization of his (Swinburne's) argument as involving the evaluation of the probabilities of both theism and the resurrection against an univocal set comprising all of our background evidence but in which, nevertheless, we must first evaluate the probability of theism on total evidence. See Richard Swinburne, "Natural Theology, Its `Dwindling Probabilities' and `Lack of Rapport,"' Faith and Philosophy 4 (2004): 541-42. See also Swinburne, The Resurrection of God Incarnate (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 30-31.
23See Gary R. Habermas, Dealing with Doubt (Chicago: Moody Press, 1990), and The Thomas Factor (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1998).
221n a short appendix, I will demonstrate an application of Bayes's theorem. I reserve it until then to give the symbol and number-phobic among you the chance to avoid it, and the proud, pocket-protector-wearing geeks among you the chance to indulge your number-crunching tastes to your heart's content.
24Tim McGrew adds another smart twist to the connection between probabilistic arguments and abductive inferences. Two theories might account equally well for each fact to be explained, but one of the theories might possess a greater epistemic set of virtues by providing a more unified picture. A theory that accounts for each individual fact, such as an elaborate secular scenario providing independent naturalistic explanations for Paul's experience, the alleged appearances, the empty tomb and the like, nonetheless suffers the defect of mounting improbabilities. The explanations provided aren't connected to one another, nor do they increase the likelihood of the others. A Bayesian analysis can thereby bolster an abductive case for the resurrection by illustrating its comparative unifying power by showing how it simply packages the conjunction of data more effectively and by the way its explanations mutually increase the probabilities of the others. See his "Confirmation, Heuristics, and Explanatory Reasoning" at <homepages.wmich.edu/-mcgrew/bjps.htm>.
25Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperCollins, 2007).
27Ibid., p. 16.
"Ibid., p. 41.
"Ibid., p. 56.
30Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 58.
"Ibid., p. 88.
32lbid.
33Ibid., p. 160.
"Flew, There Is a God, p. 157.
35Ibid., p. 186.
14 Ibid., p. 185.
36Habermas and Stephen T. Davis have locked horns on the issue of how rationally constraining a case for the resurrection is. See, for example, Habermas's "Knowing that Jesus' Resurrection Occurred: A Response to Davis," Faith and Philosophy 2, no. 3 (1985): pp. 295-302.; and Davis's response in his Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 170-74.
"Such voluntarism affirms the horn of the Euthyphro dilemma that says that whatever God says is moral is moral in virtue of his saying it, which raises various arbitrariness and vacuity objections.
"David Baggett, Is Divine Iconoclast as Bad as Cosmic Sadist?" in C.S. Lewis as Philosopher: Truth, Goodness and Beauty, ed. David Baggett, Gary R. Habermas and Jerry L. Walls (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2008), pp. 115-30.
40FIew has found convincing an argument from reason and from the existence of natural causal laws, but not an argument based on the moral law. What makes this all the more interesting, since the logic of the former seems to apply to the latter, is the way C. S. Lewis explicitly argued in a parallel way both for, say, the argument from reason and the moral argument. The illustration of the parity of reasoning in Lewis can be seen in his third and fifth chapters of Miracles.
"Robert Adams, Finite and Infinite Goods: A Framework for Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Adams offers a voluntaristic analysis of the right (moral obligation in particular) and a nonvoluntaristic analysis of the good (sounding not unlike a natural law theorist on that score). He thus salvages an element of voluntarism while avoiding the arbitrariness and vacuity objections saddling Ockhamistic voluntarism. He joins nearly all contemporary divine command theorists in offering non-Ockhamistic analyses of morality, despite its dependence on God. Flew seems largely unaware of this philosophical development and literature. Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski offers yet another possibility: a divine motivation theory of morality, again entailing the dependence of morality on God but without the problematic variant of voluntarism. See her Divine Motivation Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
42David Conway, The Rediscovery of Wisdom (London: Macmillan, 2000), p. 74.
411n correspondence a few years ago with Jerry Walls-author of Hell: The Logic of Damnation (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 1992), a book that can be read as giving philosophical rigor to Lewis's literary depiction of hell in The Great DivorceFlew admitted that if he found any serious problem with his own work The Logic of Mortality, he would have to become some sort of Christian. In a letter dated November 29, 2005, Flew, having read Walls's book on hell, wrote to him, expressing appreciation for his defense of the doctrine, going so far as to call it "brilliant." He still seemed to struggle with his idea that the notion of life after death is incoherent, though one wonders if his movement on issues of identification and individuation where God is concerned wouldn't equally soften Flew up to a coherent vision of life after death. At any rate, what's important to stress is that Flew is quite familiar with a Lewisian vision of hell, which reconciles God's goodness with this difficult doctrine of damnation. Flew also admitted that, like Hume, the idea of eternal bliss holds no appeal for him. For a critique of Hume in this regard as well as his claim that if there is a God he must be amoral, see chapter one of Jerry L. Walls, Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
44Thanks to John Azar, Bruce Russell, Tim McGrew, Bill Irwin, Greg Bassham, Jerry Walls, Tom Morris and Gary Habermas for helping me think these issues through. Thanks especially to Jerry and Gary for reading a draft of the chapter and offering detailed comments and suggestions.
43See especially his The Risen Jesus and Future Hope (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003), both for an explication of the theological significance of the resurrection of Jesus and for the argument not summarized here, entitling the inference from Jesus being alive after being dead to the truth of Christianity.
'Alvin Plantinga, "Historical Arguments and Dwindling Probabilities: A Response to Timothy McGrew," Philosophia Christi 8, no. 1 (2006): 19-20.