1: Philosophy of History
1
Philosophy of History
Logically before the study of various historical epochs, key individuals, important times, and influential ideas throughout the centuries, a smaller number of scholars also discuss the far more theoretical areas of metahistory. Many historians understandably want to be left alone to just practice their craft by working in their own specialized areas of research, but someone has to do the more theoretical spadework and underpinnings as well.
In this chapter, we will introduce the initial subject of philosophy of history by unpacking a few of these more theoretical and academic questions. We will only be able to present a limited number of these items here, concentrating on those that most affect the topics engaged throughout this study, beginning with an overview of the relevant philosophical concepts. These include a preliminary definition of history as a discipline as well as a few concepts related to this definition. These definitional concepts will also serve to introduce a few of the cognate areas of study in the philosophy of history.
The chief focus of the next chapter will also explore the subject of historiography—how historical research is actually conducted. Taken from the Greek words for history (historia) and its recording or writing (graphē), this term involves the process to be pursued here. What practical steps are involved in ascertaining and pursuing historical investigation itself? How is the discipline of history actually researched and written? What tools does the historian bring to this study? What are the rules for utilizing these tools? This is what is chiefly thought of as the purview of history.
But then there are those who provide various critiques, as well, charging that only a comparatively small amount of historical knowledge may be gleaned from historical investigations, especially those in the distant past. This is a crucial area of study as well. After all, if the historical process itself were to be questioned severely, that could indeed have strong repercussions for our research on the death and resurrection appearances of Jesus. Hence, some of the most radical forms of these critiques will be considered next in a study of historical forms of postmodernism. Subsequent chapters throughout this research project will study many other general methodological doubts as well as specifically how these might apply to particular historical topics that pertain to our discussions in these volumes.
Introducing Philosophy of History
Philosophers of history often pursue the most intriguing issues of metahistory that ultimately bear on historical epistemology. Fascinatingly, many academicians who engage in this research are philosophers or professional historians. As a branch of study that resides in between these two disciplines, it is thus shared by both.
As a group, philosophers of history are concerned with an entire host of theoretical but crucial questions, many of which logically precede the study of historical persons and events. For example, what is the nature of the overall and underlining theory that constitutes the underpinnings of history as a discipline? Which existing theoretical option(s) should be utilized here? To begin, how might history even be defined? Strangely enough for some, this is not the simple and straightforward task that it may seem. Further questions include: Are there any interpretive schemata, either secular or religious, that may be capable of characterizing the entire process of history? Do its events move cyclically, linearly, haphazardly, or otherwise? Does history repeat itself? Whether events do or do not recur in some sense, what would that even indicate or look like?
Or further, is the overall process of history somehow predetermined so that certain events must occur in particular, precise ways regardless of other factors? Or is the flow of history a free progression of occurrences where more than one event is a possibility and truly free decisions can actually be made?1 Could the scientific laws of nature that that are so instructive in the better-known sciences to justify or explain regularities potentially explain human conduct as well?2
Moreover, should the discipline of history be considered a hard science like physics or chemistry?3 Does history exhibit any of the objective checks and balances often associated with the harder sciences?4 Or is historical study a “softer” social science like psychology, anthropology, or sociology? Or yet again, is history perhaps like none of these other subject areas? Are there various sorts of theories regarding the nature of past events? What about efforts to analyze historical trends? Can or should we learn lessons of ethical, political, or religious importance from the flow of events, either by participating in them or watching them from a distance?
One of the most crucial questions and perhaps even the preeminent inquiry of all, at least regarding our present study, pertains to whether what occurred in the past can even be known or ascertained in the first place.5 Or is the discipline of history simply a more subjective process, almost like some sort of art form or exercise in creative writing that only masquerades as an objective process? Or potentially far worse, is the study of history simply a method manipulated by unscrupulous persons for the purpose of persuading others to do their will, like power politics, and keeping people in line or making them behave a certain way? These specific aspects have actually been debated and pursued for millennia, but especially throughout the past century. This will be the chief focus of the next chapter.
The central emphasis in studying the philosophy of history has changed quite dramatically in recent decades. Up until a century ago, the way to study this subject was by juxtaposing several major, sweeping theories to study the overall purposes of history. The formulators of these often rather grandiose theses could be either religious or secular, but they shared one central goal: to explain the chief unifying or integrating themes behind the process of history. Which ideas, forces, or motifs lurk behind these world processes?
Influential candidates in these earlier discussions included Augustine’s (354–430) concept of events and ideas moving to and from the cross of Jesus Christ, which occupied the center of history. However, a later aspirant was Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who emphasized the importance of proceeding beyond religious or metaphysical ideas of the past to pursue scientific progress. Another influential alternative was Karl Marx’s (1818–1883) notions of interpreting history in terms of economics and class struggle.
Seeking to determine the central forces behind the world processes of the past, such “speculative” approaches dominated studies in philosophy of history for close to a couple thousand years. They were much more conducive to the more unified notions regarding the nature of reality held during these times by both religious and secular intellectuals alike. But during the past century, philosophy of history shifted its emphases, giving way to a much more “critical” outlook. It grew steadily to center on posing, debating, and answering the sorts of theoretical questions raised in the long list above.
These two branches of inquiry within the discipline of philosophy of history have widely and regularly been termed the “speculative” and the “critical” approaches.6 The former often seem to be viewed today as an older, frankly less sophisticated way to approach the subject.7 It is sometimes even regarded as a rather naive approach. Major thinkers of the past were no doubt highly intelligent, but the more contemporary emphases on analytical, departmentalizing, and specializing interests makes unified thinking of these sorts very difficult. For Hans Meyerhoff, it was primarily the growing influence of historicism and more scientifically empirical studies that spelled the defeat of the speculative ventures.8 Jörn Rüsen continued further into the rise of certain more radical trends that opposed the “great narratives.”9
Varying reasons have been proposed for these changes, but by far the more common approach at present is to pursue the study of philosophy of history by addressing critical questions such as those mentioned above. As some might inquire, how can a search for unifying concepts proceed to tie together the entire historical process when the most dominating question in recent years is whether, and to what extent, historical facts may even be known at all?10
A Concept of History
The term history is defined and employed somewhat variously by different researchers, though with many similarities being found among the details.11 To some extent, this research is carried out in an interdisciplinary fashion as well as over differing time periods.12 No uniform definition is agreed upon by everyone, especially regarding the finer details, while numerous definitions, interpretations, and other approaches are regularly utilized.13 It is not our purpose here to survey these contemporary views.14 Still, there is at least some widespread agreement concerning certain features of the concept of history.
Historians generally acknowledge that their subject includes at least two major components—the actual events themselves and the records of these events, which usually includes factors such as the scholar’s interpretations.15 Thus the discipline is chiefly concerned at least with what has happened in the past along with the accounts of these occurrences. These accounts must include and cope with the ensuing evaluations, interpretations, and debates, too, which may frequently be the most difficult aspects of all. This formulation will comprise the core understanding of our use of the term history in this study. Other elements are certainly involved, and we will address a few of them presently, but these two major ideas are essential and recur most often in historian’s definitions, composing the foundation of this discipline.
Other factors relevant to this discussion need to be mentioned as well, if only briefly. First, historical events do not somehow carry their own meaning along with them, as if to say that once an event is ascertained or recognized, there is some sort of immediate aha moment where the meaning is known directly and strictly from what occurred alone. Explained another way, there is no such thing as brute-fact events that are self-interpreting by their very nature. Some historical events may seem obvious to many and may appear to involve pretty clear meanings for the majority of those involved, but events need to be seen within a context to derive their full meaning.
This principle is hardly even contested in the scholarly community. Philosopher Stephen Davis states it very succinctly: “But there is no such thing as bare, uninterpreted evidence or experience, and so the way we evaluate the evidence we encounter will inevitably depend to a great extent on our worldview.”16 Another philosopher who agrees is Alan G. Padgett.17
New Testament scholar James Tabor also agrees: “It is impossible to gaze upon ‘facts’ without interpretation. All historians come to their investigations with selective criteria of judgment forged by both acknowledged and unrecognized predisposed interests and cultural assumptions.”18 As in the other disciplines, this sort of response is standard fare in New Testament history and theology as well.19
As a result, various subjective factors are always present whenever history is recorded. Subjective considerations include a variety of meanings, but what they have in common is that each one represents a particular angle, some sort of bias, or a perspective that is imposed on the event from the outside. It might be explained as glasses that color one’s personal world in particular ways, consisting of built-in perspectives on what occurred. If someone looks at the world through rose-colored glasses, they will view items through an optimistic, positive lens. But many others will often equally disagree with that, perhaps employing negative perspectives.
One issue is that there can be many subjective angles from which an event can be viewed and interpreted. Thus, for every touchdown scored or home run hit, there are both those who are absolutely elated as well as those who are emotionally devastated. Then there are many others watching sporting events who do not take either view, and some of these do not care one iota. Then of course others are not watching the game at all! Subjective factors vary widely among observers, definitely reveal personal components, are often asserted as true or false, and are often at great variance with the views of others!
Obviously, some personal angles are more egregious than others, and some seem not to involve any bias at all. To give a more innocuous example, the historian must select the material that she will (and will not) present. Why should she consider this or that topic as opposed to another subject? The answer often involves some personal interest on the part of the researcher. But even picking that particular subject over another involves an angle on the topic. It is often stated that the actual historical event either occurred or did not. But recording what happened and what did not, as well as providing an interpretation for the event, introduces various subjective factors.
From the more offensive end of the scale, we often cry foul when a chief political journalist, broadcaster, correspondent, or policy interpreter is from the same party and persuasion as the individual being covered in the report. What if a judge has a vested interest in the life of the person being tried? What if the historian personally despises the group of people she is researching? What if the head umpire or referee used to play for one of the teams participating in the game?
For Oxford University philosopher W. H. Walsh, these subjective perspectives can arise in at least four areas: private or personal preferences, prejudices from the group with which one is connected, differing historical understandings, and philosophical ideas arising from one’s worldview.20 Elsewhere, Walsh thinks that while the writer’s subjectivity is certainly present, it need not necessarily oppose an interminable barrier that will impede her from obtaining historical truth. Rather, this subjectivity must be expected and allowed for, and its effects can be ascertained and offset.21
Oxford University historian William Wand notes that our approach to history ought to be cautious, as we must detect any subjective bias involved. But like Walsh, Wand agrees that we are capable of making adjustments for the amount of interpretation involved and still reach solid historical conclusions.22 As Australian historian Paul Barnett remarks, no one is exempt from “attitudes, biases, and prejudice.”23 Other historians have also voiced their own agreement that the presence of various subjective factors is unavoidable in the writing and recording of history.24
Former Cambridge University New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham explains one of the crucial issues here like this: “All history—meaning all that historians write, all historiography—is an inextricable combination of fact and interpretation, the empirically observable and the intuited or constructed meaning.”25 Tabor speaks quite similarly: “History is not merely an assemblage of constructed facts. It also involves an attempt to retrieve and imagine a past that we can no longer see or touch. History touches the heart as well as the head.”26 Related statements from scholarly publications in New Testament theology are easily found from a wide variety of angles.27
For many researchers, it is the person’s worldview that exerts the singular greatest influence on their perception of the historical facts. For instance, often if the facts conflict with someone’s overall perspective on the world, the facts will not even be considered no matter what the evidence may indicate. To a certain extent, worldviews often hinge on our likes and dislikes, built according to the way individuals actually wish and hope that the world really exists. So in spite of many who may wish that something were not this way, likes and dislikes often shape our worldviews, and these views often trump how we interpret the facts. Wishing that this were not the way people perceive things does not change it. Not always, but this may mean that, for many, if the facts get in the way of what we want out of our lives, we will not listen.28
Earlier we viewed another philosophical comment regarding the influence of our concept of reality. Davis argued that how we treat and evaluate the evidence that we find “will inevitably depend to a great extent on our worldview.”29 This position is held quite commonly among scholars.30 It needs to be recalled here that judging evidence according to our dearly loved prior wishes and desires regarding the world is simply a huge example of our subject at hand. That is, we all have perspectives and even biases that affect the way we write, read, and speak. In short, we are all prejudiced.
Beyond these modern examples, historians have discovered many instances of biased reports in ancient history that may illustrate the idea here a little better. The Roman historian Tacitus can serve as a bit of a test case for us, especially in that he was writing less than a century after the reports of Jesus’s death and resurrection and only a few years after the noncanonical Christian authors Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp. This chronological approximation is helpful.
But Tacitus is known for being somewhat prejudiced and even inaccurate in his writing. One example is the “aristocratic bias” that he exhibits. Further, he was convinced that the “highest function” of historical writing was drawing moral lessons from the material. However, not everyone derives the same ethical lessons from events. Other times, historical inaccuracies tarnish his text, like crediting speeches to people who never spoke them or improperly reporting particular details in battle accounts. Editor and historian Moses Hadas maintains that Tacitus’s interpretations “must often be challenged” because he “could see only through his own lenses which were strongly colored.”31
So, must Tacitus be rejected as a reliable source for ancient Roman history? Do these subjective elements from his writings nullify the information that he sought to relay? Actually, as strange as it may seem to us today, Hadas explains rather paradoxically that Tacitus was Rome’s greatest historian.32 Hadas details the situation this way: “One may well ask how trustworthy the resultant history is. A modern historian guilty of such faults would surely lose all credit. . . . With allowance made for rhetorical embellishment customary in his day, and within the limits of distortion which his own views of morality and politics make inevitable, Tacitus never consciously sacrifices historical truth.”33
Contemporary historian Michael Grant agrees that Tacitus is not an isolated case from the ancient world. For example, the Greek “father of history,” Herodotus, blends legends and anecdotal material into his accounts. Another ancient Roman historian, Livy, allowed for the operation of omens. Even worse, both Livy and Tacitus describe events that took place long before their time, sometimes as much as five centuries earlier! These gaps resulted in frequent inconsistencies and contradictions in these ancient historical writings.34
Yet, contemporary historians still do not despair with regard to reconstructing major events from ancient times. As asserted by Hadas, recent scholars can make allowances not only for the subjective, prejudiced facets involved in the recording and interpretation of these events, but even for incorrect data. The reconstructing of ancient history relies on the scholar’s ability to determine the events of the past in spite of these deterrents.35
This is our research goal throughout these volumes: to search for and recognize the subjective aspects of the reports that we will study while still ascertaining the historical core. Neither absolute certainty nor giving up on historical knowledge are required. Historical events still may be ascertained, as virtually all historical scholars allow. This will be pointed out in much detail as we move forward, with even postmodern historians and other skeptics allowing historical data. The principles we arrive at will then be applied when we investigate the death and resurrection of Jesus in later chapters. Although the events in question occurred long ago (though being much closer in time to those who actually wrote the accounts), historical investigation is still capable of ascertaining the data, as we have just seen. This is one of the chief reasons why the minimal facts method is taken here, due to the many strong arguments and considerations in favor of the facts that are used. It also accounts for why scholars virtually always agree with the resulting data.
Besides recognizing and dealing with the subjective factor in recording history, a second closely linked principle extends from our definition of history. Due to factors such as those which we have just discussed, historical research is incapable of reaching a place where it can rest totally assured of its findings. As with both the hard sciences as well as the softer social sciences, probability rules the search for evidence that is derived inductively. Therefore, whether we are dealing with physics, chemistry, or medicine on the one hand or psychology, sociology, or anthropology on the other, the nature of every inductive discipline is such that it cannot yield conclusions that are more than probable. This is the case with history as well.36
So historians realize that their conclusions must be couched in probabilistic terms. David Hackett Fischer employs “seven rules of thumb” in evaluating historical evidence. His fifth guide is “the rule of probability” because “all inferences from empirical evidence are probabilistic.”37 Wand asserts that we may not be as positive of the results of historical investigation as some have thought in the past. Still, our judgments must be made according to which facts are most likely true in terms of the historical evidence.38 For Barnett, this may be more crucial with regard to ancient historical accounts, and yet we still may have enough data to establish some highly evidential claims.39
Walsh, Hadas, Grant, Fischer, Wand, and Barnett along with a band of other historians such as those mentioned above are certainly not alone here, for the use of historical sifting regarding the available data to arrive at probable arguments is simply required and even assumed in historical research today. As mentioned, this is how inductive studies work.40
New Testament historians and theologians agree regarding the use of probability as well. This includes very skeptical researchers such as Gerd Lüdemann,41 A. C. Wedderburn,42 and to a lesser degree John A. T. Robinson.43 Many other New Testament historians and theologians also agree with the reliance on the canons of probability regarding the strength of their historical research. Like the historians above, this is a standard conclusion of their work too.44
More specifically, James D. G. Dunn states succinctly, “Here it is as well to remember that historical methodology can only produce probabilities.”45 Dunn further explains the process this way: “The critical scholar learns to make carefully graded judgments which reflect the quality of the data—almost certain (never simply ‘certain’), very probable, probable, likely, possible, and so on. In historical scholarship the judgment ‘probable’ is a very positive verdict.”46
Luke Timothy Johnson states, “Because of its constructive character, historiography is also properly revisionist . . . an appropriate revision occurs when new evidence comes to light that fundamentally affects an earlier portrayal.”47 Tabor casts a similar point in personal terms: “With every good historian I stand ever open to critique and revision. . . . A conscious humility before evidence is absolutely essential.”48
Dale Allison points out that some sort of “proof” is not available to the historian and can “never be achieved because possible alternatives can always be imagined.”49 Presumably, Allison means that as long as potential alternative scenarios exist as possible explanations for events, even if they are lesser options, the chief thesis can still only be cast in terms of probabilities.
It should be noted carefully, even from a critical perspective, that only being able to arrive at probable historical knowledge is definitely not the same as being unsure of the past, or only being able to draw doubtful historical conclusions, or shrugging our shoulders and answering that we cannot know anything about bygone days. The concept of inductive probability does not preclude achieving what we might call practical certainty in matters of well-established historical findings, as has been noted.
So when might historical occurrences be considered as firmly established according to these principles? Such a designation might describe events that are rendered likely or even very likely according to careful research, especially when these events have been established over long time periods and in the absence of viable contrary findings. In other words, the best-established historical events are those confirmed by painstaking research into the relevant data, without evidentially feasible challenges, especially having repeatedly withstood the eye of critical scrutiny.
Even the possibility that some events may be challenged later, including the prospect of future reevaluation, does not preclude a strong notion of certainty from being held in terms of probability or even high probability. After all, we cannot hold in abeyance all of history, science, medicine, or other inductive areas of study throughout our lives in the constant fear that something may be challenged!
It is helpful to be reminded constantly that this is nothing out of the ordinary even if we are considering similar choices made in everyday life. We act regularly throughout our entire lives based on probabilities. Not believing or acting when the evidence is strong could even lead to a life-or-death crisis. For instance, taking necessary medicines when required could account for healing, even though the physician only says that such a prescription will “probably” work. Or, if the news reports a specific type of poisoning in recalled food, even though the odds of coming across precisely the same issue are often very small, we often avoid that sort of food until the danger is over.
Or again, we may invest in the stock market on the basis of research which shows that it is likely to be a good time to buy, even though we are acutely aware that such a decision could be absolutely disastrous. Many of us choose to stay indoors and even take cover during a tornado warning, even though a tornado is only deemed to be a likely event (or perhaps no more than just a possible occurrence). Simply driving a vehicle anywhere involves the possibility of dying, as we all know, but we clearly act on the probabilities. We thus use and value probabilities in everyday life, sometimes even while making life-saving decisions.
The point of all of these examples is to bring to our attention that our very practical, everyday lives are literally filled with probabilistic choices, where the wise person (or might we say the alive person!) is the one who makes the best selections. And the best decisions are almost always the ones that are based not on our whims, feelings, or ungrounded beliefs, but those that rest firmly on the current state of the best data. Interestingly enough, Dunn states, “Probability, we now realize, is much more integral to daily living than was previously understood.”50
It should be acknowledged that if additional data or a plausible alternative hypothesis casts doubt on an event, it might be necessary to reopen an investigation. But precluding the appearance of such evidential contrary material, the fact may be viewed as virtually certain when defined in practical terms. We do not need to doubt Julius Caesar’s assassination, Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, or the election of Abraham Lincoln as the sixteenth president of the United States of America. These facts are well-established at this time and thus can be known probabilistically as highly likely.51
In this sense, the historian locates the best data when she accurately performs the investigation, applies the appropriate standards of criticism, and determines the outcome according to the canons of probability. The scholar also needs to be open to additional challenges entailing further defenses or adjustments. But again, decisions need to be made when the canons of good research have been met. Oftentimes, deciding not to choose is still to decide by indecision. This is true in everyday life, even in life-threatening situations, just as it is in the halls of the university.
It certainly has not been our purpose to deal exhaustively with the concept of history.52 Yet a contemporary treatment of the subject ought to include at least these components. We will refer to history as both the occurrence of past events as well as their recording. Some scholars will include interpretations of these occurrences as well. Recognizing the inevitable influence of various species of subjective elements, allowance must be made for such aspects in the best possible way for the strongest data to be obtained. Realizing also that history, like other inductive disciplines, deals with probabilities, we need to ascertain as nearly as possible those facts which are indeed the most likely.
As is the case with probabilities and uncertainties, we must be as open as possible to novel events. Such is the nature of inductive studies. Therefore, events ought not be ruled out or predetermined (either scientifically or historically) before being researched. A thorough investigation of the evidence is required. Events that are firmly established by historical investigation may be regarded as practically certain according to the available data.
The Debate regarding Our Knowledge of the Past: From Positivism to Postmodernism
It has been mentioned that many of the most insightful dialogues over numerous critical questions in the philosophy of history occurred in the century from 1860 to 1960. Many of the theoretical issues hinted at earlier in this chapter were discussed and debated during this time. Some crucial agreement resulted from these interactions as well. Here we will briefly outline certain features of these vital discussions before moving forward to the growing focus on postmodern trends. Throughout this chapter, we are primarily interested in the scholarly ability to acquire historical data regarding the past. Several lessons will hopefully emerge from this discussion that will be applicable to the remainder of our study of the death and resurrection of Jesus.53
During the middle of the nineteenth century, German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) advocated a research method that was later treated as a species of historical positivism. It became very influential over the remainder of the century, especially in western European, British, and American circles. This methodology emphasized using thorough, painstaking analysis to discover cold, hard historical facts. The operative phrase that described von Ranke’s search is variously translated as history “as it actually occurred” or “how it actually was.”54 This approach was believed to be sufficient to determine the data from the past in an objective manner, which could be reconstructed without bias, just as in the other hard sciences.
Ranke was not the only scholar at this time who considered history to be one of the sciences and characterized it as a disciplined, methodical, and precise methodology. Some of these researchers also thought that universal laws dictated the bounds of history and the other disciplines, similar to the laws of nature. French philosopher Auguste Comte proposed that such laws applied to all areas of learning. Further, he thought he had properly delineated these natural decrees through the subjects of history and sociology, even while others were doing so in the sciences.
German philosopher Karl Marx (1818–1883) likewise shared the notion that the scientific unpacking of history’s laws would lead to the natural laws that governed societal development as a whole. British historian Henry Buckle (1821–1862) also held that the universal laws of nature revealed in the discipline of history could be discovered by scientific methodology.
By applying these universal laws properly with their meticulous and methodical procedures, these figures thought the past could be reconstructed rather precisely. Moreover, contrary to the views of many scholars, these researchers thought this process could be carried out without any interference from personal prejudice or other forms of subjectivity.
Though this objective strain of historiography was quite influential in a number of venues, new trends began to swing quite far in the other direction by the end of the nineteenth century. A far more relativistic tendency started gaining momentum in both philosophical and historical studies, striking at the heart of the rather short-lived objectivist trend. Over against those earlier positivistic proclivities, this latter emphasis is usually associated with idealistic philosophy sometimes inspired by the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Georg W. F. Hegel. During the next few decades, opposing ideas were leveled against the earlier position that history was a hard science governed by laws and conducted by utilizing the same objective methodological techniques.
German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) was an advocate of this emerging idealistic position in opposition to the positivistic trends. While he separated the historical method from that of the natural sciences, he still held the prevalent ideas that historical data could be derived empirically and known objectively. However, true knowledge of the past was believed to be gained by “lively visualization” that projected back “into a work or person,” allowing one to “relive” the past in some sense!55
The more radical perspective here was not so much that historical research could be conducted per se, but the emphasis on the historian’s more subjective role in the process. A major difference was revealed in the emphasis on subjective biases that were thought to wield much greater influence than previously considered. These prejudices and preconceptions were viewed as being much more pervasive in nature, with historians themselves having their own personal, political, social, and religious leanings, not to mention contrasting worldviews as a whole.
Despite agreement that past events could be researched and ascertained factually, particularly where historians who held dissimilar philosophical positions still agreed on the data, the two positions were more dramatically contrasted in issues pertaining to the interpretation of these events. The question of subjective tendencies was obviously the principal realm where these differences were the most apparent.
After Dilthey, two other prominent idealistic historians took an even more radical path toward subjectivity, and their views influenced historians through the first few decades of the twentieth century. Italian historian Benedetto Croce (1866–1952) and Oxford University philosopher of history Robin Collingwood (1889–1943) viewed all history as a contemporary exercise, in that it was to be relived in the modern historian’s thoughts.56 While Collingwood was not as extreme or as mystical as Croce,57 the former still concluded, “The history of thought, and therefore all history, is the re-enactment of past thought in the historian’s own mind.”58 More obviously, then, there are indeed some enormous differences between the positivists (or realists) and the idealists with regard to the path to historiography, especially in subjective matters such as the interpretation and evaluation of the data.59
While these trends were manifest more on the European front, a few American historians also took their own relativistic steps. Most American historians “did not share the German agony over history’s access to truth. They remained convinced that scientific history would eventually bring reliable and valid results. . . . Only a few American historians, among them Carl L. Becker and Charles Beard, engaged in more serious discussion of historical objectivity and truth.”60 For Becker (1873–1945), we do not have historical facts per se, rather, only their affirmations and interpretations.61 Beard (1874–1948) concurred, since Ranke’s view of “neutral or scientific history reached a crisis” and had been both “challenged and rejected” due to the subjectivity of the research.62
However, toward the middle of the twentieth century, the more traditional approaches to historiography were gaining momentum again. Richard Evans explains it this way: “This reassertion of historical objectivity came at a time in the 1950s and 1960s when the historical profession was reestablishing itself, undergoing slow but steady growth.”63 Gilderhus adds the realization from this same period of time that “historians can sacrifice conceptions of objectivity only at their own risk.”64 In his acclaimed summary of historical trends, University of Chicago historian Peter Novick agrees with this assessment, arguing that after World War II the historical relativism that had gained some ground earlier was increasingly attacked by other scholars. This critique became so strong that while historians Beard and Becker were credited with refuting the “brute facts” view of historical occurrences, their supporters “were increasingly reluctant to defend their teachings.” In fact, besides the question of objectivity alone, “dozens of commentators deplored the effect of relativism on historians’ morale.”65
Nonetheless, especially on a couple of the more central issues, much synthesis already had taken place by this time between the two broad, predominant historical positions on the subject of the extent to which historical events of the past could be ascertained. The large majority of historians, even across “party lines,” continued to pursue the probable knowledge of past occurrences by utilizing the tools of historical research. While hardly being disputed anyway when getting right down to the essentials, particularly when the research was done carefully, these trends were nonetheless still a victory for the historical realists.
But the idealists had also gained some ground due to the growing change on virtually all sides in taking seriously the limitations imposed by various sorts of subjective factors. In short, this synthesis recognized the influence of more biased considerations that continued to restrict the objectivity of research while still maintaining agreement concerning our ability to discover probable historical data by means of researching the past and determining what most likely occurred.66 Novick refers to this partial solution as a move toward convergence.67
Conclusion
As noted by Evans, Gilderhus, and Novak, among others, scholars moved toward the midpoint of the twentieth century with the predominant position of either espousing or at least allowing for the existence of actual historical data. To this extent, the “objectivists” had emerged from the fray as the victors in the sense that they had defended their single most crucial tenet, though they may have been wounded in the process. The consensus position was that many historical facts of the past could be studied, investigated, and known according to probability. It is fair to say, however, that this tenet was rarely if ever truly questioned by the idealists, at least systematically.68 As Becker stated after mentioning particular historical data, “No one doubts it.”69
Nevertheless, though virtually none of even the more relativistic historians among the idealists would dispute the existence of knowable data, these facts were interpreted through the lens of the pervasive subjective elements. As Becker continues after his comment directly above, “But taken by itself the fact is nothing, means nothing.”70 The idealists had also won a few skirmishes of their own as well. After all, the assurance that had been achieved concerning historical events was indeed a chastened brand of knowledge anyway, since certainty was never available in inductive matters.71 Further, it was well-established and accepted that researchers were beset by their own biases of various sorts, and these had to be avoided assiduously. Many of the ensuing questions that resulted from this historical controversy are pursued in the next few chapters.
Notes
1 Surprisingly enough for some readers, these last issues reach far beyond what more theological readers might think of as being related to the “Calvinism-Arminian” discussions. For example, many atheistic thinkers are determinists, holding that history is not a process of free choices but rather one where naturalistic panorama can only occur in particular ways. Of course, determinists of various sorts will also disagree even strenuously with one another too, just as those on the other side might also do.
Ernest Nagel is an example of such a scholar who concedes willingly that his deterministic view of human history is held in opposition to the almost-unanimous convictions of contemporary physicists. Moreover, these scientific conclusions have affected the views of historians too, in that the accepted scientific view against a deterministic universe has sometimes weighed heavily to turn historians in a similar direction. Ernest Nagel, “Determinism in History,” in Philosophical Analysis and History, ed. William H. Dray (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), 355.
Nagel formulates five primary reasons to explain why so many contemporary historians have generally rejected historical determinism. (1) No developmental laws, patterns, principles, or precepts exist in history that would be capable of determining certain historical outcomes in advance of their occurrence, as in the more experimental sciences. (2) Closely aligned here, the historical process cannot be predicted in advance, in spite of certain frequently repeated theories that dictate otherwise. Past events or other such data do not determine the outcome of the future. (3) Novel events and configurations of new ideas appear and recur throughout history. (4) Unexpected or seemingly chance events outside the ordinary also factor into the historical process. (5) Conflicting results occur when one attempts to apply the concepts of a deterministic world process to the freedom and moral duty exhibited by human beings. The notion of freedom is strongly realistic, persuasive, and appears to require a creative aspect in history that arises from human free choices. Some examples of Nagel’s five points are certainly illustrative and helpful. Who could have predicted or foreseen the wide dissemination of views and ideas brought about by a novel culture from a war-like community in third-century BC Macedonia? Or who would have anticipated the creative and resourceful civilization that would arise from a barbaric tribe of people residing on the banks of the Tiber River in the first century BC? These and other similar developments have convinced many historians to reject the deterministic interpretation of history. Once again, Nagel asserts that the opposition to determinism that emanates from modern physics has been quite a key factor here as well, exercising a direct influence on most historians. Nagel, “Determinism in History,” 355.
2 C. Behan McCullagh makes some intriguing applications of questions like these in The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective (London: Routledge, 2004), chaps. 3–4.
3 This is another subject that cannot be discussed here in any great detail, and certainly not one that may be settled once and for all. But suffice it to say briefly that recent scholarship has generally rejected the older claim that history is a hard science. In critical theology, for example, James D. G. Dunn concluded that the “Nineteenth Century Old Liberal Quest” (better known today as the “First Quest for the Historical Jesus”) thought that history was a science, but these views were mistaken. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 26–29. Luke Timothy Johnson reminds readers that history fails the scientific test on the grounds that it has no predictive abilities. Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus: Historical Criticism and Literary Criticism,” in The Historical Jesus: Five Views, ed. James K. Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 2009), 163. In the interface between science and theology, Robert John Russell makes some detailed and worthwhile brief comments on the subject of prediction as well as on the laws of science being descriptive instead of prescriptive. Russell, “Bodily Resurrection, Eschatology, and Scientific Cosmology,” in Resurrection: Theological and Scientific Assessments, ed. Ted Peters, Robert John Russell, and Michael Welker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 19.
4 An occasional scholar, however, may argue that there is not as much separation as might be thought between history and the “harder” sciences. One exceptionally thoughtful example is an essay by Carol Cleland, who held positions in both the Department of Philosophy and the Center for Astrobiology at the University of Colorado. Among her arguments for what she terms historical science, she states in her initial abstract that “the claim that historical science is methodologically inferior to experimental science cannot be sustained” (987). One point she emphasizes is that “not all scientific hypotheses can be tested in the laboratory. Historical hypotheses that postulate particular past causes for currently observable phenomena provide good examples. Although historical hypotheses are usually associated with fields such as paleontology and archaeology, they are also common in geology, planetary science, astronomy, and astrophysics.” Pinpointing several particular avenues of scientific study, she continues, “Some familiar hypotheses are continental drift, the meteorite-impact extinction of the dinosaurs, the big bang origin of the universe, and, more recently, the hypothesis that there are planets orbiting distant stars. What all of these hypotheses have in common is explaining observable phenomena (e.g., the complementary shapes of the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa, the iridium and shocked quartz in the Cretaceous-Tertiary [K-T] boundary, the isotropic three-degree background radiation, the wobbling reflex motion of certain stars) in terms of their past causes” (987). She concludes that “when it comes to testing hypotheses, historical science is not inferior to classical experimental science” (990). See Carol E. Cleland, “Historical Science, Experimental Science, and the Scientific Method,” Geology 29 (2001): 987–90.
5 In fact, Burns and Rayment-Pickard report that recent writing in philosophy of history tends to be “dominated” by this and related issues. See Robert M. Burns and Hugh Rayment-Pickard, eds., Philosophies of History: From Enlightenment to Postmodernity (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 322.
6 It is noteworthy that Burns and Rayment-Pickard, in Philosophies of History, have edited one of the many volumes that helpfully includes readings and discussions from both interpretive traditions together in the same text. Other historians treat these distinctions in individual chapters, as in Mark T. Gilderhus, History and Historians: A Historiographical Introduction, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010), chaps. 4–5. For more concerning these terms and distinctions, see the standard research encyclopedia articles by well-known scholars such as William H. Dray, “Philosophy of History,” in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1972); 2nd ed. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2006), 6:247; Patrick Gardiner, “The Philosophy of History,” in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David L. Sills (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 6:428–29. Bruce Mazlish’s text The Riddle of History: The Great Speculators from Vico to Freud (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) is a good indication that the speculative philosophies are still studied even during this growing shift in interest toward the critical debates. Mazlish begins his volume by juxtaposing these two terms (1–2). Another example of taking both approaches seriously is the two-volume work edited by philosopher Ronald Nash, titled Ideas of History (New York: Dutton, 1969), where the various selections are grouped separately. The books themselves describe nicely this twofold approach: volume 1 is subtitled Speculative Approaches to History, while volume 2 is subtitled The Critical Philosophy of History.
7 Of course, it seems that virtually every age tends to look askance at those scholars of other generations. Interestingly enough, C. S. Lewis termed this attitude “chronological snobbery” and pointed out that every epoch has its own foibles and illusions. For one of his discussions here, see Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1955), 207–8. Lewis made it known that he was one who, in some respects, preferred aspects of earlier ages; see Lewis, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 216. Lewis did so while realizing that each age had its own strengths. Thus for Lewis, we should “regard all Models in the right way, respecting each and idolising none” (222).
8 Hans Meyerhoff, “History and Philosophy: An Introduction,” in The Philosophy of History in Our Time, ed. Hans Meyerhoff (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959), 9.
9 Jörn Rüsen, Evidence and Meaning: A Theory of Historical Studies, trans. Diane Kerns and Katie Digan (New York: Berghahn, 2017), 3, 73–74, 105–6, 210. Cf. the evaluation of Rüsen’s ideas in Benjamin C. F. Shaw and Gary R. Habermas, “Identifying Ontological Grounding for Metahistory,” Fides et Historia 50 (2018): 151–59, esp. 155–59.
10 Presumably, the issue could be viewed the other way around too. Leading scholars of past generations like Augustine, Comte, or Marx may have been quite willing to give their critique of recent, postmodern doubts concerning the recovery of any historical knowledge! In fact, it is possible that our serious entertaining of such doubts today might even cause these past scholars to conclude that we are the naive ones and thereby question our rational sensibilities!
11 For well-known and more traditional historian Geoffrey Elton, a historical fact is recognized as an event of the past of which traces remain in the present that can be utilized to determine what occurred. Elton, Return to Essentials: Some Reflections on the Present State of Historical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 27; cf. Richard Evans, who characterizes Elton’s view similarly, in Evans’s volume In Defense of History (New York: Norton, 1999), 65. For E. H. Carr, facts and interpretations must be linked. Carr states that a “mere fact about the past is transformed into a fact of history” upon being brought to light and recognized by scholars. See Carr, What Is History? (New York: Random House, 1961), 10–12. Much closer to Elton, Richard Evans refers to the confusion of attempting to combine occurrences and their interpretations. Then he asserts that “a historical fact is something that happened in history and can be verified as such through the traces history has left behind. Whether or not a historian has actually carried out the act of verification is irrelevant to its factuality; it really is there entirely independently of the historian. This is why historians commonly speak of ‘discovering’ facts about the past.” See Evans, In Defense of History, 66.
12 It should be noted carefully that in this chapter and also the next (though to a lesser degree), we will be combining our discussions and source citations quite purposely around the research of three different categories of scholars. (1) Many of the philosophers of history (including both philosophers and historians) whose research we will make much use of here did their research and publishing in the century of 1860–1960, and primarily in the second half of this range. The chief reason for including them is because many of the most insightful discussions over the issues in this chapter were debated in much detail and were largely settled precisely during this period of time. Therefore, not to hear from many of these scholars would deprive our treatment here not only of a historical perspective and background on these dialogues from the very beginning of the formative period of “critical” philosophy of history but would also remove from our research some of the very best scholarship on these topics. (2) Contemporary philosophers of history and other historians will also be cited in the interest of keeping us current. (3) Since the overall subject matter of this entire study is a series of historical topics that took place in a New Testament setting, historians, philosophers, and textual or theological scholars who specialize more selectively in the nuances of these areas will also be cited regularly, particularly to facilitate their insights that are derived from the languages, customs, and other features of this time period. The third category here is an example of the cross-disciplinary nature of these studies, too.
13 Gardiner, “Philosophy of History,” 6:428–33.
14 On a personal note, the chief historian on my PhD dissertation committee also made this point to me. After my summary of a number of definitions of the term history as provided by accomplished historians, the professor responded that since scholars really do not agree on a single definition, my discussion should not get bogged down in these details. Rather, he suggested that all the definitions should simply be deleted, settling instead for simply identifying for the reader which definition was going to be utilized in my own research.
15 Very similar renditions can be found frequently. For one such example from the field of history, see Constantin Fasolt, “History and Religion in the Modern Age,” History and Theory 45 (2006): 10. From a philosopher, see Stewart E. Kelly, Truth Considered and Applied: Examining Postmodernism, History, and Christian Faith (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2011), 188. For a couple of examples in a New Testament context from N. T. Wright, see “In Grateful Dialogue: A Response,” in Jesus and the Restoration of Israel: A Critical Assessment of N. T. Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God, ed. Carey Newman (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999), 246; Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, vol. 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 81–82.
16 Stephen T. Davis, Risen Indeed: Making Sense of the Resurrection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 172.
17 Alan G. Padgett, “Advice for Religious Historians: On the Myth of a Purely Historical Jesus,” in The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 293–94.
18 James D. Tabor, The Jesus Dynasty: Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), 316.
19 Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, trans. Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), 73; Wright, New Testament and the People of God, 36, 82–88, 137, 398; Luke Timothy Johnson, Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 31, 122; David Samuel, “Making Room in History for the Miraculous,” Churchman 100 (1986): 106; Gerald O’Collins, The Easter Jesus, 2nd ed. (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1980), 61; Ben Witherington III, “Resurrection Redux,” in Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? A Debate between William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan, ed. Paul Copan (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 129.
20 W. H. Walsh, “Can History Be Objective?,” in Meyerhoff, Philosophy of History, 216–24.
21 W. H. Walsh, Philosophy of History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), 101, 103.
22 William Wand, Christianity: A Historical Religion? (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1972), 432–33.
23 Paul Barnett, The Birth of Christianity: The First Twenty Years (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 10.
24 Just a few instances include: Ernst Breisach, Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994). For a sampling of these more biased elements in ancient historiography, see Breisach’s comments on Cicero (58), Livy (64–65, 69), and Tacitus (68–69). For this aspect in modern historiography, see Breisach, 407–8. Cf. Gilderhus, History and Historians, 116–18; Michael Grant, Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 200; Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: An Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 180–81; John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: Aims, Methods and New Directions in the Study of Modern History, 3rd ed. (London: Pearson, 2002), 189–200; Gardiner, “Historiography,” 6:432–33.
25 Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 3.
26 Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 305.
27 James D. G. Dunn reports that the familiar problem for historians is that virtually no historical source is unbiased, so the investigator must be aware of the presuppositions of the text as well as his own! See Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 4. John Meier reminds us that there is no such thing as a neutral observer. See Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 5 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016), 3:9–10, 625, 641, 646. Luke Timothy Johnson even goes as far as to say that historians construct history rather than simply discover it. Yet, he is exceptionally clear that he thinks historical events of the past can definitely be ascertained. Further, the texts themselves “are, in addition, inevitably biased.” See Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 161–63.
28 For example, Richard Lewontin, a Harvard University zoologist, amazingly wrote: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises . . . because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” Quotation from Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” New York Review (January 9, 1997): 8 (emphasis added in two phrases “because . . . materialism” and “Moreover . . . door.” The other emphasized words are Lewontin’s).
Similarly, Thomas Nagel, a very influential atheist professor of both philosophy and law at New York University, explains that he personally does not want God to exist, and he does not want the universe to be of that theistic sort. So he really hopes that there is no God! See Nagel, The Last Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), chap. 7.
Sometimes even the naturalist is willing to check out the data. Unlike Lewontin but more fairly, like Nagel’s encouraging comments regarding Intelligent Design research, Gregory W. Dawes concludes that the naturalistic paradigm must operate but that this “is merely provisional, in the sense that it could be revised given appropriate evidence.” See Dawes, “A Defense of Naturalism,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 70 (2011): 5, 23.
As the best-known example in recent years, when prominent atheist philosopher Antony Flew became a theist/deist, he made numerous comments that his “conversion” was due to his having to go along with the evidence. He indicated that strong evidence for God’s existence had emerged in recent years before his conversion. He also thought that both Bertrand Russell and J. L. Mackie would have been impressed with the latest scientific data. See Flew and Gary R. Habermas, “My Pilgrimage from Atheism to Theism: A Discussion between Antony Flew and Gary Habermas,” Philosophia Christi 6 (2004): esp. 200–202, 210–11.
The skeptical scientist or philosopher may well retort that this sort of knife cuts both ways: religious believers clearly want God to exist, so what does this prove? Well, it shows two important things: (1) The case that we have been making here is indeed obviously so, at least for many, including scholars. We often do choose to believe particular things, even formulating our worldviews in a certain way, because that is what we want to be true, even if the evidence goes against those beliefs. (2) The very best answer to this dilemma then, if not the only one, is to examine the evidence to ascertain which options are true and which ones are not! Someone has to be right! So let’s study the data and see where it leads. That is precisely what we are doing in our study here. So, unless we want to settle for circularly affirming our own desires and feelings, going with the evidence remains the route to take.
29 Davis, Risen Indeed, 172.
30 Besides Lewontin, Nagel, and Davis above, other instances include Wright, “In Grateful Dialogue,” 248; Wright, People of God, 109–18, 123; Dale C. Allison Jr., Resurrecting Jesus: The Earliest Christian Tradition and Its Interpreters (London: T&T Clark, 2005), 350. Graham Twelftree states it in a slightly different way: “What we take to be historically possible or probable is affected—perhaps even determined—by the culture in which our minds have been shaped.” See Twelftree, Jesus the Miracle Worker: A Historical and Theological Study (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic, 1999), 305.
31 Moses Hadas, “Introduction,” in The Complete Works of Tacitus, ed. Moses Hadas, trans. Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (New York: Random House, 1942), ix–xix.
32 Hadas, ix.
33 Hadas, xvii–xviii.
34 Grant, Jesus, 183–89.
35 Hadas, “Introduction,” xvii–xviii; cf. Grant, who agrees on similar grounds in Jesus, 182, 199–204.
36 Wand, Christianity, 51–52.
37 David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 63.
38 Wand, Christianity, 25–27, 51–52, 156.
39 Barnett, Birth of Christianity, 11–13, 210.
40 For a very positive overview done during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries regarding the actual use of scholarly probability studies in computing the likelihoods of historical events, see Rick Kennedy, A History of Reasonableness: Testimony and Authority in the Art of Thinking (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2004), 128, 146–67. Cf. also Michael Grant, Jesus, 201; Paul L. Maier, “The Empty Tomb as History,” Christianity Today, March 28, 1975, 4–6; C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 16; Walsh, Philosophy of History, 19; Gilderhus, History and Historians, 118.
41 Gerd Lüdemann with Alf Özen, What Really Happened to Jesus: A Historical Approach to the Resurrection, trans. John Bowden (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 6.
42 A. J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1999), 97.
43 John A. T. Robinson, Can We Trust the New Testament? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), 129.
44 Pannenberg, Jesus, 99; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromily (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 2:361; Jürgen Moltmann, “The Resurrection of Christ: Hope for the World,” in Resurrection Reconsidered, ed. Gavin D’Costa (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), 78; N. T. Wright, “Early Traditions and the Origin of Christianity,” Sewanee Theological Review 41 (1998): 138; E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 280–81; Gerald O’Collins, “The Resurrection Revisited,” review of The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of Jesus, ed. Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O’Collins, Gregorianum 79 (1998): 169–72; Craig Evans, “Life-of-Jesus Research and the Eclipse of Mythology,” Theological Studies 54 (1993): 25, 28, 30; Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A Redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 294.
45 James D. G. Dunn, “Response to Darrell L. Bock,” in Beilby and Eddy, Historical Jesus, 299.
46 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 101.
47 Johnson, “Learning the Human Jesus,” 161.
48 Tabor, Jesus Dynasty, 317.
49 Allison, Resurrecting Jesus, 340.
50 Dunn, “Response to Darrell L. Bock,” 299.
51 We are definitely not speaking here of our conclusions somehow being apodictically certain in some near-absolute sense. Inductive studies of various sorts are simply incapable of yielding the same results as what can be achieved by certain types of mathematical theorems or deductive logic. But this is like saying that induction and deduction are different things. For a few additional considerations, see Gary R. Habermas, “Probability Calculus, Proof and Christian Apologetics,” Simon Greenleaf Review of Law and Religion 8 (1988–1989): 5.
52 A more complete treatment of many of these issues can be found in Earle E. Cairns, God and Man in Time (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 11–29.
53 An early, edited version of the next two to three pages first appeared in Gary R. Habermas, “Philosophy of History, Historical Relativism and History as Evidence,” in Evangelical Apologetics: Selected Essays from the 1995 Evangelical Theological Society Convention, ed. Michael Bauman, David Hall, and Robert Newman (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1996), primarily 100–103.
54 The latter phrase is Breisach’s translation in Historiography, 233.
55 Wilhelm Dilthey, “The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Life Experiences,” in Theories of History, ed. Patrick Gardiner (New York: Macmillan, 1959), 220–22 in particular.
56 One of the most intriguing and informative discussions of many of these issues is R. G. Collingwood’s The Idea of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), 231–82. Several excellent anthologies provide one of the handiest and best ways to gain an overview of this debate. For example, contributions by Dilthey (“The Dream,” 37–43), Croce (“History and Chronicle,” 44–57), and Collingwood (“The Historical Imagination,” 66–84) are all included in Meyerhoff, Philosophy of History. Those by Dilthey (listed in the previous footnote), Croce (“Historical Determinism and the ‘Philosophy of History,’” 233–41), and Collingwood (“History as Re-enactment of Past Experience,” 251–62) are all found in Gardiner, Theories of History.
57 See Robin Collingwood’s critique of Croce, “Croce’s Philosophy of History,” in Collingwood, Essays in the Philosophy of History, ed. William Debbins (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965), chap. 1. One of Collingwood’s major critiques, made at several points, was that Croce’s idealism too easily turns into naturalism (esp. 9, 12–14). In fact, Collingwood concluded that Croce’s worst error was not purging his philosophy of its naturalism, a position which Collingwood calls “a kind of philosophical suicide” (21–22). However, Kennedy judged that, in at least some aspects of the overall discussion, Collingwood himself still went further than his peers. See Kennedy, History of Reasonableness, 232–33.
58 Collingwood, “History as Re-enactment,” 253. Further comments by Collingwood continue to confirm this emphasis: “If we raise the question, Of what can there be historical knowledge? The answer is, Of that which can be re-enacted in the historian’s mind” (257). In another statement: “Of everything other than thought, there can be no history” (258). We will not be able to discuss at this point the further aspects of idealistic historiography. But a critical evaluation of Collingwood’s “absurd” view is contained in Harvard University philosopher Morton White’s Foundations of Historical Knowledge (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 147–51.
59 Especially the more radical and thoroughgoing versions of positivism had fairly brief tenures, as many philosophical movements go. Even A. J. Ayer’s introductory comments in the second edition of his seminal volume Language, Truth, and Logic (New York: Dover, 1936) indicate some of the major critiques with which he was already being confronted just ten years after the original publication in 1936. At any rate, the term realism is perhaps the preferred contrast here anyway, especially since realism and idealism are often juxtaposed anyway.
60 Breisach, Historiography, 331.
61 Carl L. Becker, “What Are Historical Facts?,” Western Political Quarterly 8 (1955): 330.
62 Charles Beard, “Written History as an Act of Faith,” American Historical Review 39 (1934): 228–29.
63 Evans, In Defense of History, 31.
64 Gilderhus, History and Historians, 82.
65 Peter Novick, That Noble Dream: The “Objectivity Question” and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), esp. 396, 402–5, 410.
66 For the latter portion of the give-and-take involved in this dialogue, see especially the essays by Carl Becker (“What Are Historical Facts?,” 120–37), Charles Beard (“Written History as an Act of Faith,” 140–51), Morton White (“Can History Be Objective?,” 188–202), Ernest Nagel (“The Logic of Historical Analysis,” 203–15), and W. H. Walsh (“Can History Be Objective?,” 215–24), each in Meyerhoff, Philosophy of History. See also the selections by Walsh (“‘Meaning’ in History,” 295–307), White (“Historical Explanation,” 356–73), Isaiah Berlin (“Determinism, Relativism, and Historical Judgments,” 319–29), Christopher Blake (“Can History Be Objective?,” 329–43), and William Dray (“‘Explaining What’ in History,” 402–8), each in Gardiner, Theories of History. Compare in particular the contributions by Walsh (“The Limits of Scientific History,” 54–74) and J. A. Passmore (“The Objectivity of History,” 75–94), both in Dray, Philosophical Analysis and History.
67 Novick, That Noble Dream, 406.
68 The many examples include Dilthey, “Understanding of Other Persons,” 224–25; Croce, “History and Chronicle,” 228–30; Collingwood, Idea of History, 134–51, 246–82, 252–302; also Collingwood, “The Limits of Historical Knowledge,” in his Essays in the Philosophy of History, chap. 6; Beard, “Written History,” 141, 147–51; cf. also Beard, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (New York: Macmillan, 1935); Becker, “What Are Historical Facts?,” 121–36. Becker’s influential volume The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1932), 17–39, 83–84, 163–68, is essentially a historical argument that contrasts trends in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries (31). Gardiner said of Karl Mannheim that he may have been “the most forthright proponent of historical relativism in recent times,” and yet Mannheim was careful to clarify that factual questions were not being denigrated per se, but that they needed to be viewed as coming from particular perspectives; see Mannheim, “Sociology of Knowledge,” in Gardiner, Theories of History, 247–49.
An intriguing contrast is that, besides the type of skepticism that can be found in some of the idealistic historians themselves, a different species of very skeptical-leaning theories came from naturalistically inclined philosophers who opposed the supernatural realm and its miraculous events. Perhaps strangely enough, these scholars also generally acknowledged the benefits of good historical research. David Hume was probably best known in his own lifetime as a historian rather than a philosopher, as indicated by his best-selling, multivolumed work The History of England (London: Gilbert and Revington, 1848), published between 1754 and 1762. This study reached back almost two millennia to the conquest of Julius Caesar. Hume’s skeptical philosophical text An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748) also defended the knowledge of historical events even from ancient times (as in sec. 5, pt. 1). Bertrand Russell was also a student of history whose interests are indicated in several works: for example, “Dialectical Materialism,” in Gardiner, Theories of History, 286–92; and “Truth and Falsehood” and “Knowledge, Error, and Probable Opinion” in Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912). Other examples can be found in A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth and Logic (New York: Dover, 1946), 16, 18–19, 40, 101; Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and The Discourse on Language, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon, 1972), 149–65, 195. Additional passages of interest are found in J. L. Mackie, The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), esp. 23–28; Flew, God and Philosophy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2005), 146, 150–58; Flew in Gary R. Habermas and Antony G. N. Flew, Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?, ed. Terry L. Miethe (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), 5–8; Antony Flew with Roy Abraham Varghese, There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 185–87, 213.
69 Becker, “What Are Historical Facts?,” 123.
70 Becker, 123.
71 One oddity that is often overlooked in such a discussion is that even the common identifications for these very broad groups—the positivists or objectivists on one side versus the idealists or relativists on the other—had also taken a hit. The movement known as philosophical positivism in the broader sense had already been abandoned by this time, so that name would only rarely be used. But objectivist still sounded too close to something like “proof” in that it placed too much emphasis on being totally certain of one’s conclusions. On the other hand, as just mentioned, the term relativists had the sound of denying much well-researched historical truth.