In June I had the joy to spend a week in Italy. One reason for my pilgrimage was to venerate the Shroud of Turin. I had been intrigued by the supposed burial cloth of Christ since I was in college, and as I was in England leading a pilgrimage with Joseph Pearce, I did not want to miss the chance of traveling to Turin to see the shroud.

I was not disappointed. After taking the high-speed train from Rome, a decent restaurant and an overnight stay, we walked the few blocks from our hotel first thing in the morning to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. We hustled, crowd free down the pathways set up to accommodate the tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world who would, like us, have a few minutes to stand in silence before the famous, mysterious linen winding sheet of Christ.

After my visit I am more convinced than ever not only that the Shroud of Turin is the burial cloth of Christ, but that the mysterious image was produced by a blast of radiance from the resurrection. Those who wish to research the shroud can find scholarly and popular articles here and here. The most interesting thing about the shroud is the more scientific research is done the more the claims to authenticity accumulate. Not only is the image on the shroud that of a crucified man, but a particular crucified man.

He wore a crown of thorns. His legs were not broken. His face was punched. His side was pierced in a way consistent with a Roman spear. His back shows the marks of a severe flogging consistent with the flagellum used by the Romans. In other words, all the wounds match those not just of any crucified man, but those unique to Jesus of Nazareth.

Other details match in an extraordinary way. Fabric experts acknowledge that the particular linen cloth matches that used in the first century by wealthy individuals. The chemical traces on the cloth match the herbs and spices that were known to be used for Jewish burials in Roman times. Pollen from the shroud matches that present in Jerusalem in the first century. New scientific dating techniques counter the 1988 carbon 14 dating which identified a medieval date and they date the shroud to the first century.

Most mysterious is the image itself. In 1978 a team of American researchers were finally given access to the shroud. They ran a whole series of tests covering the range of scientific disciplines. Their analyses found no sign of artificial pigments and they concluded, “The Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist.” What formed the image? The scientists were stumped and admitted that “no combination of physical, chemical, biological or medical circumstances” could adequately account for the image.

So what formed the image? The best description is that it is an extremely delicate singe marking. Italian physicist Paolo Di Lazzaro concedes, in an April 2015 article for National Geographic, that every scientific attempt to replicate it in a lab has failed. “Its precise hue is highly unusual, and the color’s penetration into the fabric is extremely thin, less than 0.7 micrometers (0.000028 inches), one-thirtieth the diameter of an individual fiber in a single 200-fiber linen thread.”

Di Lazzaro and his colleagues at Italy’s National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA) experimented for five years, using modern excimer lasers to train short bursts of ultraviolet light on raw linen, in an effort to simulate the image’s coloration.

They came tantalizingly close to replicating the image’s distinctive color on a few square centimeters of fabric. However, they were unable to match all the physical and chemical characteristics of the shroud image, and reproducing a whole human figure was far beyond them. De Lazzaro explained that the ultraviolet light necessary to reproduce the image of the crucified man “exceeds the maximum power released by all ultraviolet light sources available today.” The time for such a burst would be shorter than one forty-billionth of a second, and the intensity of the ultra violet light would have to be around several billion watts.

The scientists shrug and say the only explanation lies beyond the realm of twenty-first century technoscience. In other words, the extraordinary burst of ultra violet light is not only beyond the ability and technology of a medieval forger: It is beyond the ability and technology of the best twenty-first century scientists.

Consequently, I wonder why atheists who insist on “evidence for the existence of God” don't take time to study the Shroud of Turin. If God does not exist, then the natural world has to be a closed system. If, however, just one miracle could be proven to have happened, then nature is not a closed system. If that miracle was intelligible then there has to be an intelligent force outside the system that is greater than the system. The resurrection of Jesus Christ would be that one necessary miracle. It is, after all, the miracle of miracles.

It is therefore ironic that it is only in this modern technoscientific age that the mysterious qualities of the Shroud of Turin have been unlocked. Ever since the photographer Secondo Pia discovered the shroud’s negative image in 1898 the forensic, archeological, documentary, cultural, chemical, physiological and physical evidence has accumulated. If there were ever any hard evidence for a miracle, this is it.

Therefore those who ask for evidence for the existence of God should take the time to examine the Shroud of Turin.
 
 
Originally posted at The Imaginative Conservative. Used with permission.
(Image credit: Heritage Daily)

One of the jabs atheists make towards Christians is that our religion is all wishful thinking.

They like to blame us for believing in "a sugar daddy in the sky"–a kind of invisible Santa Claus who is going to make everything okay one day. When we die we’ll all go to a happy family reunion and all the nasty stuff will go away. If we hold on tight for a few years here, we’ll just go upstairs for the big party.

We are also supposed to believe in a God who answers prayers here below and gives us goodies if we’re good. They imagine that we believe God is like a great big vending machine. We put our prayer in the slot at the top and the candy pops out into the tray in the bottom.

I’m afraid there probably are some Christians who have such a facile, childish, superstitious view of God and their religion, and Protestant Christianity has often sold this sappy, sentimental “pie in the sky when you die” version of the faith.

But Catholicism is more robust. We believe that sometimes God doesn’t give us candy. He gives us our vegetables and expects us to eat them in order to make us stronger, and when we die we don’t all expect to fly straight to heaven for the eternal family reunion. We go to a place called purgatory where we have to finish our greens, do our homework, pay for our misdeeds, breathe a sigh of sorrowful relief that we didn’t go down below, and continue to look upward for the day when we do pass through to heavenly bliss.

Even this more common sense and tough understanding of the afterlife  is dismissed as silly wishful thinking.

But is it really?

There are two problems with calling the Catholic view "wishful thinking." First of all, Jesus calls me to give up everything I have (Lk 14:23), be prepared to break with my family (Lk 14:25-27), and eventually take up my cross and follow him (Lk 9:23). This is the cost of being his disciple. This is not exactly what I would have wished for had I been engaged in a daydream of wishful thinking.

Secondly, it seems to me that it is the atheist who is the wishful thinker. Faced with the universal human belief in an afterlife he looks away. Faced with the possibility that there might just be a final judgement in which he will have to give account of himself, he denies heartily that such a thing will happen.

“There is no God. There is no heaven. There is no hell. When you die you simply cease to exist.”

Now this sounds like some very serious wishful thinking because if his wish comes true, then he can live as he wishes and never has to pay the cab fare. He gets a free ride.

It is the atheist, therefore, who really thinks there will be pie in the sky when he dies, but his version of pie in the sky is a happy oblivion. It is simply going to sleep and not waking up.

Is it not in fact, simply his version of the “rest eternal” he accuses Christians of wishing for?

The possibilities of Hell and eternal torment are certainly frightening. Considering that practically every culture and religion across the world, and down the ages, have believed in the underworld and the possibility of going there, isn’t the atheist’s thinking not only more wishful, but dangerously wishful?

Many atheists identify as rational, sensible, scientific, and careful, but given the possibility that there just might be a Heaven, Hell and judgement, isn’t it the believer who is, in fact, the sensible fellow?

He may be engaged in wishful thinking, or then he may simply be playing his cards right and placing his money (and his life) on a common sense bet.
 
 
Article originally appeared at Standing On My Head. Used with permission.

You know how the story goes: in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve have a conversation with the serpent.

Does this mean Christians believe in talking snakes? That’s the charge from certain atheists. To be a Christian, they assume, you have to believe in talking snakes. But then why are there an awful lot of well-educated, smart Christians? Are they simply all gullible or deluded?

This story in Genesis about the talking snake, like many others, has to be interpreted using what experts call “literary criticism.” Here's how it applies to the talking serpent in Genesis.

First of all we accept that the story is just that: a story. Christians realize that this is not really the sort of story that we need to take literally. It was never intended to be read as a historical account of events that took place in a particular garden six thousand years ago somewhere near Iran. It is a story about the beginnings of guilt and evil in the world. This doesn’t mean that the story was totally made up. Indeed, Catholics teach that there was a historical “Adam” and “Eve” who did make a wrong choice. We are not insistent however that the story as it is recorded is word for word literally true. We allow that it may be a legendary story–that the events are rooted in history, but that over time the details were lost and the meaning of the story became more important than the history.

This is not being tricky or evasive. It is recognizing that the stories at the beginning of Genesis are very ancient and that ancient people told stories and recorded their history in a very different way than we do. To read stories that are thousands of years old one has to try to get into the mindset of the people to whom the stories belong and from whom they originated. We do this all the time with other forms of literature. If we read Grimm’s fairy tales we imagine the world of eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe. Same with any historic document.

There are other things to consider as well if we are to understand religious literature. Religious literature is always about meaning more than facts. Once we accept that this is not a newspaper report of particular events, but a reflection on the meaning of real events, we’ll start to understand what’s going on.

Secondly, we allow for something called “metaphor”. That is to say that the language used may well be symbolic of the situation rather than literal. This is how literature works. A legend, a story, a fairy tale, a myth, or a poem relates truth through metaphorical language. Therefore the fruit tree might be symbolic of a choice that had to be made. The garden may be symbolic of a beautiful state of innocence in which mankind was enjoying. Likewise the serpent may be the way the storytellers spoke about a being who was behaving in a sneaky and serpentine manner.

Think how this might develop in a story over time. First they said, “That old devil! He was just like a snake the way he was sneaking around!” then someone said, “That old devil. He was a real snake!” Then someone said, “The snake tempted them and said…” You can see that perhaps they never meant that it was a real snake talking to start with.

But then again, while all these explanations work we can also allow that a long time ago perhaps people did communicate with animals more freely. Some people today are very gifted in “talking” with animals and listening to what they have to say.

When you use the imagination all sorts of things are possible. I can relate, for instance, the time a bird spoke to me. I was walking over to church for evening prayer and was praying as I was walking. I was worried about the fact that I had to take part in a healing service and I was not confident about it and was feeling doubtful. As I walked along a bird hopped along at my side. As it chirped its peculiar rhythm I seemed to hear it reciting a reference to a Bible verse. “Mark 3:32,” it seemed to say. I heard it in my mind as the bird was chirping. Then when I got to church I got a Bible and opened it up and the verse was about Jesus healing a person and telling his disciples to do the same. So, if you like, a bird spoke to me.

Perhaps that’s how the serpent spoke to Adam and Eve.

Or maybe before the fall into brokenness and sin the animals and humans really could speak to one another.

Or maybe God just did a miracle so the snake could talk.

There are lots of possibilities, but the point is that it's not necessary for Christians to believe in a literally talking snake.
 
 
Originally posted at Standing On My Head. Used with permission.
(Image credit: The Telegraph)

I've written here at Strange Notions in the past about miracles and skepticism, and about the greatest miracle claim of all, Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Such miracles serve as arguments for God’s existence, but not philosophical arguments based on design, prime movers, etc. They are based on physical, historical evidence.

The arguments go like this: If atheistic materialism is true, then the natural world must be a closed system. Everything must be explained within that closed system. There is no room for angels or aliens, demons, devils, goblins, or gods. If atheistic materialism is right, there are not intelligent, reasonable, personal exterior forces superior to the natural world who might interfere or interact with the natural world.

However, if there is physical, historical evidence for a miracle, then there is a force outside of nature and greater than nature, and if the miracle in question is intelligible, reasonable, and fits with the rest of what we know about history, science, and the natural world, then the only conclusion is that the force that interrupted nature and altered the natural order is not only outside the natural order and superior to it, but is also an intelligent, reasonable and determined force.

Note that it only takes one miracle to prove this. If the system is closed there can be no miracles at all.

If, however, the system is not closed, then only one miracle is required to show this to be the case.

Where then might we find that one miracle, and is there historical, documentary records of this miracle? Are there multiple eyewitnesses whose stories fit together? Is there documentary evidence from other sources that corroborate the primary source? Is there archeological evidence,? Is there any scrap of evidence which can only be explained by the miracle that is testified to?

What miracle could possibly meet all of this criteria? The resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The more I study the evidence for this miracle, the more I am convinced of it. One piece of evidence stands out:

The Shroud of Turin.

The Shroud's official website, Shroud.com, gathers the evidence of students of the shroud from around the world.

Whenever I dialogue with atheist friends, I now usually skip all the philosophical arguments and simply point to the Shroud.

My challenge to atheists is, “I dare you to seriously study the Shroud with an open mind in an objective manner.”

Most of them will dismiss the Shroud with a wave of a hand and say, “Carbon 14 dating proved that the shroud is a medieval fake long ago.”

The problem with this argument is that Carbon 14 dating is not foolproof, and the Carbon 14 testing is far from the only evidence that we must weigh.

Here are a few others that the person who doubts the atheist, or Shroud skeptic, must answer:

1.  The image of the man on the cloth. The image is not a stain. It is not painted on the shroud. It is not burned on in a conventional manner. Instead it is an image seared on to the cloth with some technology that has yet to be explained. Not only can scientists and historians not reproduce the image using medieval technologies, they can’t reproduce it with modern technology.
2. The 3-D capabilities of the image. The image of the man on the shroud can be read by 3-D imaging technology. Paintings fail this test.
3. The positive-negative image. The image is a photographic negative. That means when a traditional photograph is taken of the Shroud, what should be the negative appears as a positive image. If it is a medieval painting how did they do that and why?
4. The anatomical accuracy. Not only is it an accurate image of a dead man but the image is distorted as it should be if it was laying over a real body and the body vanished from within it.
5. The historical accuracy to crucifixion. The wounds are all consistent not only with Roman crucifixion, but the details of Jesus’ particular crucifixion like the crown of thorns, no broken bones, the scourging, and the wound in the side.
6. Geographical accuracy. Pollen from the Shroud is not only from the Jerusalem area, but from Turkey and the other places the Shroud is supposed to have resided. Dust from the area on the Shroud by the knees and feet is from the area of Jerusalem.
7. The accuracy to Jewish burial customs. The Shroud details are perfectly consistent with first-century Jewish burial customs. There are even microscopic traces of the flower that would have been used in the burial–flowers that grew locally and were known to be used for burial.
8. The blood and the image. The blood was on the Shroud first and the image happened later. If the image was painted (and there is no evidence of paint anywhere) the two would be part of the same faked image.
9. The type of cloth. The cloth is consistent with fabrics from first-century Israel, but not with medieval Europe. A forger would have had to not only forge the image in some as yet undiscovered way, but would have had to have detailed knowledge of linen weaves of the first century and then not only reproduce it, but age it convincingly.
10. The age of the cloth. The 1987 Carbon 14 tests are now believed to have been taken from an area of the cloth that was not simply patched in the middle ages but patched with a difficult to detect interweaving. The Carbon 14 tests were therefore compromised. The latest technology and testing suggests a date for the Shroud between 200 BC and 200AD. Go here for news of Professor Fanti’s test in 2013.

The only piece of evidence from the Shroud which may not match up is the 1987 Carbon 14 testing (however, even that testing, per #10 above, is in dispute.) You have nine items which fit with the known facts and fit with each other, and just one piece of evidence which may not fit. Thus it is common sense to challenge that one piece of evidence and reject it or try again to see why it doesn’t fit. This is what Fanti’s research has done and proven that the 1987 tests were faulty.

If atheists really want evidence for the existence of God, then they should seek genuine evidence of a miracle, and they should do so objectively, carefully, and with an open mind.

There’s plenty of excellent scientific evidence for the Shroud out there. I encourage all skeptics to take a look.
 
 
(Image credit: Huffington Post)

Last week I wrote a post here on David Hume, miracles, and the resurrection of Jesus. Some of the commenters took issue with my claim that "all the alternatives to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead are more incredible than the miracle." I'd like to elaborate on that here.

Christians claim that the historical human being Jesus of Nazareth was executed then physically rose from the dead and stayed alive. He was seen by many people and then was seen to vanish into the invisible realm. Here we have the most revolutionary and radical question of human history. Did it really happen?

There are only three plausible options: that Jesus rose from the dead as Christians contend; that Jesus of Nazareth didn’t really die; or that he died, but that somehow his body disappeared and his disciples came to believe that he rose from the dead. The first question therefore is, did Jesus really die?

Alternative #1: Jesus Didn't Die

 
After his trial, Jesus of Nazareth was tortured by flogging. The punishment was not only severe, it was public. The Romans flogged a criminal with whips that had pieces of glass, pottery, and metal tied into the cords. Not only was Jesus flogged to within an inch of his life, but his executioners were professionals whose jobs depended on them doing a thorough job. His flogging was public and so was his execution. He was taken through the city streets and crucified in a public place.

Furthermore, his enemies themselves were present to make sure the job was done. This is recorded in the gospels, but the basic facts match what we know of Roman customs of the time and there is no reason why they should be doubted.

Using David Hume’s idea that we must believe that option which is easiest to believe, saying that Jesus was killed is certainly easier to believe than saying he was not killed on that dark afternoon. If he was not killed, then the disciples made up the story of his execution, but why would devotees of a religious preacher make up the story that he was executed as a criminal, especially since it was a public event? Many people saw it take place. We must conclude that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified and died.

Nevertheless, some people, including many Muslims, theorize that it wasn’t really Jesus who died. It was perhaps his brother James who resembled him, or it was Judas, or a celebrity lookalike who stood in for Jesus. Again, it takes more faith to believe in these theories than the simple truth. The reason Judas kissed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane was to confirm his identity. Also, Peter was certain who he was denying and the crowd before Pilate knew who they were accusing. The scribes and Pharisees were intent on Jesus' death and interrogated him personally. Are we to believe that an impostor fooled them all? Was the man killed a stand in? Surely when things became deadly the patsy would have denied that he was Jesus of Nazareth.

Other non-Christians theorize that it was Jesus on the cross, but he didn’t really die. Perhaps he was drugged with painkillers and simply passed out. The gospel says a soldier offered him a painkiller, but he refused it. If Jesus only passed out we must believe that the man was flogged so that the torture ripped great chunks of flesh from his body. After dragging the heavy cross through the city streets, he was nailed to it by professional executioners who, instead of breaking his legs to hasten his death, stabbed him with a spear through the heart. Water and blood came from the wound and modern medical experts testify that this only happens after death.

But we’re to believe that he only passed out or went into a coma? Again, this is more difficult to believe than the reported story. But if we go with this theory, as the story progresses it gets even more difficult to believe.

Let us just suppose that Jesus did somehow survive the flogging, the crucifixion, and the thrust of the spear. After he was taken down he was buried. Now we have to believe that he woke up in a freezing tomb on a chilly Spring morning. Having suffered a huge blood loss, horrific wounds, a spear in the side and terrible shock and trauma. Despite all this he stops to unwrap his own tightly wound shroud and head cloth and he takes care to fold them neatly at the foot of his bed. Then (from the inside) he rolls back a stone on the outside of the tomb that weighs a couple of tons.

He then stumbles out, totally naked, and limps up to the disciples on his bloody feet, with his back looking like a butcher shop. His head is covered with puncture wounds and contusions. His side has a gaping wound. He shows the disciples his hands, and gasps out a greeting. What would you have done? You would have shrieked in horror and realized that your friend had somehow survived a most terrible ordeal, then you would take him home, call the doctor and put him to bed.

Instead we are supposed to believe that the disciples said, “He is risen! Alleluia! Let’s start a new religion!”

Again, it takes more faith to believe such an outrageous theory than to accept the simple events as they were related. Hume was right. We must believe the option which is most probable.

Alternative #2: Jesus Died, But Didn't Rise Again

 
That brings us to the next category of resurrection deniers who say Jesus really did die, but something else happened to his body. Consequently his disciples came to believe that he had risen from the dead.

Was his body hurriedly abandoned and thrown on the dump to be devoured by dogs? We know from other evidence that the Jews were very careful about burying the bodies of their loved ones, and the details of the story are there in the gospels. His friends took the body to bury it. If the body had not been buried why did Jesus’ enemies ask Pilate for guards for the tomb?

Maybe the disciples stole the body. Shall we believe that the eleven men who fled in terror when their friend was arrested suddenly got back together and planned a heist worthy of a "Mission Impossible" film? Why would they do that? They were as surprised as everyone else by the resurrection. Would they really plan such a heist to perpetrate a hoax? Is this the sort of hoax anyone would believe? No. You only plan a hoax if the hoax is something people might just fall for. A hoax to make people believe someone had risen from the dead?

Did they perpetrate the hoax to start a new religion? Why would they do that? What was in it for them? There was no such thing as starting a religion to be a prosperity preacher back then. As history proved, the only thing they got out of it was the loss of all their worldly goods, persecution, imprisonment, torture, homelessness, and eventually slow torture and martyrdom. They welcomed all that for a hoax?

Perhaps, some propose, the disciples went to the wrong tomb. But if they had, would they have drawn the conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead? No. They would have said, “Whoops, wrong tomb. Hey, we messed up again!” Had Jesus been in another tomb all his enemies would have produced the body and pointed out the disciples’ foolish mistake. Once again, to believe the alternative theory is more difficult than to believe the traditional account.

Then we have the modernist theologian’s answer. For the modernist Christian, the resurrection was not a “crudely physical” event, but a “spiritual reality”. In other words, in some sort of wonderful way the teachings and example of Jesus continued to live in the hearts and minds of his followers and this, if you like, is what resurrection is really all about.

The problem here is that the simple meaning of the word “resurrection” is that a body that was dead came back to life again. There are spiritual meanings to be derived from this fact to be sure, but if there were no physical fact, then the spiritual meanings would be meaningless. Saying that the resurrection was not physical but a “spiritual event” is like a woman on her wedding night denying her husband the consummation of their marriage by saying, “We needn’t be quite so crudely physical as to have sexual intercourse. Marriage is, after all, simply a beautiful spiritual idea!”

The modernist theologian’s reductionist explanation doesn’t account for the simple facts of the whole story. Shall we believe that the apostles went on to follow lives of hardship, suffering, and deprivation, finally being tortured and killed for what was merely a “spiritual meaning” or a “beautiful theological idea”? I don’t think so.

When faced with the slow torture of crucifixion or being flayed or boiled alive don’t you think they would have said, “Hold on! All that resurrection Son of God stuff? You misunderstood! It didn’t really happen! It was only a spiritual meaning! It was a metaphor! It was a theological construct!”

Finally, we have the Biblical scholars’ theory that St. Paul and the gospel writers made up all the resurrection stories to bolster their new religion. There are too many implausible details to go into at this point, but the main obstacle to this conspiracy theory is that St. Paul died only thirty years after the death of Jesus himself, and he reported that the stories he had about the resurrection were facts he himself had received from eyewitnesses. If St. Paul or the gospel writers had made it all up, there were still plenty of eyewitnesses alive who would have corrected them—not least the murderous enemies of the new religion.

The fact of the resurrection is a good starting point for the debates about God’s existence. Arguments between Catholics and atheists can move forward in an intriguing way because the arguments surrounding the resurrection are more concrete and literal than philosophical arguments. They bring the argument about God down to earth...which is what the Christian religion is all about in the first place.
 
 
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

Most Catholics and atheists agree that if God does not exist, then the material world must be a closed system. If there is no God, the world is self-creating and self-reliant. If there is no God, then there cannot be interruptions in nature. The material world works according to the laws of physics, and even if there are mysteries that cannot presently be explained, they will be one day. In fact, if there is no God, then the physical world must work according to the laws of nature and nothing else.

If however, it can be shown that there is a force which interrupts and alters the ordinary working of nature, and if that force operates in an intelligible and rational way, then there must be an intelligent being that religious people have always identified as God.

This intelligible and rational interruption in the laws of nature is what we call a “miracle.”

The interruption is intelligible and rational if it has a reason and an understandable purpose. An interruption which is purely random or arbitrary would not indicate a super-physical intelligence.

All that to say this: if there are miracles, then there is a God. The problem with many miracles is that they might be attributed to natural causes or to natural causes which we do not yet understand. This is where the Easter miracles comes in. Firstly, if one miracle can be shown to have happened, then the case is proven. One miracle breaks the whole idea that the world is self-contained, self-creating, and self-reliant, and the one miracle which atheists should most seriously consider is the miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The eighteenth century skeptic David Hume argued that when weighing up the evidence for a miracle one had to consider which was more probable–that a person would lie or that a given miracle would take place. So he writes in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

"The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish….’

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."

In other words, if someone believes a miracle has taken place he is either lying himself or has been lied to. If the claimed miracle is greater than the possibility of a person being deceived or deceiving, then that claimed miracle must be rejected. Hume’s argument seems watertight because it is based on the assumption that the physical world is watertight. His conclusion rests on his first premise that the physical world is a closed system. What Hume is really saying is that miracles are impossible because miracles are impossible.

But the definition of a miracle is that it is an interruption in what was expected to be a closed system. That’s why it’s a miracle.

By its very definition a miracle breaks into the closed system, and to deny a miracle by simply presuming it can’t happen is to skirt the argument. Hume uses the example of a dead man rising again because he knows this is the central miracle. If this miracle, then any miracle. And if any miracle, then the system is not closed. And if the system is not closed, then there is a being greater than the system and that being we recognize as God.

Hume’s argument against miracles has been a cornerstone of the atheist position on miracles but it is rarely examined closely. Hume does not discuss evidence for such a miracle. He simply places the possible miracle over against the testimony of a person who claims the miracle. What he avoids in the Easter miracle is that it is not one man claiming a miracle, but many, and that their testimony is backed up by evidence that cannot be plausibly interpreted in any other way.

When the evidence is examined, Hume’s reductionist argument—that we must believe the theory that is most likely to be true—actually helps prove the resurrection. This is because all the alternatives to the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead are more incredible than the miracle.

It therefore all stands or falls on the miracle of the resurrection. St. Paul, a skeptic turned believer, addresses this very question his first letter to the Corinthians.

"Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved…Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.

 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also…

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised…and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile." 

Put very simply, if Christ is not raised from the dead, then the whole Christian religion is vain. It’s all or nothing, and the all or nothing depends on the evidence for Easter.

Did the first century Jewish preacher Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead or not? If he did, then miracles are possible and God exists.

Are you familiar with the Fermi Paradox? It goes something like this: “There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where intelligent life has developed. Given the vast amount of time, and the vast number of possible 'other earths,' there must be other intelligent life forms who have invented space travel. Yet while this seems extremely probable, we haven't encountered any."

There are several problems with this proposed paradox. First is what I call size-ism. The materialist is awestruck by the vast size of the universe, by the bigness of time and space. However, why should we be impressed simply by size? We do not think an elephant is better than an infant just because it is bigger. The Sahara is big, but it is full of sand and nobody lives there. Antarctica is bigger than Austria, but it is not better because it is bigger. The cosmos is vast--so what? There may be other intelligent life forms out there, but there is no evidence so far. The evidence would suggest that the earth is like an oasis in the Sahara. Just because the Sahara is vast and supports one oasis does not mean there must be another oasis in the Sahara.

Then there's the subject of aliens and spaceships. The Fermi Paradox suggests that there should be civilizations on other planets that have developed technologies like ours. But why suggest that other beings (if they exist) would be so primitive, to imagine they would be so crude as to make metal containers to hurl themselves through the sky? Why not imagine that they might transport themselves and communicate in ways that are unimaginably more sophisticated than ours? What if they are able to transport themselves by their advanced mental powers? What if they are able to communicate instantly across vast spaces by mere thought? What if they exist in a complex, harmonious, and beautiful relationship with one another and with the whole of creation? What if they are advanced beings who exist within the music of love and service to all things? For Catholics, this is not a hypothetical. The Church has always believed in the existence of such aliens from the beginning. We call them angels.

Finally, those who ponder Fermi’s Paradox would, presumably, shudder at the idea that a theory of the cosmos might be geocentric, or earth centered– yet their perspective, philosophically speaking, is completely geocentric. Their perception of the universe is conditioned by their geocentric understanding of space and time. Their perception of other intelligent beings is based on their understanding of themselves. (“Aliens must be like us, but a little bit different”) Their perception of alien technologies is based on ours. (“They must have developed rockets too!”) In other words, the Fermi Paradox is completely geocentric and anthropocentric in its assumptions.

My problem is not that their view is geocentric, but that it is not geocentric enough. Until proven wrong, I’m quite happy to believe in a geocentric universe. Oh yes, I know that our solar system is not geocentric, but do we know that the cosmos, at a metaphysical level, is not geocentric? What if  the entire cosmos circled around this one solar system of ours–if not physically, then at least metaphysically? Do we think this is impossible simply because our planet and our solar system seems small?

Seemingly insignificant events change history. A minor aristocrat is murdered in an out of the way European city and two cataclysmic world wars take place. An angry friar nails theological arguments to a church door and an entire bloody revolution tumbles onward out of control. A boy decides to get drunk and a girl gets pregnant and a tyrant who rules the world is born.

Those who ponder the Fermi Paradox wonder at the vastness of all things and believe it is important. I ponder at the smallness of all things and know they are important. Individuals change history. Small decisions matter. The Divine is in the detail. I am more interested therefore in what is small rather than what is great in size. Consequently, I am excited by the idea that the earth is, in fact, the center of the universe and that the vast realms of the cosmos surround her and regard her with the tender protection and awestruck wonder with which we behold a newborn baby.

It could be that this earth is the staging ground for all that matters in the cosmos. It may well be that this planet is the battleground where the cosmic war between good and evil reaches its climax. Crucial battles must take place somewhere. What if the war in heaven is completed here on this field of battle? And what if you and I are soldiers in that cosmic and eternally important battle?
 
 
(Image credit: Wait But Why)

Many people are surprised when I, a Catholic priest, tell them that God does not exist—at least, he doesn't exist as we exist. He is, instead, the very ground of all existence. He does not exist so much as he is existence.

Yet this often provokes a good question: “How does one move from God who is ipsum esse subsistans (the very substance of existence) to the God of scapulars and rosaries?” In other words, how does one move from the philosophical concept to all the details of a particular religious practice without something called ‘revelation’?

The Catholic teaching is that there are two forms of revelation. The first is called “general” revelation. This is simply the stuff anybody who is observing the world might conclude about the existence and nature of God. General revelation is open to anybody. It’s included not only in the way the world is created, but the way humans are wired. We’re wired to look at the awesome and delicate forces of nature and be filled with wonder and fear and confusion and a sense of worship. It’s part of being human. It is also one of the traits of human beings that atheists need to account for.

Do we feel awe and wonder when we look up at the sun, moon, and stars simply because they’re big and we’re small? That seems like a sensible answer, but then why are we filled with curiosity and wonder when we study a colony of ants who toil in military order and communicate in ways we cannot comprehend to build a gigantic ant colony? Is it just because we are faced with something we cannot explain? If so, then why are we still filled with wonder when we hold a newborn, whose origins we can explain? These feelings of wonder, awe, fear, and joy are not necessarily an argument for the existence of God, but they are a realization that within human experience something greater than mere scientific experimentation and verification is going on. There is a quest for some other form of understanding.

This transaction between our curiosity and what is there to be discovered we might call “general revelation”. It is in this conversation between the natural world and ourselves that we draw the conclusion that there is something beyond—something greater than our five senses. From this many different religious expressions and experiences have arisen.

"Specific" revelation is the next step. Religious people of all kinds claim some sort of communication with beings that from this world beyond. The revelations may come through supernatural experiences of some sort. They may come through individuals in a trance state, they may come through visions or auditory experiences or inner locutions. They may result in a whole range of religious myths, stories, rituals, and beliefs. In this instance, I am still speaking about general human religious experience and not specifically about the Judeo-Christian experience.

Within this wider human experience the Jews said God spoke to their ancestors in particular ways. He called Abram out of Ur. He revealed his name to Moses at the burning bush and gave him a job to do. He appeared to Jacob and Joseph in dreams and to the prophets through visions and messages from angels. Within this tradition God also spoke to Joseph and Mary, and as the book of Hebrews said, “In various ways in various times God spoke to our ancestors, but now he has spoken to us through his Son.”

Jesus Christ is therefore the ultimate self revelation of God to humanity. Christians believe that in a miraculous way God took human form and showed us what he is like through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Do Christians realize that this is difficult to believe? Yes. Theologians call it “the scandal of particularity”—that the one who is ipsum esse subsistans becomes a squawking infant in a cattle stall, grows up to be an itinerant preacher, dies unjustly as a supposed rebel leader and then rises from the dead. Do we realize that this is a stretch? Of course.

We realize that this revelation is a revolution. If it is true, then it turns everything upside down. If it is true, then every other religion really is inferior to Christianity. No others have a historical person who claims to be God Incarnate and rises from the dead. If it is true, then history is turned upside down. Our concept of God is revolutionized. Our own self concept and our destiny are in a spin.

People may, of course, choose to disbelieve. Even worse, they may water down the gospel and turn Jesus Christ into a gentle moral teacher who died a tragic martyr’s death.

However, the reasoning behind the idea of specific revelation is sound—given one’s first principles. If the ipsum esse subsistans is really the ground of all being, then the existent beings which are dependent on that ground of existence cannot be superior to the ground of existence from which they come and upon which they depend. A communicating, thinking, reasoning, feeling, sentient person could not arise from what is a mere force. How can that which is superior come from that which is inferior?

If that superior force—that essence of existence—is indeed sentient and reasonable and able to communicate then it follows that he must do what he is capable of doing: i.e. communicate himself to others.

This self communication we call revelation, and from this revelation comes the revolution Christians propose.
 
 
Originally posted at Standing On My Head. Used with permission.
(Image credit: Alexander Wild)

Among Catholics and atheists, is easy to exchange convinced assertions: “The gospels are 100% God’s holy Word and every bit is historically accurate!” or “The gospels are fairy tales!” However there is a discipline called “Biblical scholarship” in which scholars do some very interesting work determining just which parts of the gospels they think are reliable and which they think are not. Their conclusions are, of course, debated. That’s what scholars do. Their work is fascinating and it is worth taking some time to look at just a smidgen of their methodology and conclusions.

Bible scholars are most interested in trying to determine whether the original gospels record eyewitness accounts, and whether those original versions have been transmitted accurately. To do this scholars consider several factors: 1) authorship and date of composition, 2) intention and genre, 3) gospel sources and oral tradition, 4) textual criticism, 5) historical authenticity of specific sayings and narrative events.

One of the difficult aspects for modern people to understand is just what kind of document the gospels are. Everyone can admit that they are not written as purely historical documents, but neither are they simply fabulous fables, myths, or fairy tales. In continuity with the Old Testament, and consistent with their Jewish origins, we have documents which are presented as history and have plenty of historically verifiable details, but which also have supernatural and otherworldly elements to them. Thus:

"The genre of the gospels is essential in understanding the intentions of the authors regarding the historical value of the texts. New Testament scholar Graham Stanton states that 'the gospels are now widely considered to be a sub-set of the broad ancient literary genre of biographies.' Charles H. Talbert agrees that the gospels should be grouped with the Graeco-Roman biographies, but adds that such biographies included an element of mythology, and that the synoptic gospels also included elements of mythology. E.P. Sanders states that 'these Gospels were written with the intention of glorifying Jesus and are not strictly biographical in nature.' Ingrid Maisch and Anton Vögtle writing for Karl Rahner in his encyclopedia of theological terms indicate that that the gospels were written primarily as theological, not historical items. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis notes that 'we must conclude, then, that the genre of the Gospel is not that of pure ‘history’; but neither is it that of myth, fairy tale, or legend. In fact, ‘gospel’ constitutes a genre all its own, a surprising novelty in the literature of the ancient world.'"

Historians therefore allow for the fact that these are essentially historical documents with what they call “mythological” elements woven into them. Whether the miracles or “the mythological elements” happened as the gospels report is open to debate. Believers accept the possibility of the miraculous. Non-believers do not. In each case the bias will affect the conclusion, however it must be said that one who believes miracles are possible is immediately more open-minded than one who rules that they are impossible. The believer is open therefore to more possibilities than the non-believer who, a priori, rules miracles out entirely.

What many people miss, because of a secular or a scientific bias (or both), is that this sort of story is common to humanity everywhere. The supernatural or “mythological” is woven into the lives and stories of many individuals, families, and cultures. Whether it is a near death experience, or a paranormal experience of some kind, or a more ordinary faith experience, people re-tell the remarkable things which have happened to them in ordinary life. Aunt Sally tells how she was healed at the summer camp revival meeting by Jesus Christ himself or Cousin Jimmy tells how he was miraculously preserved from falling headlong into a pot of acid by his guardian angel.

One does not have to accept that Aunt Sally was miraculously healed by Jesus to accept that she really did go to the revival meeting led by Pastor Billy Bob at the Hosannah Camp Meeting in Houndstooth, North Carolina on August third and that she went in feeling sick and came out feeling better. One does not have to accept the miraculous element of the story to acknowledge that Cousin Jimmy really did almost fall into a pot of acid, and that two workmates saw it happen at Florsheim Fertilizer Plant in Boondock Missouri on January 27 at 3:00 in the afternoon. In other words, it is reasonable to attempt to sift out what is verifiable and provable from a reported story which, by its nature, is subjective and perceived as supernatural and therefore not verifiable with ordinary means of enquiry.

This is what scholars quite sensibly do when confronted with the gospel accounts. The scholarship on the questions of authorship, date, sources, and genre is a scholarly industry in itself, but the topic for this post is the various tools used to help determine whether particular sayings or events from the recorded gospel accounts are authentic.

There are different scholarly means used to analyze the text. The first tool scholars use is called ‘criterion of dissimilarity’. This says if something Jesus did or said clashed with the Jewish religion of his day (and therefore the religion of the first Christians) then it is more likely to be authentic. There are many examples of this. Indeed the whole gospel story can be seen as subversive to the existing Jewish religion. However, some specific examples would be Jesus talking alone to the woman at the well in Samaria, or the story of the Good Samaritan, or Jesus and his disciples breaking the Sabbath rules, or Jesus sharing the hospitality of sinners, or standing the Ten Commandments on their head with his Sermon on the Mount.

Second, the ‘criterion of embarrassment’ says that if a saying or event was embarrassing to the memory of Jesus or the apostles it is more likely to be authentic. So Jesus losing his temper, clearing out the temple ,or calling a woman a ‘dog’ are all examples. The apostles being proud, vain, and doubting is another. So the story of Jesus being baptized by John would be authentic because it shows Jesus to be subordinate to John. Other examples include the supposed illegitimacy of Jesus’ birth and the most obvious—his execution as a criminal.

Third, the ‘criterion of multiple attestation’ says that “when two or more independent sources present similar or consistent accounts, it is more likely that the accounts are accurate reports of events or that they are reporting a tradition which pre-dates the sources themselves.” This is often used to note that the four gospels attest to most of the same events, but that Paul’s epistles often attest to these events as well, as do the writings of the early church, and to a limited degree non-Christian ancient writings.

Fourth, the ‘criterion of cultural and historical congruency’ says that a source is less credible if the account contradicts known historical facts, or if it conflicts with cultural practices common in the period in question. Conversely, if the account matches up with the other known facts it is more likely to be authentic. So the gospel stories are evaluated to see if they match with the known historical facts, the geography, archeological findings, cultural customs, and details etc.

It should be noted that the results of these methods of textual analysis are not always unanimously in favor of the historicity of the gospels. However, the results are significantly satisfactory for professional historians and Biblical scholars working together to show that the gospels are, for the most part, historically reliable documents.

One of the aspects of this analysis most often overlooked is the cross-referencing between the epistles of St. Paul and the gospels. Scholars are virtually unanimous in recognizing most of the Pauline epistles to be written before his death, which occured during the Neronian persecutions in the year 65. While not personally an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry, the Book of Acts shows that he knew the other apostles and indeed went to them for instruction and validation of his ministry. Most importantly, Paul's epistles are not written as gospels with the intention to glorify Jesus and make converts. They are letters to the early Christian communities scattered around the Roman Empire. They are therefore very accurate reflections of the people in those early communities and are accurate records of the beliefs of those early communities.

In his epistles, Paul quotes early Christian creeds that obviously pre-date his own writing. Scholars believe these creeds date to within a few years of Jesus’ death and developed in the early Christian communities. These texts are therefore an important and unique source for the study of early Christianity. For example, 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 reads:  “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” The language formulations are different from Paul’s own and he is therefore quoting a mini-creed that is even earlier than his own writings, making it pre-65 AD. The antiquity of the creed has been located by many Biblical scholars to less than a decade after Jesus’ death, originating from the Jerusalem apostolic community.

Concerning this creed, New Testament scholar Hans Von Campenhausen says, “This account meets all the demands of historical reliability that could possibly be made of such a text,” and  A. M. Hunter writes, “The passage therefore preserves uniquely early and verifiable testimony. It meets every reasonable demand of historical reliability.”

This is just one of about half a dozen early creeds embedded in the writings of Paul. Here are some others:

• 1 John 4:2: “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”
• Romans 1:3: “Regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord.”
• 1 Timothy 3:16: “He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory.”

Why does this matter? What these early Christian creeds show is that the so-called mythological elements of the gospels (angels, resurrection, ascension into heaven, Son of God) were not later additions and accretions to the tradition, but were part of the beliefs about Jesus from the very earliest days, beliefs that the gospels attest to, Paul affirms, and Christians today still hold.
 
 
Originally posted at Standing on My Head. Used with permission.
(Image credit: Wikimedia)

Many people believe that Catholicism, because it is a dogmatic religion, stifles free thought and free speech. “How nice for you,” some will say to a Catholic convert, “Now that you’re a Catholic, you won’t have to think anymore.” Or, “It must be nice to be a Catholic and have such ‘certainty.’” This is said with a snuffling, cynical laugh because by ‘certainty’ they often mean that one has become a mindless robot—a Kool Aid drinking cult member following the demands of his leader in white, without thinking.

Another jab Catholic converts often hear is, “Of course there are some folks who need that kind of certainty.” The subtext here is, “You’re not really smart enough to think things through for yourself, and you are probably emotionally and socially insecure and immature so you need to belong to a mutual self-love group which offers its members certainty in all things.”

Like any criticism leveled against the Church, this one is partially true. There certainly are cults that offer their members mind-numbing ‘certainty’. There are emotionally insecure and immature people who need to belong to such cults. We have to admit that there are some Catholics like that, and that there are, sadly, some Catholic sub-groups, religious orders, and movements in which members have sometimes behaved like this.

However, abuses do not undo right uses. My typical response to the charge that, “You Catholics all thoughtlessly follow your leader, believing and doing whatever he tells you” is that “You clearly don’t know very many Catholics. The vast majority take little notice of what their leader tells them and have scant understanding either of the dogmas or the moral teachings of their Church.”

But that is to make a cynical response. Instead, there is a more reasoned argument, and it is this. Let us ask foundational questions. Either there is such a thing as truth or there is not. If there is no such a thing as truth, then every man may think what he likes and the world is absurd. If there is such a thing as truth, then because we are creatures who use language both in thought and speech, we must be able to put that truth into words.

We put that truth into words in many different ways. We tell stories, we write poems, we discuss and debate and reason our way into truth, and one of the ways we express the truth is through propositional theological statements. These statements, or resolutions, are not the whole truth, but they state truth in a propositional way as precisely and completely as possible. This statement of theological truth we call dogma.

If this process is possible at all, then a church (which is founded to proclaim and live the truth) must in some sense be dogmatic, and if it is at all dogmatic, then it must be in the business, at least in a minimal sense, to declare that dogma be necessary. If the dogma wasn’t necessary, then it wouldn’t be dogma. In other words, that church must have the authority to say, “This particular proposition is true. That means you must believe it if you belong to this Church because the Church lives to proclaim and live the truth. It can’t be true sometimes, but not at other times. It can’t be true for me, but not for you. If it is true, then it's true always and everywhere for all people whether or not they understand it."

Now this is something solid, something real. It is a rock on which to build a worldview. Without such a thing as dogma (and the authority to declare a belief a dogma), the Church is built on the shifting sand of subjective personal opinion. This will eventual cause the whole worldview to collapse. But when you build on rock, you stabilize 'free thought,' not stifle it. Dogmas may seem to suppress free thought because, by virtue of declaring some things true, they must necessarily declare other things to be false. To say, "My apple is red” is  also to say “My apple is not blue.”

Dogma is demanded not because it gives all the answers, but because it gives the foundation upon which to ask the right questions. Dogma gives thought wings because it gives thought a structure.

Even when a person dissents from Church teaching and denies the dogma, they are still affirming the necessity for dogma, otherwise what would they have to rebel against? Even the person who kicks a rock proves that the rock exists. Indeed, it is arguable that it is the person who kicks the rock who is most affected by the rock, for by kicking the rock they have hurt their foot. Therefore even the ‘free thinker’ who rejects dogma proves the reality and solidity of that dogma.

Therefore dogma gives thought structure. It not only gives thought a structure, but dogma, combined with tradition, give a person a context and structure for a unified world view. There are corridors in the mind, shelves of knowledge which are cataloged, galleries of art to enlighten. There are libraries of great minds which illuminate, biographies of the wise and righteous to guide. Catholicism, rooted, nurtured, and flourishing within the Western classical tradition, provides a unique and irreplaceable structure in which truly free thought can flourish.

Without this structure and context, the ‘free thought’ is simply a jumble of impressions and emotional reactions, conditioned by a scrap of propaganda here, a bit of education there, and a swirl of sentimental reactions sparked up by popular culture. It becomes like playing tennis without a net. Totally ‘free thought’ is free, but it is not thought—it is an expression of opinion, or an exclamation of emotion.

Dogma provides the structure necessary for real thought. To end, consider the creed, which many 'free thinkers' consider restrictive—an antiquated formula for a dying religion. It is a straight jacket, a set of blinders, a cage for the mind. But Catholics don't see it this way. It's not a cage to constrict, but a ladder on which to climb. It's the stairway on which to ascend, the map for the journey. And, as we all know, it's the climbing, the ascent, and the journey which matter most.
 
 
Originally posted at Standing On My Head. Used with author's permission.
(Image credit: Mud Preacher)