Christian theism vs. metaphysical naturalism: singer645 vs. James Lazarus

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This thread has been set up for a formal debate between singer645 and James Lazarus:

singer645 will argue that it is most reasonable to accept Christian theism and unreasonable to accept metaphysical naturalism.

James Lazarus will argue that it is most reasonable to accept metaphysical naturalism and that it is unreasonable to accept Christian theism.

The debate will have two parts and the following format, as agreed to per the parameters (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showpost.php?p=2566511&postcount=15):

Part I: The Case for Christian Theism

Round 1: singer645 affirms; James Lazarus rebuts
Round 2: singer645 defends; James Lazarus rebuts
Round 3: singer645 defends; James Lazarus rebuts
Round 4: singer 645 concludes; James Lazarus concludes

Part II: The Case for Metaphysical Naturalism

Round 1: James Lazarus affirms; singer645 rebuts
Round 2: James Lazarus defends; singer645 rebuts
Round 3: James Lazarus defends; singer645 rebuts
Round 4: James Lazarus concludes; singer645 concludes

A Peanut Gallery (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=2572912#post2572912) is set up in the Existence of God(s) forum for the rest of us to comment on the debate.

Good luck to both participants!

- NS, FD Moderator

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

Part I: The Case for Christian Theism

[singer645]

Throughout the course of history, humanity has been seeking to understand their surroundings. There have been many religions, philosophies, theories, etc. to help answer the questions that are raised by the world that we exist in and the experiences we have in it. After spending a life time seeking the answers to these questions, I have found only one answer that is reasonable in every aspect of examination. That answer lies in the Holy Bible. I believe that the Holy Bible is infallible and that everything stated in it is true. This includes the origin of the world, the existence of God, the existence of Satan, the explanation of creation and many other innumerable topics. In this debate, I seek to establish that the Bible is reasonable in it’s explanation of our surroundings and that, since there cannot be two conflicting truths, all other systems of belief, including metaphysical naturalism, cannot, therefore; be reasonable or true. I believe that the Bible is the truth because of two aspects of examination. These aspects are: factual evidence and philosophical reasoning. Factual evidence would include fulfilled prophecy, history, science, documented miracles, archeology, and personal experience. Although, I will not cover all of these kinds of evidence in this statement.

I first want to examine fulfilled prophecy. The Bible contains approximately 1000 prophecies, hundreds which have been fulfilled and the rest which are waiting to be fulfilled. I have chosen only a few of these prophecies to present as evidence to the reliability of the Bible. The prophet Isaiah predicted around 700 B.C. that Cyrus the king will say to Jerusalem that it shall be built and that the Temple foundation shall be laid. He says this in Isaiah 44:28 and 54:1 of the Bible. At this time in Jewish history, Jerusalem was fully built and the Temple was standing. In 586 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar of the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, destroying much of the city and completely destroying the Temple. In about 539 B.C. the Persians conquered Jerusalem. A Persian king named Cyrus gave the decree to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. This happened about 160 years after Isaiah had written down this prophecy. You have to ask yourself, “How did he know that the king’s name would be Cyrus?.“ How did he know that the temple would even be destroyed? The answer is clear. The God of Israel gave Isaiah this knowledge of the future.

Another example of fulfilled prophecy is the city of Tyre, a Phoenician city located in the Mediterranean. In Ezekiel chapter 26 of the Holy Bible the prophet Ezekiel makes 7 predictions as to what the future of Tyre will be.

1) Nebuchadnezzar will destroy the main land of Tyre. (26:8)
2) Many nations will come against Tyre. (26:3)
3) She will be made a bare rock; flat like the top of a rock.(26:4)
4) Fishermen will spread their nets over the site. (26:5)
5) The debris will be thrown into the water (26:12)
6) She will never be rebuilt. (26:14)
7) She will never be found again. (26:21)

Nebuchadnezzar invaded mainland Tyre three years after the prophecy was given. The Encyclopedia Britannica says , “After a 13-year siege (585-573 B.C.) by Nebuchadnezzer II, Tyre made terms and acknowledged Babylonian suzerainty.� When Nebuchadnezzer reached the city of Tyre he found the city virtually empty. This is because the people of Tyre had evacuated by ship to an island about ½ mile of the coast and established a fortified position. The mainland city of Tyre was destroyed in 573 B.C. (Prediction #1) The city of Tyre remained a powerful city for several hundred of years on the island. Alexander the Great, later on his march towards Egypt, called upon the Phoenician cities to open their gates. The citizens of Tyre refused to do so and Alexander then laid siege of Tyre by demolishing old Tyre on the mainland. He then, with the debris built a 200 ft. wide mole across the straits separating the old and new towns. (Encyclopedia Brittanica ) This fulfills prediction # 5 stated in Ezekiel 26:12. The Tyrians countered by destroying the mole (land bridge) to as great as an extent as they could. Alexander, realizing he needed ships to attack the Tyre on the island, began to pressure his conquered subjects to produce ships for his navy. Alexander’s navy grew from the following cities: Sidon, Aradus, Byblus, Rhodes, Soli, Mallos, Lyca, Macedon, and mainly Cyprus. (Prediction #2) Alexander eventually, after a seven month siege was able to complete the land bridge and destroy the walls of Tyre. He took most of the citizens into slavery. The secular historian Philip Myers makes an interesting observation when he says, “Alexander the Great, reduced Tyre to ruins (332 B.C.) She recovered in measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world. The large part of the site of the once great city is now a bare as the top of a rock - a place where the fishermen that still frequent the spot spread their nets to dry.� (prediction #3, prediction #4) The city of Tyre was never rebuilt (prediction #6) and eventually ceased to exist. (prediction #7) Today, you can find the site of the ancient city Tyre, but the island it was once on is unoccupied. This is particularly odd because it is still a site where a city could easily flourish. The great freshwater springs of Reselain are still supplying the area withover 10,000,000 gallons of fresh water daily.

I would like to present one more piece of prophetical evidence. That evidence is the nation of Israel itself. In Genesis 12:2,3 and Genesis 13:14,15 God promises Abraham, the father of Israel that those who curse him, will be cursed, and those who bless him will be blessed. All we have to do is look at our current national situation to see that God has blessed the allies of Israel and cursed the enemies of Israel. Islamic nations are among the poorest in the world, while western nations that support Israel are among the most powerful. However, the most solid evidence that Israel is God’s chosen nation, is the fact that they are even a nation today at all! In Deuteronomy chapters 28-33 God warned the people of Israel that if they worshiped idols and disobeyed God they would be removed from their land. In 606 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar took the Israelites captive to Babylon and returned in 588-586 B.C. , where, after a long siege he burned the city and the Temple. However, as God promised, He allowed the Israelites who desired to return to the land in 537-536 B.C., or after 70 years as Ezra chapter 1 predicted. The Israelites continued to disobey God and in A.D. 70 were removed from their homeland. They were scattered about the earth as the Bible had predicted in Deuteronomy 28:64. However, the Bible also predicted in Jeremiah 16:14-16 that God would gather them from the nations he had banished them to and make them a nation once again. The Bible also predicted that this would happened in one day. (Isaiah 66:8) On May 14, 1948, the nation of Israel was reborn and the Hebrew people began to make their way back to their homeland. They faced extreme opposition including the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Holy Day War. Through all this the fledgling nation survived. Can this be considered coincidence or divine intervention? The Bible also predicts in Zechariah 7:14 that the desolate land of Israel would again become fruitful in the last days. This has happened on a major scale as Israel has become one of the major exporters of fruit and flowers around the world. There remains hundreds of prophecies that I have not covered here in this opening statement. I suppose I would have to write a novel to cover all of them. God issued a challenge in Isaiah 41:23 to all other gods to try and predict that future to prove their divinity. Fulfilled prophecy was then and still remains one of the most convincing types of evidences supporting the reliability and accuracy of the Bible.

Another type of evidence I would like to enter into this debate is the pre-modern scientific knowledge that the writers of the Bible had. Here are some examples of that knowledge. The Bible accurately described the shape of the earth in Isaiah 40:22 where he said that God sits upon the circle (the word in the original Hebrew actually means “sphere�) of the earth. In these days, people believed the earth was flat. Isaiah could have only known that the earth was a circle by divine knowledge. In Job 26:7 the Bible states that God suspends the earth over nothing. Most religions of the day believed that the earth was held up by pillars or animals. In 2 Samuel 22:16, the prophet speaks of valleys in the seas. How would these people have even known that valleys existed in the seas? The Bible, in Job 26:8, 36:27-28 show that the writer had knowledge of the hydrologic cycle. “He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight" (Job 26:8, NIV). "He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind� (Job:36:27-28, NIV) For further evidence of pre-modern scientific knowledge, the writers of the Bible knew about the concept of entropy. "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded" (Psalm 102:22-26 NIV). The writers of the Bible did not have the modern technology, the scientific method, or the vast archives of knowledge that we now possess. How then, would they be able to demonstrate accurate scientific knowledge of their surroundings? We must remember that in these times there were many myths and theories about how the above mentioned phenomena. How is it then that the writers of the Bible were accurate while so many in the world were wrong? Just as it is reasonable to believe that a creator of a mechanical device can tell one how it works, it is also reasonable to believe that the creator of existence can tell one about how things in that existence operate. This also is evidence supporting that the Bible is accurate, was accurate when nothing else on earth was, and will always be accurate.

In this part of my argument, I seek to establish that the Bible is a reliable source of historical information by citing certain biblical information and then presenting archeological evidence that this information is accurate. The discovery of the Ebla archive in northern Syria in the early 1970’s has provided supporting evidence that the Bible’s account of the patriarch’s is accurate. The information found on these tablets, which are dated at around 2300 B.C., verifies the names of the patriarch’s and the places they lived. For example, these Ebla tablets show that there was a land of “Canaan�. Many critics used to claim that the name “Canaan� was not used in that time period of history. Ancient customs told in the stories of the patriarchs were also found on clay tablets from Nuzi and Mari. There are also other examples of archeological evidence supporting biblical history. Here are a few quick examples. The Hittites were once considered to be a biblical myth until their capitol and records were discovered at Bogazkoy, Turkey. It was claimed at one time there was no king named Sargon as recorded in Isaiah 20:1 because no other record had verified this name for a king. Then Sargon’s palace was discovered in Khorasabad, Iraq. The event recorded in Isaiah chapter 20, his capture of the city Ashdod, was recorded on the walls of the palace. Another city that skeptics once believed did not exist are the cities of Sodom and Gommorah. In Genesis chapter 19 the Bible states that God destroyed Sodom and Gommorah by fire falling from the sky. The ruins of Sodom and Gommorah have been discovered southeast of the Dead Sea. The modern names are Bab edh-Dhra, which is presumed to be Sodom, and Numeira, presumed to be Gomorrah. It is interesting to note that archaeologist believe both of these sites to be destroyed at the same time, by the same cause. That cause was a large conflagration. Discoveries in the cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra reveal that all of the buildings housing the dead in the city’s cemetery were burnt from a fire started on the roof. As you can see, while others could postulate different theories to explain these findings, the findings themselves fit in directly with the description of the biblical events concerning Sodom and Gommorah. The above mentioned examples of archeological evidence supporting biblical events are only a snapshot of a much deeper study into archaeology and how it has, over and over again, validated Bible stories that once were thought to be myths. As time passes on, sites will continue to be discovered that show that the Bible is accurate in it’s history.

I would like to conclude my opening statement by saying that it is completely unreasonable to believe that everything just happened by some sort of cosmic chance. When we look at the complexity of nature, even our own bodies, we can see that the mathematical chances of everything falling into place in just the right way is a ridiculous number. For example, let’s think about the house we live in. It is a complex building, with a frame, piping, electricity, and various other systems in it. Did the house just appear randomly or did someone design it intelligently? No one would question that the house was created by intelligent design because they could obviously see, by the complexity of the house, that it had been designed. Why then do we look at the universe ,that is so complex we still can’t comprehend it, and think that it just happened by natural selection? Natural selection is nothing more than a fancy way of saying random chance. As you can see, it is reasonable to believe that the systems of existence were put into place on purpose and by design. It is quite unreasonable, mathematically, to believe that the systems of existence are based on random chance.

The information I have given above is only a small amount of what is a plethora of evidence that points to the existence of a creator and the inerrant truth of the Bible. I will now close my opening statement. Thankyou, to those who have read this, and to my opponent for being so respectful during the set-up process.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

I've been informed recently that James Lazarus will be a bit late meeting the time limit to post his next statement. He will be permitted a 3 day grace period, extending his deadline to Sept. 5.

- NS, FD Moderator

[Jim Lazarus]

Introduction

Before I do anything else I’d like to apologize for having Clift Gideon (hereafter CG) and the readers wait so long for my reply. Of all the things that I intend to happen with this debate, having my opponent and the readers in the Peanut Gallery wait the full three weeks for my response is not one of them. Unfortunately, however, my computer hard drive crashed a couple of weeks ago, and I have been unable to access the internet and the resources that I planned to use for my opening statement because of this. Right now, I’m sitting in a crowded local library typing up this statement at light speed. If what I have to say here seems a bit too inconsiderate of the issues, rest assured that this will change in later rounds.

Before I move on to the argument, however, I would like to thank CG for going through with this debate (a proposal that we first agreed to largely out of emotional charge), the readers in the Peanut Gallery for taking an interest in what we both have to say, the IIDB for making this debate even possible, and our moderator Nightshade for overseeing the debate set-up and the formal discussion itself. With this, let’s dive in.

Justification

I am going to suggest immediately that what justifies us (epistemically) in accepting a proposition as true or rejecting it as false is whether or not the statement coheres with the full set of other ideas that we already accept as corresponding to reality. Now this first contention is loaded with controversial ideas, but they are nevertheless some of the more commonly accepted ones in contemporary theory of knowledge. I should also clarify what I mean by this theory, lest someone misunderstand it to demand something much less than it really requires.

By coherence, I mean not just that a proposition ought to be logically compatible with the full set of the other propositions that we accept as true, but that it has the greatest explanatory power in relation to them as a rival to any other ideas. Let’s consider a test case: I wake up in the middle of the night because I hear a strange noise. As I listen to the sound, it occurs to me that there are a number of hypotheses that could explain it. For instance, the sound might be from a stranger who has broken into my house. Another explanation might be that my dog is scratching at the back door to go outside. What justifies me in accepting one of the explanations over the other is which best coheres with the other ideas that I have. For example, I might be more inclined to accept the stranger-hypothesis if I hear the sounds of footsteps and someone whispering. If, however, I hear my dog’s collar jingling in the general location of my back door, I might prefer the dog-explanation. Now let’s say that I get up and walk out of my room, where I observe scratch marks on the back door that were not there prior to my falling asleep. Furthermore, the dog is sitting by the door, whining and wagging her tail. With all of these pieces of evidence, the hypothesis that best coheres with them is the suggested dog-explanation, and I would be justified in rejecting the stranger-hypothesis in its place and accepting it as true.

Although there are some objections that a coherence theory of justification has to overcome, I won’t spend time to address these unless CG disagrees with my suggestion and presents them. The same goes with my definition of truth in agreement with correspondence theory. I could spend all day on these two subjects, but space constraints limit me.

If, however, CG agrees with what I have said here, then the question of this debate becomes: Of MetaNat and Christian theism, which best coheres with the other ideas that we accept as true? This will bring us into two separate arguments. The first deals with our disagreement over which metaphysic has the greatest explanatory power for the ideas that both CG and I have in common (e.g. the world as intelligible, moral realism, etc.), and the second deals with our disagreement over what the facts actually are (evolution, age of the earth, perhaps even Big Bang theory in contemporary cosmology). These are the two controversies that we will most likely center around throughout this debate.

Gideon’s Case

With this very basic theory of justification laid out, we can turn to the evidences that CG uses to support his belief that Christianity is true. Somewhat surprisingly, CG basis his case on three main contentions: (1) The reality of fulfilled biblical prophecy; (2) The reality of pre-modern scientific knowledge found in the Bible; and (3) The accurate historical information written down by the Old Testament authors. This is a bit surprising only because I originally thought that CG would use more than this line of biblical and historical apologetics to argue his case. Nevertheless, that is the whole of his argument, so let’s now turn to it.

(1) The Nature of Gideon’s Argument

What ought to be pointed out right at the start is that CG’s case is one solely of miracle claims. CG contends that the phenomena he describes are genuine and accurate, and that they cannot be accounted for naturalistically, but require a supernatural explanation. Now, a miracle is traditionally defined as an event that violates laws of nature. However, there are a few problems with this definition [1]. So instead, we can define a miracle as a significant event brought about by a supernatural agent. Now there may be some subjectivity with the idea of significance, but we will leave that be. This subjectivity will probably only amount to a problem in what we might consider borderline cases for miracles. Most of the events that we will consider will be clearly qualified.

However, a major problem for CG is that the question of the existence of miracles depends entirely on one’s worldview. Events that are without a current naturalistic explanation within the worldview of MetaNat are solved by appealing to unknown natural laws. Conversely, events that are without a current naturalistic explanation within a Christian worldview are often labeled miraculous. Thus the only way we can infer God from the alleged facts that CG contends are the case is by assuming a theistic platform. However, whether or not theism is true is exactly the issue at hand.

Because of this problem, CG’s entire case goes right out the window. The nature of the phenomena that he describes, assuming that what he describes is really the case, is a worldview decision. Yet it is the question of worldviews that we are considering. CG cannot use his case in the way that he wishes to without begging the question.

(2) Major Problems with Prophecy Apologetics

We have just seen that without assuming a theistic platform, CG cannot infer God from the things that he is describing. However, there are two other very serious problems with his case. The first is that biblical prophecy is very often vague, incorrect, or accountable by appeal to common sense guesswork (in other words, naturalistically). The second is that even if it were not, and even if we might assume that theistic supernaturalism is true, the phenomena that CG has described is insufficient to warrant a conclusion of God. Similar events of prophecy and pre-modern scientific knowledge in other historical literature have been and can be attributed to supernatural beings other than a God, or even odd natural forces or clairvoyant beings that we are as of yet unaware. Examples of this are plentiful throughout history and today (e.g. Nostradamus and modern day psychics). Even if we were to agree that God does exist, we needn’t admit that biblical prophecy and pre-modern scientific knowledge found in the Bible are to be attributed to him. There are a myriad of explanations to consider, none seemingly enjoying a reason to prefer themselves over any another.

What I wish to do in this section, however, is show that there are no extraordinary predictions or pieces of pre-modern scientific knowledge made by the Bible that turned out to be accurate. Either these predictions turned out false or remain unfulfilled, or they are the non-extraordinary product of common educated guesswork. There are even a number of prophecies, such as those against Damascus, Egypt, and Tyre, that turned out to be demonstrably proven false. Furthermore, the many thousands of prophecy fulfillments that CG discusses are often found to be non-existent. For instance, Farrell Till notes that many of the prophecies that the Gospel of Matthew boasts fulfilled were never actually made and have yet to have been found by any contemporary bible scholars. [2] These thousands of prophetical claims are often shoe-horned into Bible verses entirely ignoring the context in which the statements appear. Many of the defenders of this line of Christian defense do not often come up with the work of honest scholarship. They assume their conclusion from the beginning, and force-fit their ideas into scripture no matter what it really has to say.

The Tyre Prophecy

One of the main alleged fulfillments that CG discusses in his opening statement is the familiar prophecy of the destruction of Tyre made by Ezekiel in the twenty-sixth chapter of his book. The prophet writes:

And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first [day] of the month, [that] the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, […] Behold, I [am] against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. It shall be [a place for] the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea: for I have spoken , saith the Lord GOD: and it shall become a spoil to the nations. And her daughters which [are] in the field shall be slain by the sword; and they shall know that I [am] the LORD.

For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people. He shall slay with the sword thy daughters in the field: and he shall make a fort against thee, and cast a mount against thee, and lift up the buckler against thee. And he shall set engines of war against thy walls, and with his axes he shall break down thy towers.

By reason of the abundance of his horses their dust shall cover thee: thy walls shall shake at the noise of the horsemen, and of the wheels, and of the chariots, when he shall enter into thy gates, as men enter into a city wherein is made a breach. With the hoofs of his horses shall he tread down all thy streets: he shall slay thy people by the sword, and thy strong garrisons shall go down to the ground. And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be [a place] to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD.

Now, before we dive into the many problems that this prophecy has to face, we ought to suggest a reasonable criterion that will determine whether or not a considered prophecy is genuine and unable to be accounted for by any current naturalistic explanation. Since Doug Krueger has already provided one in his recent debate with Jason Gastrich, we can use his list. Krueger demands that a defender of an alleged prophecy fulfillment must be able to show that,

1. The interpretation of both the prophecy and the event that allegedly fulfills it [are] correct interpretations.

2. The event that can fulfill the prophecy [is] unusual or unique.

3. The prophecy [was] known to have been made before the event that is supposed to be its fulfillment.

4. The event foretold [is not] of the sort that could be the result of an educated guess.

5. The event that fulfills the prophecy [was] staged, or the relevant circumstances manipulated, by those aware of the prophecy in such a way as to intentionally cause the prophecy to be fulfilled.

Now let’s return to the Tyre prophecy. CG correctly notes that there are several specific predictions that Ezekiel makes concerning the destruction of the city. However, some of the predictions that CG points out are incomplete to suit his purposes. For instance, CG contends that Nebuchadrezzar’s role in the fulfillment of the Tyre prophecy was limited to the destruction of the mainland suburb Ushu. A close read of chapter twenty-six, however, shows otherwise. Note that both before and after Ezekiel describes the destruction of the entirety of Tyre he solely attributes the work to Nebuchadrezzar (he introduces the king and his army prior to the claims of destruction and defeat found in 26:8-21 – all of which is attributed to his army, which is found after 26:3-6, where it is also clear that the writer is attributing everything to Nebuchadrezzar). In fact, Alexander the Great, the military leader that CG claims fulfilled the bulk of the Tyre prophecy, is never once mentioned in the entirety of chapter twenty-six. The “many nations� that are discussed by Ezekiel are often said to be the many nations that comprised Alexander’s army as well as the armies of others, but yet it is ignored that Nebuchadrezzar’s military was comprised of exactly the same thing: armies of many nations. A second problem with this forced separation between Nebuchadrezzar and the whole of Ezekiel’s prophecy is that many of the things that he was predicted to destroy were actually part of Tyre proper and not Ushu. [3] Thus there is a major problem for those who would like to limit Nebuchadrezzar’s role in the fulfillment.

With this, we are lead to a number of conclusions. Firstly, the prediction that Nebuchadrezzar would lead a campaign against Tyre was hardly an extraordinary prophecy, a fact recognized by a consideration of dates. The siege was carried out between 586 and 573 B.C.E., and the prophecy dates anywhere between 592 and 570 B.C.E., which qualifies Ezekiel’s prediction as either an educated guess or a statement made after the fact. Indeed, by a study of later dates found in Ezekiel’s book, we see that he did not complete his writing until years after the campaign took place. Till notes that Ezekiel may very well have admitted later in his book that his prophecy failed, promising Nebuchadrezzar and his army the spoils of Egypt in recompense for their services. What is interesting to point out is that this prediction never came to pass either, for Nebuchadrezzar did not end up conquering Egypt. [4]

A second conclusion was that, with or without Ezekiel’s concession, the prophecy did indeed fail. Nebuchadrezzar did not conquer Tyre, although he was successful in his siege campaign against the mainland suburbs. Tyre, as it often did, went through a process of negotiation with Nebuchadrezzar and accepted Chaldean suzerainty in 573 B.C.E. This is the cause for CG’s having to reach centuries into the future for the prophecy fulfillment with Alexander. But even if we decided to grant that this interpretation is correct, at least two major problems remain for Ezekiel’s prophecy.

The first problem is that Tyre continues to exist today. Indeed, this is something that CG understands in his opening statement when he writes that, “The secular historian Philip Myers makes an interesting observation when he says, ‘Alexander the Great, reduced Tyre to ruins (332 B.C.) She recovered in measure from this blow, but never regained the place she had previously held in the world[…]’.�, and yet contradicts himself when he maintains that, “The city of Tyre was never rebuilt (prediction #6) and eventually ceased to exist. (prediction #7) Today, you can find the site of the ancient city Tyre, but the island it was once on is unoccupied.� The truth of the matter is that Tyre was in fact rebuilt only a few years after Alexander’s siege. Wallace Flemming writes in his work The History of Tyre:

Alexander then left the city which was half burnt, ruined, and almost depopulated. The blackened forms of two thousand crucified soldiers bore ghastly witness to the completeness of the conquest. The siege had lasted from the middle of January till the middle of July, 333 B.C. The city did not lie in ruins long. Colonists were imported and citizens who had escaped returned. The energy of these with the advantage of the site, in a few years raised the city to wealth and leadership again. [5]

This is a fact that anyone can confirm by the simple use of a map.

The last major problem that I’m going to discuss here involves the Book of Isaiah. What the defenders of the Tyre prophecy often neglect to mention is that Is. 23 makes a prophecy itself about the destruction of Tyre that is incompatible with Ezekiel’s, particularly if we accept CG’s interpretation involving Alexander the Great. Isaiah attributes the destruction of Tyre entirely to the Chaldeans, who “destined Tyre for wild beasts� and “razed her palaces, they made her a ruin�. Furthermore, Isaiah’s prophecy disagrees with Ezekiel’s that the destruction of Tyre would be permanent. Is. 23:17-18 states:

At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit Tyre, she will return to her hire, and will play the harlot with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth. Her merchandise and her hire will be dedicated to the Lord; it will not be stored or hoarded, but her merchandize will supply abundant food and fine clothing for those who dwell before the Lord. [6]

Yet even this prophecy, disagreeing with Ezekiel, turned out false as well. The Chaldeans did not destroy Tyre, and the restoration of the city did not take seventy years during either Nebuchadrezzar’s or Alexander’s conquest. [7]

Gideon’s Isaiah Prophecy

A second familiar prophecy that CG uses in support of his case is Isaiah’s alleged prediction of Cyrus and the rebuilding of the Temple. Unfortunately it seems that CG is unaware of the general findings of bible scholars who have considered the authorship of the Book of Isaiah.

Isaiah’s work is often split up into three different parts. The first, from chapters one to thirty-nine, are generally accepted as being the work of Isaiah ben Amoz who wrote sometime in the area of 700 to 680 B.C.E., as CG observes. However, chapters forty through fifty-five are attributed to an author we have called Deutero-Isaiah, who is thought to have written sometime toward the very end of the Exile or afterward, and the last chapters up to sixty-six are credited to a Trito-Isaiah, although some scholars feel that these last ten may be the compilation of a number of different works edited together.

The reasons for supposing that Isaiah was authored by multiple people are good and plenty. Tim Callahan, in his Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment? lists a number. Firstly, the gender of words changes only in those chapters forty through fifty-five using feminine adjectives as if they were actually neuter nouns. This odd characteristic is present in none of the other chapters, implying a different author. This is strengthened when we consider that the writer was probably an Aramaic-speaking Jew writing in Hebrew, a language capability that was extremely rare to Jews until the post-exilic period. Thirdly, there exists a difference of syntax, style of writing, and the frequency that certain phrases or terms are used. In fact, Gleason Archer, a Christian apologist and defender of the biblical inerrancy doctrine, attempted to list similarities in writing style from the different chapters, only to have it pointed out to him by other scholars how very different many of them were, defeating his own case. An example of this is found when he compares chapter 10:1-2 with 59:4-9:

10:1-2, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil and that they make the fatherless their prey!"

59:4-9, “No one enters suit justly, no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. They hatch adder’s eggs, they weave the spider’s web; he who eats their eggs dies, and from one which is crushed a viper is hatched. Their webs will not serve them as clothing; men will not cover themselves with what they make. Their works are works of iniquity and deeds of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil and they make haste to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, desolation and destruction are in their highways. The ways of peace they know not, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked, no one who goes in them knows peace. Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not overtake us; we look for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom."

Callahan notes, “[T]his pair, the first so crisp and concise, the second so overblown and wordy, makes my point better than it makes Archer’s. Other than a general outcry against corruption, the two blocks have nothing in common.� [8] I don’t know about you, but I’m in complete agreement.

It is because of these many reasons that multiple authorship is the most coherent conclusion. Thus, CG’s alleged prophecy turns out not a prophecy at all.

Clear Instances of Failed Prophecy

Before I move on to CG’s discussion of pre-modern scientific knowledge in the Bible, I want to note two examples (besides the many that I provided above) of clearly disproven or unfulfilled prophecy. The first again involves the Book of Isaiah. In chapter 17:1-2, the author writes,

An oracle concerning Damascus. Behold, Damascus will cease to be a city, and will become a heap of ruins. Her cities will be deserted forever; they will be for flocks which will lie down and none will make them afraid.

Damascus remains to this day one of the oldest “continuously inhabited cities �. [9]

A second prophecy was made by Ezekiel against Egypt, declaring that the nation would experience forty years of utter desolation. During this period, neither man nor beast would pass through the area (29:8-14). Just as with Damascus, this prediction has never come to pass.

(3) Difficulties With Science & the Bible

One of the most extraordinary claims that CG has felt confident to defend in this debate is the Bible’s “accurate scientific knowledge�, written down centuries before our modern methods and technologies became available. As an example, CG contends that the Bible shows knowledge of entropy, and he quotes from Psalms 102:23-27. The passage reads, “[The LORD] has weakened my strength in the way; He has shortened my days. I say, ‘O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days, Your years are throughout all generations. Of old You founded the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. Even they will perish, but You endure; And all of them will wear out like a garment; Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed. But You are the same, And your years will not come to an end’�.

What is obvious about this passage is that unless one already presumed that there was accurate scientific knowledge present in the Bible, they would hardly surmise that the writer is discussing entropy as it is analyzed in science. For instance, the verses mention nothing of closed thermodynamic systems or anything or the sort. Rather, it is very clear that the writer is discussing God’s permanent, ever-present, and glorious nature. He hails God as powerful and immortal throughout the chapter, contrasting these divine characteristics to himself – a simple person whose “days are like a lengthened shadow, and I wither away like grass� (Ps. 102:11). Facts of science are certainly not observed here and they are hardly a priority.

Secondly, CG contends that the Bible displays a competent understanding of the hydrologic cycle. However, such knowledge was not unique to the Bible and is certainly not extraordinary. The Ionian thinkers, particularly Anaximenes, are credited with many similar observations. This same fact applies to the spherical shape of the earth, which was already suggested by Pythagoras before Psalms completion sometime around 300 B.C.E. These considerations aside, the truth of the matter is very much the opposite of what CG contends. The Bible, if nothing else, is a collection of primitive, pre-scientific ideas rejected outright by the overwhelming majority of modern day scientists. Indeed, the picture of biblical cosmology painted by the evidence is a very different one than CG suggests. Price and Finley, for instance, in their recent paper, show that the ancient Hebraic picture of the world is very similar to the mythological constructions of its contemporaries, including the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Egyptians. [10] The true world that the biblical writers actually believed themselves to live in looked much more like so:

http://www.infidelguy.com/heaven_sky_files/image013.jpg

This world is flat and circular, enveloped by a solid structure “hammered out� by YHWH to protect the world from the outside waters (hence the story of Noah’s Ark, where God “opens the flood gates� of this solid structure and allows the water to burst through and flood the earth). [11]

However, this is certainly not the end to the anti-scientific ideas espoused by a literalist interpretation of Scripture. The many examples, in fact, are simply overwhelming.

(1) The Bible asserts that the Earth is only six to ten thousand years old. This is rejected by modern science.

(2) The Bible asserts that man was created in a single day from a pile of dust. This is rejected by modern science.

(3) The Bible asserts that animals are capable of talking human languages. This is rejected by modern science.

(4) The Bible asserts that humans were capable of living 800 to 900 years. This is rejected by modern science.

(5) The Bible asserts the reality of Noah’s Ark and the flood story. This story, riddled with anti-scientific claims, is rejected by modern science.

And the list continues on and on. (For a much lengthier list, some of which may be problematic, see Theodore Drange’s 1996 article, [i]The Argument from the Bible).

(4) Archaeology & The Bible

CG’s last argument deals with the “accurate historical information� discussed in the Bible. Although many historians have written on the many problems with this view, both from the perspective of forced pro-biblical conclusions and archaeological evidence in conflict with the Bible [12], it is unnecessary to take up this position, even though they are most probably right. Instead, it should be pointed out that simply because the Bible may have accurately recorded the geographical locations of various cities and other things along similar lines that were once unknown to historians and archaeologists, this in no way entails that the Bible is supernatural or divine in origin. Many books, including those which are very anti-Christian or religiously skeptical, have accomplished the same thing. I doubt, for instance, that CG would find it reasonable for archaeologists, should they stumble upon The Da Vinci Code hundreds of years in the future, to consider it divinely inspired because it accurately reports the locations and places in many major cities and towns throughout the world. All that this argument could possibly accomplish is a confirmation that the biblical authors were aware of the cities, towns, and geography surrounding them.

Conclusion

CG’s case for the reasonableness of Christian belief, while certainly well-intended, rests on weak or invalid arguments and a lack of awareness of historical and scientific facts. Hopefully, once CG spends the time to think my response over carefully, he will understand that these arguments are not taken seriously by the vast majority of scholars in any field of academia for very good reasons. It is my hope that by the end of this debate, CG will at the very least have come to recognize that the case that he presented here is not a good one, and if nothing else, he can move on to other arguments in favour of Christian theism, or perhaps even do the best thing for himself and become a non-believer! I look forward to his response. [13]
__________________________________

[i]End Notes

[1] See Martin, Michael. Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990), Chapter 7.

[2].See Till, Farrel, “Prophecies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled�, 1991.

[3] See Thompson, David. “A Problem of Unfulfilled Prophecy in Ezekiel�.

[4] See Farrell Till, “Prophesies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled� and Steven Carr, “Critique of Josh McDowell’s Non-Messianic Prophecies�.

[5] Quoted in Till, “Prophesies: Imaginary and Unfulfilled�.

[6] Quoted in Callahan, Tim. Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment? (Altadena, California: Millenium Press, 1997), Chapter 4.

[7] It should be noted that some scholars speculate that 70 years is simply a round-about number for a long time in general, although as far as I can tell at this point, it remains uncertain.

[8] Callahan, Tim. Bible Prophecy: Failure or Fulfillment?, Chapter 3.

[9] Ibid.

[10] See Dr. Robert Price and Reginald Finley, “Heaven and its Wonders, and Earth: The World the Biblical Writers Thought They Lived In�, 2005. (Special thanks due to Dr. Robert Price for permission to copy article image.)

[11] Ibid.

[12] For examples, see James Still “Reliability and Belief�, and Keith Mason, “The Roots of Jehovah�.

[13] There are a certain number of minor points that I neglected to make in this opening statement, one example being on CG’s misunderstanding of what natural selection actually is. However, due to space constraints these points will have to wait for a later time to be made.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

James,

Please note that your statement has exceeded the word limit, as agreed to from the parameters, by ~98 words. We'll leave it as it is, but please try to keep future statements within 5000 words.

Thank you for your consideration,

- NS, FD Moderator

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

singer645 has requested an extension for his next statement. We have agreed to grant his request. His statement can be submitted any time up to Oct. 1.

- NS, FD Moderator

[singer645]

I would like to start my first rebut by explaining how I will organize this rebut. I will list as many claims, as time and space allow me too, of my opponent and then I will refute each claim. Unlike my opponent, I will attempt to make my arguments easy for the common reader to understand rather than cloaking them in prolonged sentences and large words, so as to make my points seem more valid. I will also do this to save myself time and space in this debate, since I lack the luxury of time and therefore cannot be as thorough. However, I myself have no difficult time understanding his statements. I do not mean this as an insult to my opponent, only as a defense in the style by which I choose to respond to his statements.

1) JL claims that the very nature of my argument makes it invalid
JL begins his rebut by essentially saying that my argument is invalid because it based on the worldview that Christian theism is true. When I read this, I did not understand why JL even brought this up, considering that the very purpose of this debate is to refute two separate worldviews. Those worldviews, being Christian Theism and Metaphysical Naturalism, are the very question at hand. JL himself says this in his statement. The whole point of the debate is for each of us to show supporting evidence for our worldview by presenting it as the assumed truth. Of course both of us our going to make our statements assuming that our worldview is the correct one. To not do so would defeat the very purpose of the debate. When JL says that my case is not valid because it assumes a theistic worldview, he is basically saying that the entire debate is invalid. I could make the same claim against his statement. All of his statements are based on the assumption that MetaNat is true. Does this make them invalid in this or any debate? No it does not, because to assume your position as truth and bring supporting evidence for that truth, is the very nature of debate.

2) JL claims major problems with prophecy apologetics.
JL begins his attack on my statement by saying that, without assuming a platform of Christian theism, we cannot attribute the miraculous evidences to God. In this statement it is obvious that JL has become focused on only one aspect of this debate and has failed to recognize my strategy. My intention in my opening statement was not to “prove� the existence of God or show supporting evidence for it. Rather, because Christian theism is such a broad topic, I have chosen to show supporting evidence for the validity of the Bible. I have done this because I believe by showing the validity of the Bible, that all points of Christian theism which are contained in it can then also be given validity. This would include the existence of God. JL’s next claims that “Similar events of prophecy and pre-modern scientific knowledge in other historical literature have been and can be attributed to supernatural beings other than a God, or even odd natural forces or clairvoyant beings that we are as of yet unaware. Examples of this are plentiful throughout history and today (e.g. Nostradamus and modern day psychics). Again, JL assumes that I am attempting to prove the existence of God in my opening statement. However, the issue I would like to address here is that JL is essentially saying that the Bible cannot be attributed uniqueness in history because of prophecy. He, errantly brings up Nostradamus, as an example of someone who has had similar prophecies. Nostradamus’ prophecies are not comparable to many biblical prophecies because they were often vague and left up to interpretation. While a portion of biblical prophecy does consist of figurative language, the Bible has does something that Nostradamus never did. It makes bold predictions about specific events in specific cities and, in some cases, with specific time periods. I challenge JL to find one other religious book or writing that does it as consistently as the Bible does. Remember, in my opening statement I only gave very few examples of biblical prophecy. There are some prophecies that are even more irrefutable than the ones I mentioned. However, time restrains me. As you can see, JL’s comparison between the Bible and Nostradamus is much like comparing counterfeit money with the real currency.

Defending the Tyre prophecy

JL’s first attack on the Tyre prophecy is that the prophecy was about Nebuchadnezzar and, therefore, was not fulfilled. In his statement he gives many supporting reasons as to why the entire prophecy is about Nebuchadnezzar. However, in making this claim JL fails to see the change of language at the end of the chapter. The end of the chapter reads like so, “And they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise: and they shall break down thy walls, and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the water. And I will cause the noise of thy songs to cease; and the sound of thy harps shall be no more heard. And I will make thee like the top of a rock: thou shalt be [a place] to spread nets upon; thou shalt be built no more: for I the LORD have spoken [it], saith the Lord GOD.� Please notice, how, at the end of this quote the language changes from “they� to “I�. In this chapter it is obvious the Bible says God is claiming that He will cause the destruction. It does not mention when or how, but only that “I� will etc… Therefore JL is wrong in assuming that the entire prophecy is about Nebuchadnezzar, because there is an obvious disconnect at the end of the chapter between what Nebuchadnezzar will do and what the Bible says God will do. In light of this realization, we can see this negates the rest of the argument by which JL attempts to disregard this prophecy through Nebuchadnezzar and the history surrounding him.

Next, JL claims that the prophecy of Ezekiel fails because Tyre still exists today and never did fall. However, JL has shown ignorance in this claim since Tyre in fact does not exist as an operating city anymore. JL is probably referring to what is a small fishing town named Sur located in modern day Lebanon which itself means “rock�. This coincides with the prophecy when the Bible says God would make it “bare like the top of a rock�. Also, the fact that Sur is a fishing town is an exact fulfillment of the prophecy when the Bible says God would “make it a place for fishermen to cast their nets.� Sur is a city built on the ruins of Tyre, it is not Tyre itself.

JL claims that Isaiah’s prophecy conflicts with the prophecy of Ezekiel. However, what JL fails to realize here is that these are two different prophecies. The prophecy in Isaiah chapter 23 is referring to an economic destruction and not a physical destruction concerning Tyre. This is clear by the wording in the chapter which is continuously mentioning merchants, pay, and trade with other cities (Egypt, Tar shish, and Sidon) as the focus of judgment. The seventy years referred to in this prophecy may be from 700 to 630 B.C. During this period the power of Assyria gradually declined, ending in it’s destruction in 612 B.C. This would allow Tyre to regain strength. JL also mentions the involvement of the Chaldeans in this prophecy. JL misquoted the Bible when saying that the Chaldeans would “raze� the palaces. The scripture actually says that Assyria, not the Chaldeans had “raised up its palaces�. We should also note that this is part of the prophecy (Isaiah 23:1-14) that is talking about effects of the declining Tyre economy on neighboring areas in the Mediterranean. The particular area it is speaking of in verse 13 is the “land of the Chaldeans,� and not Tyre itself. So you can see here that Isaiah was not predicting the destruction of Tyre by the Chaldeans, but was, in this part of the prophecy, speaking about the “land of the Chaldeans� as part of a group of locations in the Mediterranean that would be adversely effected by the economic troubles of Tyre.

Defending Isaiah

JL claims that the prophecies about Cyrus and in fact any prophecies in Isaiah are invalid because he believes there are three different authors of the book. It is an obvious fact that identifying authorship is not and exact science. It is based upon assumptions and variables that lead to only theories and not evidence. For example, if you were to take one of my articles I wrote in high school and compare them with papers that I now write in college, from your criteria, you might be able to assume two different authors. This could happen because over time I have improved my writing skills and, through the influence of other writers, my own writing style has changed. It is possible then that Isaiah could have written this book throughout different times in his life in which his writing style might have changed because of various influences. I must also state that the original text of Isaiah was written in Hebrew. JL is attempting to analyze the authorship of a Hebrew writing translated to English. Since the original writing was in Hebrew, it is not possible to, with surety, analyze authorship in English. JL may put stock in scholarly authorship analyzing, but I believe there are to many factors involved to state any results as fact. They only produce theories and assumptions. Therefore, this is not admissible evidence in this debate, and does nothing to prove Isaiah or any prophecies he has made as false.

Damascus

JL claims that Damascus is unfulfilled prophecy in the Bible. However, he does not take into account that many prophecies in the Bible are apocalyptic or end time prophecies. The prophecy that he mentions in Isaiah 17:1-2 about Damascus is a future prophecy that has not been fulfilled yet. Evidence of this can be found in this passage: "Thus saith the Lord; For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron: But I will send a fire unto the house of Hazael, which shall devour the palaces of Benhadad. I will break also the bar of Damascus..." (Amos 1:3-5, KJV) This prophecy indicates that Damascus will attempt war with Israel three times and on the fourth time it will be destroyed. Damascus is the capitol of Syria. Syria has attacked or provoked Israel to war three times. (1948, 1967, 1973) This indicates that the prophecy about Damascus (capitol of Syria) in Isaiah is a future prophecy that has not yet been fulfilled because the fourth conflict has not yet happened. JL’s argument about Damascus is not valid evidence against the reliability of prophecy in the Bible.

Prophecy Against Egypt

JL claims that Ezekiel’s prophecy failed in verse 29:11 where the Ezekiel writes, “Neither foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast pass through it, and it shall be uninhabited forty years.� The problem with JL’s claim here is that he is insinuating that this is the whole of the prophecy, when in fact this is only a part of a much larger prophecy. In other words, JL is using one verse to make a claim against this prophecy without reading it in context of the scriptures surrounding it. This verse is actually a part of a prophecy that starts in chapter 29 and extends through chapter 32. The particular verse in 29:11 when the it says, “neither foot of man shall pass through it, nor foot of beast pass through it� is not a verse which can be taken literally, but is actually a verse that should be taken descriptively. Ezekiel is merely using this extreme statement to describe the kind of desolation that would befall Egypt. He is not claiming that no living thing would live in it. We can see this by looking at the whole of the prophecy. Notice that just a few verses later Ezekiel prophecies that Egypt will return from the nations to which they were scattered ( v. 13) and also that Babylon would be the conquerors who God has “given the land�. Obviously, if it is prophesied that they would be given the land than that means Ezekiel is expecting people to actually be inhabiting the land. So, in further analysis of verse 29:11 in light of the entire prophecy, we can see that it is not to be taken literally but descriptively. What JL misses in taking one verse out of context to disprove an entire prophecy is the extraordinary accuracy of the prophecy as a whole. In 568 B.C. , according to Egyptian scribes, Nebuchadnezzar marched from Egypt proper all the way to Syene. Once he had conquered them, many Egyptians were carried off to be slaves. Approximately 40 years later the Babylon fell to the Persians and the Egyptians returned home as prophesied.

As anyone can see, JL’s attempt to disprove biblical prophecy has consisted of unfounded assumptions, prophecy out of context, factual inaccuracies, and misquotation of scripture. In JL’s scrupulous search to find any error in the prophecies of the Bible, he fails to see the more clear and irrefutable accuracies of them. For example, why did JL fail to address the astounding accuracy of the prophecies concerning Israel? Why did JL side step the prophecy concerning Cyrus with a rant about Isaiah’s authorship? It is because he knows he has no MetaNat explanation for their accuracy and that they are irrefutable.


Science and the Bible

In my opening statement, I mentioned several pre-modern scientific accuracies the Bible had shown in an age in which there was little scientific knowledge. Entropy was one of these quotes. JL claims that this can not be taken as Entropy because Psalms 102:23-27 is not discussing entropy as the topic. However, my attempt in the quotation of this passage is not to infer that the writer is discussing entropy, only to show that the writer has knowledge of the concept of entropy.

Next, JL claims that the Bible shows a different picture of cosmology than what we know to be true today, and that it actually involved a flat earth surrounded by a spherical case of water. However, he gives no quotation of scriptures to show that the writers believed the earth was flat, when in fact there are scriptures (mentioned in my opening statement) that show the writers knew the world was spherical. JL also claims that the Bible states that there is a casing of water surrounding the earth on the outside of it’s atmosphere. This statement is not true because the Bible does not claim that this outer sphere of still exists, but only that it did exist before the flood. When the “floodgates were opened� this outer rim of water no longer existed, and that is the true claim of the Bible. Evidence for the flood can be discussed maybe in a later statement.

JL then goes on to point out five claims of the Bible which are scientifically impossible. However, his claim that these things are impossible is based on the premise that God does not exist, and that if he does exist he is limited by the same scientific laws that we and nature are limited to. Let all readers, even atheists, assume for a second God does exist. Here is something to consider. If God made the laws that govern science, then is it not possible for him to manipulate those laws when he so desires? It is much like a programmer who, when he wants to change the parameters by which his program operates, goes in and changes or manipulates the code. By doing this, he is able to work outside the laws of that program and manipulate the outcome of operations within the program to do what he wants it to do. Using this analogy, it is logical to conclude that, in the same way, God can manipulate the “code� of scientific laws by which nature operates and generate an outcome that might violate the original “laws� of that nature. Therefore, all attempts to prove the Bible wrong by citing “scientific impossibilities� are based on the premise that God does not exist or that God is limited to scientific law. That makes the “scientifically impossible� argument invalid in this debate where the existence of God is part of the very issue of the debate. This argument is also based on the premise that if something cannot be explained scientifically, it is not true. However, throughout history we have seen that, at one time, what science considered impossible later become possible. (ex. Traveling to the moon) Even though there are some events in the Bible that are considered “supernatural� or unexplainable by science, there are a plethora of events in the Bible, even ones JL listed, that can be explained by science. Some of which I will delve into, perhaps, in later statements.

Archaeology and the Bible

My intention in presenting a few pieces of archaeological evidence about biblical cities and biblical claims about those cities, was to provide evidence that the Bible is a reliable source of history. By establishing that, I am able to prove that the Bible, in the least, cannot be taken as a “book of myths�, but as a book which actually contains verifiable historic information. This is evident in today’s world, where many archaeologists use the Bible as a reference in their journey to make new discoveries. I am well aware that archaeology cannot, itself, prove that the Bible is divine in nature. That is not my intention in presenting it. Archaeology is something that can be used to provide evidence for the accuracy of events described in the Bible, not that the Bible is divine. Arguing Biblical divinity is the purpose of prophetical evidence. Again, my intention in presenting this type of evidence is to show that the Bible is reliable historically.

Conclusion:

As anyone can see, after reading this statement, JL’s arguments are based mainly on assumptions, false premise, narrow-minded worldviews, and rabbit trails. JL mentioned that the “majority of academia� rejects the claims of the Bible, as if “academia� itself is inerrant and anything outside of what they accept is not true. A majority opinion, doesn’t always mean a correct one.

I find it laughable that JL would imply any attempt to convert me to atheism. Such a claim shows that JL has a lack of understanding about the most powerful evidence of all, personal experience. No amount of twisted evidence can trump the personal experiences I have had with God, the supernatural, the power of the Word, and all other truths claimed in the Bible. I choose not to enter these into this debate, because they are not verifiable by outside sources. However, it does not change the fact that I have experienced them. Evidence is much like a piece of a puzzle. It can only give you a small portion of the entire picture. Maybe, with my experiences, I have one more piece of the puzzle than JL does. Perhaps, what JL needs is some personal experiences of his own, then he can add that to his collection of evidence upon which he draws his conclusions about reality. No, it is not I that will be converted, if there is a conversion, in this debate. It is he who is missing a piece.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

James,

Please note that the deadline to post your next statement has passed. The rules permit a grace period, however, extending your deadline to Oct. 25.

Thank you for your consideration,

- NS, FD Moderator

[Jim Lazarus]

Introduction

Unfortunately, it appears that Clift Gideon’s response to my opening statement is not only riddled with misunderstandings about the arguments that I presented, but it is just as confused about the nature of defeaters and what his counter-arguments accomplish for his case. In this rejoinder, I’m going to point out these confusions in different sections, clarify my arguments so that he might understand them the next time around, and also present a few positive evidences against Christian theism that are able to fit within the word count.

Before I do this, however, I want to take a quick moment to discuss CG’s complaint about my terminology. He writes that, “Unlike my opponent, I will attempt to make my arguments easy for the common reader to understand rather than cloaking them in prolonged sentences and large words, so as to make my points seem more valid.� For the life of me, I cannot find any particularly “large words� in my opening statement, and where I use uncommon terminology (e.g. my discussion of ‘coherence’), I spend time to explain what I mean for the reader. Indeed, it doesn’t seem as if any of the readers in the Peanut Gallery had difficulty with understanding my points – although, amusingly, CG himself has experienced this difficulty even though he boasted that he, unlike his ‘common reader’, had no problems understanding my post. Exactly where he has been unable to grasp my arguments will be discussed at length below.

For future problems, however, I would simply suggest that Gideon and his ‘common reader’ go to a dictionary and learn something new about the English language. And, if they are even more daring and adventurous, they can go to www.philosophypages.com and read up on different philosophical terms that I might use in this debate.

A Problem of Miracles

One of the main arguments that CG has been unable to grasp is my argument on belief in miracle claims. CG contends that both he and I have come to this debate presuming ourselves to be correct, and supposing that our worldviews are true. This much I can agree with, but it is an observation that is both irrelevant to my argument and different from the other claims that he has made responding to this section of my post. He writes that, “When JL says that my case is not valid because it assumes a theistic worldview, he is basically saying that the entire debate is invalid. I could make the same claim against his statement. All of his statements are based on the assumption that MetaNat is true. Does this make them invalid in this or any debate?� These thoughts are very different from his claim that we both suppose ourselves to be correct, and that the nature of debate is to bring supportive evidence for our positions. They are different in that they talk about question-begging arguments, whereas giving independent supportive evidence is, of course, not question-begging. Let me explain what I mean more clearly.

If you want to prove that some proposition P is true, then, as CG already pointed out, you look for supportive evidence confirming that P. However, if the evidence confirming that P already assumes the truth of P, then it is worthless and supports nothing, and is what we call “begging the question�. You are using some idea to prove that P is true, when the idea can only be true if P is also true in the first place. In this case, you are not really presenting evidence for your position. Instead, you’re simply assuming that you are right.

So, when CG contends that everything in my statement already assumes that MetaNat is true, he is incorrect. Why? Because I gave no supporting arguments that were dependent upon MetaNat being true in the first place. Instead, he would do better to say that I suppose myself to be right, and I bring what I consider to be confirming evidence to the table to show that this is the case. CG has attempted to do the same thing, but in actuality – as I argued in my first post – his attempt was question-begging. The arguments could only be accepted as true if we accepted Christian theism as true in the first place. His ‘evidences’, in short, don’t amount to too much more than a bundle of assumptions.

Maybe now the nature of my argument has been made clearer. If so, then CG might ask exactly how it is that his case is question-begging. I explained this in my first post, but I will do it again here.

If you remember, I defined a miracle as a significant event brought about by a supernatural agent. I suggested this [rather broad] definition in place of the traditional one that a miracle is an event which either transcends or breaks natural laws. I have suggested this substitute because it has been pointed out by a number of philosophers that there may be problems with this standard definition. [1] I also made it a point to observe that CG’s entire case is one of miracle claims. His arguments mean to suggest that a supernatural being is the correct explanation that accounts for the phenomena that he discusses in his opening statement (e.g. biblical prophecy).

It must be understood, however, that within the worldview of Metaphysical Naturalism, allegedly strange or mysterious events or phenomena may be accounted for by appeal to unknown natural laws. To illustrate, imagine that St. Thomas Aquinas popped magically back into existence at 6 p.m. this evening and walked up to me in my living room because he wanted to say hello. Since it was cloudy here today, and since it is getting later in the evening, the house is becoming dark. To be polite, I flick on the living room light switch to brighten things up – and suddenly, to my surprise, the good Saint almost jumps out of his robes with fright and ducks under my couch for cover. What in the world is going on in his mind?

Since St. Thomas Aquinas is not yet familiar with light bulbs and the concept of conducting electricity, this event of flicking on the light switch would be very strange to him indeed. To account for it, he might invoke the supernatural (as he liked to do back in his day). “Proof!� he would cry, “Of the greatness and existence of God!�. We understand, however, that this is no such thing. Everything about turning on a light switch is natural, and yet St. Thomas doesn’t understand this because he has not come to learn the things we have about electricity in our modern age. In the same way, naturalists would suggest that strange or mysterious events that might occur today can be explained entirely by these unknown facts of nature that we simply haven’t discovered yet.

So, again, within the worldview of MetaNat, the strange and the mysterious, if they really do exist, would be explained by appeal to unknown natural laws. Yet, when it comes to the Christian, they would have no problems in suggesting that many of these strange or mysterious events are the work of a supernatural agent – whether angels, God, or Satan, because their worldview includes these concepts within it. Christianity allows for miracles. Naturalism, by definition and method, does not. Thus, the only way we could conclude that CG’s miracle claims are in fact miracles is if we assume that Christianity is true in the very first place. Consequently, CG cannot use his arguments as he wishes to without begging the question, and therefore his entire case fails.

The Gap in Gideon’s Argument

The next argument that I used (and the next that CG seems to have had trouble understanding) points out that the arguments that CG has seen fit to present in support of the Bible and Christian theism are logically invalid. They are invalid because we need not conclude that it was indeed the Christian God or anything even remotely connected with Christianity that was the cause for these allegedly miraculous events taking place. CG, in response, spent far too much time contrasting the prophecies of Nostradamus with the prophecies found in the Bible, when my example of Nostradamus had very little to do with the similarities among prophetic claims. Instead, the point of the Nostradamus example and the others that I provided was to point out that it was unnecessary to attribute prophetic claims to a God’s credit. CG also complains that his strategy is simply to prove the ‘validity’ of the Bible and thus establish its doctrines by logical consequence, a strategy that he feels I fail to understand in my opening statement. Yet, what does it mean to say that the Bible is ‘valid’? Typically, this sort of talk would be understood as suggesting that the Bible is divinely inspired and not just ‘man-made’ in origin. Indeed, if CG’s only aim was to prove that the Bible is a generally reliable book on historical facts with mildly interesting predictions about the future, he would fall horribly short of presenting any sort of argument for Christian theism. Instead, what he must prove is precisely that the Bible is divinely inspired and – according to his theology – completely lacking in error. The way to go about this is to try to show that there is the Christian God working behind the scenes, instructing the biblical authors to write down what he wants them to. However, since CG’s arguments come nowhere close to establishing this, they are logically invalid, and his case fails.

Bible Prophecies

Because I have developed my other two arguments more extensively against CG’s case above, I will be spending slightly less time evaluating his specific defenses of biblical prophecy. However, I do wish to critique his main points – i.e. those that, if true, would be damaging to my opening case.

(1) The Tyre Prophecy

CG has given three responses to my criticisms against the Tyre prophecy. He claimed that: (i) Tyre does not exist, and I have confused the modern day city of Sur as Tyre, which is built beside the ancient ruins of the city; (ii) there is a change in wording in Ezekiel chapter 26 which casts doubt on the whole of the prophecy referring only to Nebuchadrezzar; and (iii) Isaiah’s prophecy is concerned only with economic troubles and not any military conquest.

(i) Again CG shows his lack of awareness when it comes to historical facts. While he obviously looked into the geography of Lebanon in some way or another to learn about Sur, he did not investigate much further. If he had, then he would have come to understand that Sur is actually the Phoenician pronunciation of Tyre, and the two places are one and the same. In fact, Sur has always been the correct pronunciation of the city. [1] The word “Tyre� is simply the Greek attempt at saying “Sur�. Since the Phoenicians spoke the word with a hard s (as in ‘Zur’), and since the Greeks had no such sound in their language, they simply used the “t� sound in its place. Finally, the Greeks added the suffix ‘e’ because of their custom of naming cities in the feminine sense. The modern city is built on one half of the ruins of the ancient city, with the other half of the ruins beside it, which now provides as a tourist attraction for Lebanon. Really, CG’s argument is basically equivalent to saying that the United States no longer existed after the 1860’s because much of it was burned down and replaced by the Estados Unidos. [2]

http://photos.eisenbach.at/bilder/reisen/libanon/p_tyrushafen.jpg

http://photos.eisenbach.at/bilder/reisen/libanon/p_tyrus2.jpg

(ii) CG’s “change in wording at the end of the chapter� is non-existent. Had he bothered to read the entire chapter, CG would’ve realized that Ez. 26 actually begins in the first person, and goes on to say “Behold, I will bring up Nebuchadrezzar…�. Thus the chapter says very clearly that God will destroy the city of Tyre by using Nebuchadrezzar as his servant. This is confirmed even further when (and as I already argued in my opening statement) Ezekiel promises Nebuchadrezzar the spoils of Egypt in return for his service against Tyre later in the book. This, in addition to the arguments that I presented in round one, shows beyond any reasonable doubt that the Tyre prophecy is an utter failure.

Finally, it should be noted – as I also did in my opening statement – that Nebuchadrezzar also failed to conquer Egypt as Ezekiel predicted. So we have two serious failures from Ezekiel, which is more than enough reason to reject CG’s argument.

(iii) CG’s support for the idea that Isaiah was predicting an economic depression and not a military conquest against Tyre amounts to an appeal to certain areas of the passage where the richness of Tyre is discussed, and where the merchants are mentioned as the “honourable� of the earth. While the chapter does discuss this, it is by no means clear that the scope of Tyre’s trouble is to be limited to this, and the chapter gives us good reason to suspect otherwise. Verse 11 goes on to say, “He stretched out his hand over the sea, he shook the kingdoms: the LORD hath given a commandment against the merchant [city], to destroy the strong holds thereof.� This talk of ‘destruction’ sure doesn’t sound like just an economic threat to me. Given this, CG’s alternative interpretation appears less plausible.

(2) Isaiah’s Prophecy

In response to my criticisms against the Cyrus prophecy, CG gave three counter-arguments: (i) CG argued that I failed to address the prophecy at all, and side-stepped it in favour of a rant about authorship; (ii) CG argued that speculation about authorship amounts to little more than conjecture and theory and not evidence, and therefore it cannot be submitted as such in this debate; and (iii) that changes in writing style can easily be accounted for by improvements and changes over time in the author’s writing capabilities.

(i) Apparently CG completely failed to grasp the significance of my discussion about Isaiah’s authorship. The suggestion of multiple authors includes the idea that Deutero-Isaiah wrote after the Post-Exilic period, and therefore was talking about Cyrus either during or after the fact. If this is true – and I gave many supporting reasons for supposing so – then Isaiah’s prophecy is not actually a prophecy at all, and CG’s case gets thrown out the window.

(ii) Firstly, theories about authorship – whether they amount to proofs or not, are obviously necessary for determining whether or not the writings in the text amount to genuine prophecies. It is not enough that CG simply shrugs off my arguments as blind conjecture (which they really aren’t, anyway). Instead, he has to give sufficient reason for believing that we ought to prefer the traditional viewpoint on the Book of Isaiah’s authorship. If he fails to accomplish this when there exists doubt about what he is proposing, then CG’s argument fails to establish itself. Without presenting good reason for believing that Isaiah Ben Amoz was the author of the entire text despite the problems that I mentioned, CG cannot justifiably say that this was a genuine and fulfilled prophecy.

(iii) Lastly, CG’s counter-argument is insufficient to account for the many problems that I discussed with the idea of traditional authorship. It was not only writing style that completely changed in the chapters of 40-55, but other factors as well that cannot be dismissed simply by “changes in the author� over time. For instance, I gave the example of the gender changes in words, where feminine adjectives are used as if they are neuter nouns. CG cannot account for this sort of change by simply tossing out the idea of a change in the author’s style. Secondly, this sort of mistake in language leads us to believe that the writer was capable of speaking multiple languages – i.e. that he was an Aramaic-speaking Jew. This language capability was extremely rare until the post-Exilic period, as I mentioned in my first post. This being the case, it strongly suggests that the writer was not Isaiah Ben Amoz, but a person writing about Cyrus after-the-fact.

Lastly, given the radical changes in the writing style, we’re faced with two alternatives. Either it is the case that the writer could’ve changed style, or it is the case that it was not the same writer. Now, granted, people do change their writing styles throughout the years as they improve their capabilities, but it is rare that the change is so radical as to suggest a completely different person with a completely different emphasis on theological ideas. This is what we find with the passages that were compared in my opening post and elsewhere. So it seems more plausible, simply by a study of the text style, that this was a different person, instead of the same person writing at a different period in time.

(3) Concluding Remarks

The Tyre and Cyrus prophecies, then, are either straightforwardly refuted or mysterious to the point where CG cannot establish his case. Yet, CG also complains that I do not address his prophecy concerning Israel. He’s certainly right that I didn’t address this, and for two good reasons: (i) because of space contraints; and (ii) because it’s ridiculous on its face when presented as a prediction of divine origin, as CG has had the nerve to present it. Of course certain Israelites were going to suppose that they were the chosen nation and would not perish. Countless other nations have felt the same way throughout history, and some of them are still existent in some form today. This ‘prophecy’ is hardly one that is incapable of being discussed from a naturalistic point of view – a natural bias that turned out to be true up until now. A second major problem for this prophecy is that, according to CG, it states that Israel will never perish, and this requires that we reach the time of the world’s end before we can count it as a fulfilled prophecy. Al Queda could drop a nuke on Israel tomorrow morning. The suggestion that Israel will never be destroyed has not yet been falsified, but it has not yet been confirmed either. Therefore, CG has been completely unable to establish his case using prophecy apologetics.

Science & Archaeology

Concerning archaeology and the Bible, CG has conceded in his second statement that his argument is insufficient to establish anything that is incompatible with my worldview – i.e. his argument could only hope to establish that the Bible is generally historically reliable when it comes to archaeological concerns, and cannot provide as some sort of argument damaging to metaphysical naturalism. While I did mention that there have been other historians that have put this ‘historical reliability’ idea to the test and found that it’s false, I’m not interested in defending this position due to space constraints. Consequently, I think we’ve reached the end of this discussion about archaeology, in agreement with each other that even if CG’s argument were correct, it would not establish his case for Christian theism, or rule out metaphysical naturalism.

On the matter of science and the Bible, CG has provided a couple of different arguments in defense of his original case. With entropy, CG writes, “JL claims that this can not be taken as Entropy because Psalms 102:23-27 is not discussing entropy as the topic. However, my attempt in the quotation of this passage is not to infer that the writer is discussing entropy, only to show that the writer has knowledge of the concept of entropy.� Here, CG misses the point. The subject of the discussion of God as eternal and the world as something that will waste away is what CG interprets as the author’s acknowledgment of entropy. Yet, a discussion of God’s eternal nature and a non-finite earth does not amount to any recognition of entropy at all. This is my point against CG’s example. It is not that entropy is not the main subject of discussion, but that it is found nowhere in the discussion and that the author obviously didn’t mean to say anything of the sort. Saying that “God is eternal, but I and the world will waste away like a garment�, is not a recognition of the scientific conception of entropy. In fact, if the author were referring to entropy, as CG insists that he is, then CG has shown us that the Bible is scientifically inaccurate. Why? Because entropy applies to closed thermodynamic systems, and not systems where there is incoming energy. The earth is not a closed system. We receive energy from the sun. Therefore, either the author did not acknowledge any unknown scientific facts, or his views are false in the eyes of science.

On the subject of biblical cosmology, CG complains that I didn’t provide any scriptural support for my views on the ancient Hebraic picture of the world. Yet, what I did do was reference the recent work of Reginald Finley and Dr. Robert Price in support of my case, where they give not only scriptural support for their position but arguments from history as well. [3] My referring to their work, in other words, means that I support their arguments in favour of their position, and the evidence is present in their writings. It is CG’s burden to refute the evidence that they put forward.

Lastly, CG gives an interesting argument about God’s ability to overcome natural laws, and consequently suggests that I’m simply assuming my own position when I argue that certain biblical claims are scientifically impossible. In fact, this argument is completely irrelevant and mischaracterizes my argument. I also assume no such thing as atheism here. My point was that, contrary to CG’s position, the Bible is not in agreement with modern science. I gave five examples of claims that the modern scientific community rejects outright as completely ridiculous. Whether or not God is able to overcome natural laws and have these things happen is irrelevant to whether or not modern science actually supports the idea that these events actually did occur. What should also be pointed out is that if we were to accept CG’s argument, science would become virtually impossible. If God were constantly intervening in the universe’s affairs to perform various miraculous things, then science could never work, as it continues to generally require the uniformity of nature. If God constantly violated natural laws, science could never presume that the laws would hold, and it’s foundations would crumble. Consequently, CG’s argument damages his own position, if nothing else.

An Argument from Evil

William Rowe’s argument from evil can be presented as follows:

(1) There exists evils in the world that God could have prevented, and had God prevented them, the world as a whole would have been a better place.
(2) God would have prevented the occurrence of any evil God could prevent, such that God had prevented it, the world as a whole would have been a better place.
(3) There was no prevention of the evils that exists, evils such that if they did not exist, the world as a whole would have been a better place.
(4) Therefore, God does not exist.

Now, we might suggest that this argument has a prima facie appeal, due to the nature and great quantity of the evils that exist in our world. Hundreds of thousands died because of the Great Tsunami some time ago, and another 18,000 lost their lives during the recent earthquake in Indonesia. Hurricane Katrina recently decimated New Orleans, and the brutality of the Nazi regime during the 1930’s and 1940’s lead to the deaths of millions of different ethnic and culture groups, including 6 million Jews. We can turn on the 6 o’clock news every evening with complete certainty that we’ll hear about someone having died of disease, by accident, or by murder. The 3,000 deaths of September 11th are still fresh in the mind of every American. The historical atrocities of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, the Crusades, and the Inquisition often arise in educated conversations on a bi-weekly basis. The examples are countless and terrible. The idea that there is a morally sufficient reason for all of these different instances of suffering and mass death is on the surface dubious, to say the very least. Therefore, without a thought-out suggestion as to how God could morally tolerate the occurrence of all of these horrible events, we’re justified in supposing that Christianity is false.

An Argument from Dysteleology

According to Christian theology, God is defined as the “Grand Designer� of our universe, who has fine-tuned our universe to produce complex life forms. He is a loving being who wishes to develop a relationship with inhabitants of the world, and values human beings as somehow ‘made in his image’. The world, according to Genesis, was created with us at its center, created as the ‘Lords’ over the earth and over the ‘beasts in the fields’. Yet, if all of this is supposed to be true, where God’s intent is to fine-tune the world for complex life and develop a loving relationship with at least some of these beings, then we should not expect to observe many serious instances of what I will call ‘bad form’ in the universe. Bad form can be understood as essentially the opposite of the Christian’s notion of “Grand Design�. An example of bad form would either be detrimental to the sustenance or creation of complex life, would cast doubt on their being an intent to develop complex life, would lack the ‘beauty’ that theologians often discuss as a property of complex life, or would be responsible for the destruction of complex life. Given this, we can construct an argument from dysteleology as follows:

(1) If God existed, we would not see multiple serious instances of bad form in the universe.
(2) There are multiple serious instances of bad form in the universe.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

Now, I don’t wish to propose that there is a logical contradiction between God and bad form, but rather a probabilistic incompatibility. I also shouldn’t be understood as denying the existence of beauty in the world. That is also not my position. Rather, I acknowledge the beauty, but I also acknowledge the serious instances of bad form that are in the universe, bad form that are incompatible with the idea of the Christian’s “Grand Designer�.

So, what are these instances of bad form? Consider:

(A) Nature’s Barter System – where the sustenance of life is dependent upon the competition of resources such that those who do not obtain them, they starve, or where sustenance is otherwise dependent upon the life of some organisms for the survival of others.

(B) Physiological aspects of various different species – such as the human eye, the human knee, and snake lungs. The deficiencies present in these aspects of species are not present in other certain other species (e.g. squids and eagles, when it comes to the eye).

(C) The fact that the universe is actually more finely tuned for existence of black holes than the development of complex life forms.

(D) Destructive Natural Forces – hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions.

(E) Disease & Plagues – hot viruses, the Black Plague, cancers.

(F) Physiological Horrors – vomit, feces, spit, snot, human guts and insides, and other aesthetically displeasing phenomena.

The argument, then, is that these examples of bad form, when taken collectively, are much less probable on a theistic conception of the world than on an atheistic conception.

Religious Experience

CG concludes that he finds it laughable that I would attempt to deconvert him. In fact, my suggestion of deconversion was a joke, and CG took this much too seriously. However, why does CG find this idea of accepting atheism so ridiculous in the first place? He writes that this is because of religious experience. This demands that we investigate into the nature of such things.

Firstly, CG is very presumptuous when he writes that I lack such experiences. He is well aware from prior conversations that I used to be a very devout Christian, and I can report strong religious experiences just as he has. Yet, here I am an atheist, and he remains a Christian. Why would this be, given that we’ve both had religious experiences? What ultimately lead me to suspect that these experiences were insufficient reasons to continue believing in Christianity? The answer lies in the experiences themselves. If we take a look at any testimony affirming an experience with God, we see nothing more than an account of a strong physical experience. Further, these physical experiences have been reported as being stimulated by other factors besides religious influences, such as music that the agents find particularly moving and beautiful, or the thought of a strongly missed loved one. My question to CG, then, is that given the nature of these experiences as purely physical ones, what makes him believe that their source is the Christian God, and not some other alternative? If he can answer this question reasonably, then he may have grounds for personally rejecting atheism despite certain evidences to the contrary. But I have my doubts.

Conclusion

I think I’m just going to close this statement with a quote from Dr. Price. He writes that, “The Soviets, as you know, closed down the churches and made them into museums. But it seems to me that the churches had already done it to themselves! They are storehouses of antiquities: fossil doctrines, outmoded morals, wax statues of dead gods, musty treasuries of superstitions and theological boogeymen. And I want some fresh air. How about you?�

__________________________________

End Notes

[1] Special thanks to Richard Carrier for this point in personal correspondence.

[2] Thanks to Robin Z for the peanut gallery link to the Tyre pictures.

[3] Dr. Robert Price & Reginald Finley, “Heaven and Its Wonders, and Earth (http://www.infidelguy.com/heaven_sky.htm) �.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

singer645 has requested a week extension to post his next statement. We have agreed to grant his request.

- NS, FD Moderator

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

singer645,

Please note that your extension has expired. You will be granted a grace period until Nov. 25 to post your next statement.

Thank you for your consideration,

- NS, FD Moderator

[singer645]

JL’s previous statement spends much of it’s space in re-establishing arguments he has already made and “clarifying� his position in many cases. JL has also presented some new philosophical arguments against the existence of God, in which I will probably spend much of this statement refuting. My intention in this statement is to refute a few of the points JL has made against the apologetic evidence I have presented and also to present a few philosophical arguments of my own that support the existence of God.

Before I proceed, I would first like to address what I my intentions were when I wrote that JL was using “prolonged sentences� and “large words� to make his points seem more valid. I mentioned this for two reasons.

1) I am referring many “common readers� to whom I minister, to this page, so that they can view the debate and determine a conclusion for themselves. Of course, in doing this, I knew that some of the terminology would be confusing to them. So, I added in this statement in hopes of toning down the overuse of uncommon terminology or at least defining it when we use it, so that they would be able to better understand the content of the debate. This is not to say that the readers I refer are uneducated, but, since I am a youth worker, many of them are young and inexperienced in this kind of a setting.

2) I am attempting to point out and prevent a strategy that, although JL might not be using, many atheistic debaters do use. This, of course, is the strategy which uses uncommon terminology and over-stated sentences to make the writer seem more intelligent than his opponent to the common reader. My goal is to make this debate easily understandable for the “common reader�. As for the peanut gallery, I have viewed some of their statements, and I would hardly classify these regulars as “common readers�.

Miracles and Prophecy

JL claims that fulfilled prophecy is question-begging evidence that is dependant upon a premise that a supernatural being exists rather than being independent evidence from it.

While I agree with JL that in order for evidence to be valid in a debate, it has to be independent from the issue in question being true, I believe that JL loses focus on what the issue at hand really is. I will remind JL that the issue at hand is not the existence of supernatural being, but rather, what worldview is more reasonable to accept as truth. To support my case for Christian theism, my main strategy has been to prove the validity of the Bible and by proving the validity of it, also prove the rest of the claims made in it. These claims, of course, include the existence of God. A logical break down of this strategy, concerning prophecy, would look like this:

1) Prophecy supports the validity of the Bible.
2) The validity of the Bible depends on it being infallible.
3) The infallibility of the Bible is tested by the prediction of future events
4) If the future events predicted in the Bible have been true on every occasion, then the Bible has passed the prophetical test of infallibility
5) If the Bible is infallible, all the claims in it are true (including the existence of a supernatural being named God)

Prophecy, of course, is not the only test of the infallibility of the Bible, but it is probably the one that would, if the Bible weren’t true, be most likely to fail. Therefore this is why I built my case so strongly on prophetical evidence. The prophetical evidence I presented in this debate is valid because each individual prophecy is not dependant upon the entire Bible being infallible, it is only one more piece of evidence that supports that the Bible is infallible. By reasoning, you can see how JL’s attempt to discount fulfilled prophecy as invalid evidence in this debate fails, because he fails to realize that the issue is more the “validity and infallibility of the Bible� rather than “Does God exist?�

The Gap

In his statement JL claims that:
“Indeed, if CG’s only aim was to prove that the Bible is a generally reliable book on historical facts with mildly interesting predictions about the future, he would fall horribly short of presenting any sort of argument for Christian theism. Instead, what he must prove is precisely that the Bible is divinely inspired and – according to his theology – completely lacking in error. - James Lazarus�

Obviously, I have not made myself clear because providing evidence that the Bible is “completely lacking in error� is precisely what I am doing. When I say that I am showing the “reliability� of the Bible, I am really saying that I am showing how the Bible is infallible. Maybe this will be more clear to JL now. Also, it is not my burden to “prove� that the Bible is infallible, because to do so would require me stating every claim of the Bible, and then showing supporting evidence for it’s truth. This, of course, would take more than one life time to do, and is not possible in a setting such as this. It can be compared to a person who is on trial. When they go into the court room, there is a prosecutor who is trying to prove that their “not guilty� plea is a lie, and, there is a defense attorney, who is defending the “not guilty� plea as truth against the accusations of the prosecutor. The Bible, in this section of the debate, is precisely what is on trial. I am the defense attorney and JL is the prosecutor. JL is trying to prove that the Bible’s “plea� of infallibility is a lie, and I’m defending against his attacks. Just like in a court of law, for the defendant to be proven guilty, they must be proven guilty “beyond reasonable doubt.“ So, the burden is not mine to “prove� that the Bible is infallible, rather, the burden is on JL to take a claim of the Bible and prove that it is false, therefore destroying the idea that it is infallible and putting into question all of it’s claims. My burden is to defend the Bible’s claims and show how they are true. Therefore, my strategy is valid in this debate because the infallibility (which supports the reliability) of the Bible is the foundation of christian theism, and my personal belief, is that the Bible is well capable of defending itself.

Defending Tyre

i. JL claims that Sur and Tyre are the same city

He does this by saying that “Sur is actually the Phoenician pronunciation of Tyre, and the two places are one and the same. - James Lazarus� Although the city of Sur is built on the ruins of Tyre, it is not the same city as Tyre. JL makes a clever attempt to show how Tyre and Sur are actually the same word with different pronunciations. I believe this is a stretch at best, the pronunciations of Tyre and Sur are no where near the same. If the Greeks really intended to replace the “Z� sound with a “T�, then what caused them to change the “ur� sound to an “ire� sound, thus totally reconstructing the word? The answer is nothing. “Sur� and “Tyre� are two different words. This is evidenced by the fact that they don’t even have the same meaning. Although they both mean “rock�, they have two different meanings of rock. Sur, broken down, means “enclosed fortification/rock� where Tyre means “strong, sharp, rock�. If they were the same word, they would have the exact same meaning. It’s easy to see that JL has made a stretch here, scrapping for any kind of minute detail in which he can try to prove that Sur is the same city as Tyre. The fact is Sur is a fishing town built on the ruins of Tyre, just as Ezekiel predicted when he said it would be a place for fishermen to “cast their nets�.

ii. JL claims, once again, that the prophecy against Tyre completely involved Nebuchadnezzar.

JL makes this claim, but then gives no new support for his claim. He merely repeats evidence which presented in earlier statements and provides one new statement to try and refute me. This statement being “Had he bothered to read the entire chapter, CG would’ve realized that Ez. 26 actually begins in the first person, and goes on to say “Behold, I will bring up Nebuchadrezzar…� -James Lazarus. Besides misspelling Nebuchadnezzar, (who would want that word in a spelling bee) JL has not refuted me by saying this, but, rather, has only helped to support my argument against his claim. JL himself has pointed out the difference in wording the chapter, between what God says “I� will do and what God says “Nebuchadnezzar� will do. Anyone who wants to, can refer to my previous statement to see how change in wording is obvious. When God says “I� will do it, that means “HE� will do it. JL’s argument is based on an assumption that when God says “I� will do it, he really means he will do it through Nebuchadnezzar. However, this is something that is only an assumption and not fact, and being so, is not a valid argument in this debate. If JL will not concede that this passage is not talking about Nebuchadnezzar, at the very least, JL must admit a possibility that God is not referring to Nebuchadnezzar in the last few versus of the chapter. A possibility that is likely, since most of the rest of the prophecy “God� irrefutably and specifically attributes to Nebuchadnezzar’s actions. Once again, there is “reasonable doubt� here as to the entirety of the prophecy being about Nebuchadnezzar.

iii. JL claims that the idea of the Isaiah prophecy about Tyre being an economic prophecy is less plausible.

Notice that when JL makes his statement he says that it is “less plausible.� Of course it being “less plausible“ highly depends on one‘s presuppositions. However, by saying this JL admits that it is plausible that the prophecy is about an economic destruction and therefore is a completely different prophecy than the Ezekiel prophecy. Therefore, he has conceded that this argument is invalid in this debate because there is a “plausible� alternative to his explanation of the Isaiah prophecy against Tyre. This “evidence� has “reasonable doubt� and fails to prove anything against the infallibility of the Bible.

Cyrus Prophecy-Isaiah Authorship

I will begin this section of my statement by quoting JL’s last statement.

“Lastly, given the radical changes in the writing style, we’re faced with two alternatives. Either it is the case that the writer could’ve changed style, or it is the case that it was not the same writer. Now, granted, people do change their writing styles throughout the years as they improve their capabilities, but it is rare that the change is so radical as to suggest a completely different person with a completely different emphasis on theological ideas. This is what we find with the passages that were compared in my opening post and elsewhere. So it seems more plausible, simply by a study of the text style, that this was a different person, instead of the same person writing at a different period in time.� - James Lazarus

In this quote, we see one of JL’s favorite words: “plausible�. Once again, when JL presents his argument he is left with the possibility of more than one explanation. Of course, because of his presupposition, his explanation is more “plausible� than mine. However, it is obvious that this is a matter of opinion rather than fact. I explained in my last statement why it is very possible that the “different writing styles� JL refers to can be explained by the interpretation of the writings and the change of writing style one can experience over a life time. This can be evidenced by my own writings, which if a literary scholar broke down, would be very different now than they were 10 years ago. Even to the point that one might think it was two different authors. So let the reader decide which one is more “plausible�. One thing is certain, JL’s claim that there are several different authors who wrote Isaiah is merely a theory, and is not fact, and that’s a fact.

Israel

In my opening statement I mentioned several prophecies about Israel which have been fulfilled or are in the process of being fulfilled. In JL’s last statement he made an attempt to address the prophecies about Israel. However, he actually only addressed one prophecy about Israel. That being that they would “never perish�. He cleverly avoids the rest of the prophecies because of the fact that they have irrefutably been fulfilled. However, I will address his claim that this prophecy is invalid.

JL attempts to dismiss this prophecy by saying that “The suggestion that Israel will never be destroyed has not yet been falsified, but it has not yet been confirmed either. Therefore, CG has been completely unable to establish his case using prophecy apologetics.� - James Lazarus. In fact, this prophecy does fit within prophetical apologetics. It is what is known as an eternal prophecy. To explain it, it means that this prophecy has no end. Therefore, the fulfilling of this prophecy is something that is continuous, and, while you cannot call it “fulfilled� prophecy because it is not a past prophecy, you can call it a continuously fulfilling prophecy. However, by focusing on the time state of the prophecy, we are missing the larger picture. Let’s take a look at how this “continuous� prophecy helps to support the reliability of the Bible.

1) This prophecy is bold

A continuous prophecy such as this is something that could easily destroy the Bible and cast it away as book of myths, because of the fact that this prophecy has to be fulfilled on a daily basis. Therefore, that shows that the writers must have been pretty confident in their source when writing these prophecies. It also attests to the fact that if they Bible was a book of myths, then why are continuous prophecies, such as this, still being fulfilled today? Would it not be easy to prove these wrong? JL was right when he said that, “Al Qaeda could drop a nuke on Israel tomorrow morning.�, but the fact is, that hasn’t happened and as long as Israel exists ( and they always will) they will be a living testament to the prophetical relevance of the Bible.

2) This prophecy is unique

“Countless other nations have felt the same way throughout history, and some of them are still existent in some form today.� - James Lazarus

I challenge JL to search the annuls of history and find one nation that has a prophecy that they would be “scattered about the earth� for a long period of time, maintain their nationality, and then become a nation once again in one day. Go ahead and scour through the history books, websites, and archives. All that JL will find is a bunch of nations, whom, when they were scattered abroad, were eventually assimilated into the cultures thus destroying their nationality. If JL does perhaps find a nation who has been scattered, yet come back together as the same nation, then let JL see if that nation also happened to have a prophecy that predicted the exact fulfillment of it. Although I would love to send JL on this goose chase, I suggest that he doesn’t waste his time, because He will not find another instance that can compare to this prophecy about Israel and it’s improbable continuous fulfillment that we still see today. JL should do himself a favor and stay away from the prophecies of Israel, as he did in his first statement, because these are some of the strongest evidences for biblical accuracy and they only serve to hurt his case against christian theism, and to provide an easy target for me.

Transition

Although JL makes some statements concerning archaeology and the Bible as well as science and the Bible. I will not refute these in this statement because of time. Perhaps, I will address them in the next statement if I feel necessary. For now I would like spend the rest of the time and space I have to write this statement on the philosophical arguments that JL presented.

Free Will

“The idea that there is a morally sufficient reason for all of these different instances of suffering and mass death is on the surface dubious, to say the very least. Therefore, without a thought-out suggestion as to how God could morally tolerate the occurrence of all of these horrible events, we’re justified in supposing that Christianity is false.� - James Lazarus

This argument is a common argument that non-believers use as their reasoning for not believing in God. It basically is an argument that asks the question, “If God really exists, and God is really good, why does he allow pain and suffering?� The answer to this question is summed up in two words, “Free Will�. According to the Bible God has granted humanity the ability to exercise free will. Many people theorize as to why He did this. A theory I subscribe to is that God wanted man to have “free will� because his goal was to make man in his image and to have a relationship with man. He could accomplish neither of these things if he created man without free will. Without free will, we would be much like computers operating on pre-programmed instructions and unable to “choose� anything, including a relationship with God. Also, we would not be made “in his image� because he himself has free will. So, we establish, according to the Bible, that God’s objective was to create humankind with free will. By creating free will, God also created the potential for man to bring about harm or do evil, because if man did not have this choice, man would not have free will at all. Therefore, we can see that it is the “free will� of man and the choice that man has made to do “evil� that has brought about pain and suffering in this world. According to the Bible, God created this world perfect. Human kind, through freewill, messed that perfection up. Once they did, it brought about all the pains and sufferings that is known in the Bible as the “curse�.

One might ask at this point, then why doesn’t God just intervene and cause all the suffering to stop? The answer to that would be that if God intervened, he would be violating the free will of man. God does not “possess� a man or take control of his free will, although he may influence a man’s decision, as he did pharaoh in Genesis. This would be violating his original design. When writing about this, I think of the movie “Bruce Almighty�. Although it definitely is not an accurate depiction of the God of the Bible, it has an interesting way of showing how this “free will� concept works and why God doesn’t say “YES� to everything. While God allows suffering so that free will can exist, the Bible describes that God himself does “will� to stop the suffering of man. However, because God will not violate man’s free will, man must come to him in faith of his own free will to receive the “rest� from his suffering. I have now explained how God can “morally� allow suffering in our world, and I hope this answers a few nagging questions for JL and others who are reading this.

Good Form, Bad Form

JL claims this line of logic:

(1) If God existed, we would not see multiple serious instances of bad form in the universe.
(2) There are multiple serious instances of bad form in the universe.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

This line of logic begs the question, “If God is the grand creator and he is perfect, why are their imperfections in creation.� The answer to this is linked to the answer I gave in the previous section. Here is one line of logic one can consider:

1) God created man with free will
2) Free will created the potential for doing good or evil
3) Man chose to do evil, evil is the opposite of “the perfect way� therefore evil is imperfection
4) Man lives in the created universe, therefore this imperfection infected the created universe causing imperfection in all of creation.

Here we can see how God’s objective to allow man “free will� also left the opportunity for imperfection in the created universe. This is a reasonable explanation for the existence of God and “bad form� in the universe.

Conclusion of Lazarus’ Philosophical Arguments

Neither one these arguments of free will prove God’s existence or the Bible’s reliability, but they do provide a reasonable explanation for the questions that arise from JL’s philosophical arguments, and therefore negate these arguments as any kind of evidence against the Bible. If these were the only reasonable lines of logic, then JL would have a case. However, I have shown how there are other reasonable lines of logic to explain his philosophical arguments against scripture. The acceptance of these explanations depends entirely upon one’s presuppositions about the Bible, the existence of God, and other claims of the scriptures pertaining to christian theism.

A Matter of Conscience

I would like to briefly present my own philosophical argument as to why the Bible is reasonable. Based on the claim of the Bible that God does exist, the question can be asked, “If God does not exist, then where does man kind get his sense of right and wrong, and who defined right and wrong?� This simple, yet important question brings up the issue of where did our collective “conscience� come from. In most human beings, there exists a natural inclination of knowing what is right and what is wrong, without anyone having to tell them. My question is, “If this doesn’t come from God, then where does it come from.� If a creator did not exist, then why is it that we all have the same basic uniform moral code of what is right and wrong. This would be things such as “lying is wrong.� Although people may still lie, inside themselves, they know that it is wrong. Another example would be “murder is wrong�. These are things that everyone can feel inside is wrong, but if God did not put them there, then how did they get there? Did the bacteria swimming in the primeval soup somehow have a genetic code for moral rules? This is hardly a reasonable explanation since natural selection allows for many different outcomes. If this were the explanation, than we would all have different basic codes of what is “right and wrong�. The only reasonable explanation for this basic awareness of “right and wrong� is that it was put into all of us by design.

Conclusion

JL claims at the end of his statement that he was a very devout christian before he became an atheist and that he also had many “religious� experiences. My question to JL is, did you merely have “religious� experiences or did you have real experiences with a real God? The personal experiences I spoke of in my previous statement were not little tingly feelings in church, religious ceremonies, an occasional answered prayer, a word spoken over me, or even prayer and fellowship with my brothers in Christ. The personal experiences I spoke of were undeniable instances where I saw and heard things that were “by the laws of nature� impossible and could only be explained by the claims of the Bible. Did you have those James Lazarus? I doubt it, for if you had really encountered God or the supernatural, then you would not be able to deny that they exist. It’s like telling a man who has flown, that he can’t fly. If I felt necessary, I could reveal these experiences I had, and then JL would see why the only possible explanation of these events coincides with biblical claims. However, I choose to abstain from revealing those in this debate, because it is not evidence that is verifiable by outside sources, and one would have to trust my word alone.

I believe I will end this statement with a quote of my own.

“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.� - Saint Augustine

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

James,

Please note that the deadline to post your next statement has passed. The rules permit a grace period, however, extending your deadline to Dec. 17. It should also be noted that this is the third time in the debate that you've missed a deadline. Please try to be cognizant of your 3 week time limits in future rounds.

Thank you for your consideration,

- NS, FD Moderator

[Jim Lazarus]

A Dedication

A few weeks ago, something happened that had a serious impact on me. It has proven very difficult to deal with for dozens of people, and for a person who usually doesn’t know when to stop talking, I was struck silent for a long time. In early November, an online correspondent and friend of mine, Allan Glenn, passed away in a hospital surrounded by his family and loved ones. Allan was a great individual, and a great freethinker, who was able to use his humour and his sensibility to break free from many irrational ideas. I would like to dedicate my time and thoughts in this debate to his memory, and to his friends and his fiancé, who are certainly some of the strongest and most compassionate people that I’ve had the honour to come into contact with. I can only hope that what I say here constitutes a worthwhile offering for Allan, and that he would find my thoughts agreeable.

With this said, let’s dive back into things.

Introduction

By now, anyone who is reasonably well informed on the subjects that CG and I have been discussing can see that CG’s case in dwindling rapidly. Examples that support this are plentiful. CG, for instance, has continued to deny the fact that Tyre exists to this day. Any historian worth his salt understands otherwise. CG has also failed to address a number of serious criticisms against points that were crucial to his opening case, including his sections on miraculous scientific knowledge in the Bible, and its archaeological and historical reliability. For the philosopher, CG’s appeal to free-will as an answer to evil and dysteleology may inevitably be met by raised-eyebrows. The criticisms against Plantinga’s free-will theodicy have been presented in hundreds of publications, and many theistic philosophers have subsequently shopped elsewhere for an answer to the argument from evil, or have simply given up and become skeptical that we can ever know an answer to the problem. CG also makes a number of factual and argumentative mistakes in his last statement – unaware, for instance, that Nebuchadnezzar II has also been referred to as Nebuchadrezzar II, and in fact most professional historical texts that you might read about Nebuchadrezzar often refer to him by this name instead of CG’s preferred ‘nezzar’ (see Callahan 1996; Carrier 2005). From an argumentative standpoint, CG has failed to understand the conditions that he needs to meet in order to establish the thesis that he is arguing for – specifically, that Chris