As the Third Christian Millennium dawns, the Caribbean is at kairos: the nexus of opportunity and risk. In light of the Christocentric fulness theme of Ephesians 4:9 - 24, perspectives and counsel will be offered to support reformation, transformation and blessing towards a truly sustainable future under God.
One of the most pernicious errors we have made in our time is to have sidelined natural law thinking (as well as the possibility of objective moral knowledge). For, the core of such knowable first law is self-evident, so universal for rational, responsible, significantly free creatures. This offers a framework to soundly, prudently guide governance, policy, legislation, regulation and reformation. By sidelining these things, we have opened the door to unsoundness and to a nihilistic chaos where might and manipulation make "right" and "rights." So, we need to restore soundness, as a basis for reformation. But, that will require building a critical mass coalition . . .
How can we proceed?
First, even Christians have by and large forgotten the endorsement of such core natural law thinking in the Bible -- and its context. As a reminder, we may examine Rom 2 and 13, where the apostle Paul addresses the church in the Capital:
Rom 2: 14 For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: 15 Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another . . . .
13: 8 Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
In effect, the apostle here recognises that it is an empirical fact that people are morally governed, and that on principles that are recognisably related to the Hebraic decalogue. He holds that this is so because a core of moral government is built into us, reflected in how our consciences guide our conflicting thought. Such can be sidelined or disregarded, leading to hardness of heart and benumbed consciences, but it is certainly there.
One context for this is the summary on law made by Cicero as he made a precis of Greco-Roman thinking:
He highlights principles that we can tease out to yield seven basic first duties, which are branch on which we all sit first principles, thus they are self-evident. How can we know this? Simple, in order to have traction, objections invariably appeal to the same cluster of principles, directly or indirectly. We doubt truth, reasonableness, warrant, prudence, fairness, etc, for instance; implying these self-same duties. The attempt to deny or dismiss is instantly self referentially absurd.
Already, this has established moral knowledge as having an objective core. However, it is advisable to deal with the wider context of entrenched radical relativism. To do so, let us consider claims and consequences:
~k: there is no objective moral knowledge
but:
~k*: this is implied to be an objective, known claim about any claimed moral knowledge, domain M
so, then:
~k**: the claim ~k is about M and properly belongs to it,
however:
~k***: ~k is self referential and self-defeating, so
___________________________________
k: by denial, ~[~k] = k is true. There is objective moral knowledge.
This also extends to any reasonably identifiable general domain of study, G. The attempt to deny objectively warranted knowledge implicitly holds itself objective and warranted, and so refutes itself. Radical relativism is self-defeating.
We may now turn this to address the major 7M institutions:
For example:
In our basic thinking and training, in church, family and issues debate, we must acknowledge and inculcate first moral truths, duties and the intelligible built-in law
In education, we need to hammer out the principles and acknowledge them, exposing radical relativism as error, also defending wider objectivity of knowledge
In Law, government, governance and politics, we need to reform statutory and legal thinking to be informed by core principles.
In the media, arts, entertainment etc, this needs to be respected
The same holds, for business, finance, science & technology etc.
This is important, but so entrenched is error, that this is an uphill task. To our shame! END
It is not so much that others "must prove" the reality of God to one's satisfaction (and there is little or no "evidence" for him . . . ), but instead, that we need to humble ourselves enough to acknowledge that we need God, and that we need redemption. That is almost the opposite of the approach of the past few hundred years, but it is in fact precisely the approach of the Scriptures, especially Rom 1. Let us now explore . . .
For starters, while I agree that the centuries old traditional "proofs" for God are not up to the standard, say, of the proof that the diagonal of a square is incommensurate with its sides, I suggest, it is wrong-headed (perhaps, even arrogant or irresponsible) to use such to try to put believers in God on the back foot, defending an imagined sticky wicket. For in fact, that lack of classic geometric rigour is true of ever so many domains of common sense and professional or academic knowledge that only a truly ill-advised person would question, in engineering, in the sciences, in management, in medicine, in statistics, in history (and in law courts), etc. Indeed, post Godel and his incompleteness theorems, we know no mathematical axiomatisation strong enough to cover say Arithmetic will be complete and coherent, and that there is no constructive proof that even an incomplete axiomatisation is consistent.
That's why we distinguish adequate warrant for a weak sense, commonplace knowledge from establishment of utter incorrigible certainty: Knowledge in effect is warranted, credibly true (and so reliable) belief. So, common sense, what the people mean, knowledge is a responsible judgement not an assertion of utter, incorrigible certainty delivered by some new magisterium, whether dressed in lab coats or not; if a claim is shown unreliable, it will lose credibility and we will freely admit, we were mistaken. That is, all of us must in the end live by faith; the question is which one, why -- how can it be reasonable, responsible, reliable well grounded faith. To adapt Dallas Willard's framing:
To have knowledge . . . is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”) [--> compare, "warranted, credibly true (and so, reliable) belief"] This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life [--> knowledge belongs to the people], and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric . . . .
[K]nowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with. Knowledge involves assured [--> I substitute here, warranted, credible] truth . . . [pp. 4, 19 & 20: Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge| Taylor& Francis Group, 2018.]
Once we are willing to recognise such, it becomes instantly clear that the true point of balance is that we need God and should be willing to acknowledge and walk with him. In the haunting words of Micah:
Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man,
what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
Similarly, Jeremiah warns us:
Jer 2: 13 For my people have committed two evils;
they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters,
and hewed them out cisterns,
broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
The silent, unanswerable, elephant in the room fact
As we saw last time, it is equally ill advised to dismiss the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth, or the basic validity of the C1, New Testament accounts of his life. Similarly, it is clear that the witness and record of that first Christian generation, is that he is Messiah, God's anointed one who fulfilled the key, then centuries old prophecies, including rising from the dead with 500 witnesses. Where, as a striking instance, on trial for his life c. 59 AD, the former chief harrier of the church and now apostle Paul of Tarsus challenged his judges, why does it seem inconceivable that God (author and sustainer of life) should raise the dead? When challenged, your great learning has driven you mad, he replied that his words were true and reasonable as the matter "was not done in a corner." He then turned to Agrippa and called him as expert witness. Agrippa ducked the bouncer, implicitly acknowledging the force of what Morison called a silent, unanswerable fact; the elephant in the room.
To help us clarify, let us consider an extension of the Oracle concept in theory of computing:
Here, we see the issue that computing by Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) limited substrates is just that: limited, facing for example the halting problem. However, converting to a decision challenge, if a reliable oracle can render decisions, the power of a computing entity is drastically enhanced. Closely linked, is the point that computation is not contemplation, it is a dynamic-stochastic process that -- based on the organisation of its components -- mechanically processes input and stored information, creating outputs. This is why GIGO holds, as the mechanical processing depends on the quality of inputs, stored information, functional organisation and programming (or patching [for analogue computers] or weighting [for neural networks]), there is no inherent "does this make sense" oracle to provide quality assurance; nor is computation a free, responsible reasoned process, it is programmed action haunted by GIGO. So, self-referentiality lurks, if we are free enough to reason and warrant knowledge, our minds must be oracle machines, there is something beyond the brain as blindly programmed, GIGO-limited neural network computer. Mind, or even soul. Which opens the door to, greatest, unlimited mind.
That's also why J B S Haldane long ago warned:
It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms. In order to escape from this necessity of sawing away the branch on which I am sitting, so to speak, I am compelled to believe that mind is not wholly conditioned by matter.” ["When I am dead," in Possible Worlds: And Other Essays [1927], Chatto and Windus: London, 1932, reprint, p.209.]
Further to that, our responsible rational freedom is also inescapably morally governed, as we may recall from the Ciceronian, branch- on- which- we- all- sit, first duties:
Then, as we ponder logic of being, we will readily recall that a contingent cosmos points to a necessary being world root. One, that is capable of founding creatures like us that are morally governed. For, we operate on both sides of the is-ought gap: truth is about being correct on what is (or is not), and ought is about doing what is right, good, honourable, prudent, virtuous, loving, kind etc. (so the right things are put in place). Where, this brings us back to Cicero's "highest reason." Yes, it means, our rationality is itself governed by a built-in, intelligible first law, requiring duties to truth, right reason, prudence (including warrant), sound conscience, neighbour, so too, fairness and justice, etc. And, after Hume, we recognise, the is-ought gap can only be bridged in the root of reality, or we have ungrounded ought.
That's why the necessary being world root/source needs to be inherently good and utterly wise (which, BTW, implies, personal . . . yes, God has entered, stage right).
Hence, too, we see the only serious candidate, reality root necessary being (just try to put up another _____ and explain why it bridges the gap ______ while being coherent _______ . . . a tall, unfilled order -- no atheist or skeptic has ever put up a good alternative).
Namely, we see here:
The inherently good, utterly wise Creator-Sustainer God, a necessary and maximally great being; one, worthy of our fealty, and of the honourable, responsible, reasonable service of doing the good that accords with our evident nature. (That is, the Good, True, Wise God of ethical theism.)
Which, sounds quite familiar (and, for many who are even noddingly familiar with the Bible, this is recognisably close to the God of the Bible).
That screaming noise is atheists trying to get off the hook and burning the drag hard.
Won't work.
First, we really need a necessary being as world/reality root. A causal-temporal, thermodynamically constrained world cannot be past-infinite. For, every actual past year has to succeed year by year to this one, and you cannot traverse an explicit or implicit transfinite span in finite stage steps. And begging the question of transfinite traverse by asserting that at any given year y, the traverse was already completed (as I have seen) or the like, is an obvious logical boo-boo.
That is, once a contingent world now is, something -- the reality root capable of causing worlds -- always was. Similarly, once the world has morally governed creatures . . . us, for starters . . . we need a root capable of founding goodness and oughtness (which, BTW, reduces the problem of evil to due perspective, an issue WITHIN a world with God as root). We really do need an inherently good, utterly wise necessary being at the root.
Just for those unfamiliar with the logic of being, remember 2 + 3 = 5, or just the 2 part, never began, cannot cease from being, holds everywhere, every-when, in any possible world. Yes, eternity and reality root issues lurked in even our 1,2,3's in elementary school. So, as a reminder -- as "modern" education leaves a huge gap here, tabulating on possible/impossible being:
Yes, we clearly need God.
God, powerful enough to build worlds and unique enough that he is creator of all worlds: maximally great, supreme being. So good and so wise as to found moral government and creatures capable of freedom, love, truth, reason, knowledge, duty, honour, virtue. Us.
And yes, atheism and its associates are dead. Its ardent supporters just don't know it yet.
We need God. END
PS, next time, we will turn to the natural, intelligible, built-in, creation order first law, as foundational to urgently needed reformation -- or else, we are heading over the cliff. Moretime.
During his trial before Pilate, Jesus had an exchange about truth that haunts our civilisation down to today:
Jn 18: 33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?”
35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”
36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?”
Jesus answered,
“You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world— to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
Indeed, what is truth?
First, it is not power or popularity, as we can see from what happened next:
Jn 18:After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him. 39 But you have a custom that I should release one man for you at the Passover. So do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 40 They [= the assembled crowd] cried out again, “Not this man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber . . .
Second, we have yet to beat Aristotle in Metaphysics, 1011b: "truth says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not." (And yes, this extends to truthfulness as core to one's character; there is a reason why Jesus is THE teacher of our civilisation.)
Jesus is on further record (along with his apostles) on the substance of THE truth:
Indeed, as he was about to be judicially murdered by Nero (c. 65 AD, on a false charge of treasonous arson against Rome), the leading apostle, Peter, went on final record:
2 Pet 1:13 I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, 14 since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.
21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Now, since it is too often suggested that by referring to the NT we are using biased and unreliable, Christian
sources [that name often being pronounced as an epithet], it is worth
the while to now pause a moment and cite Paul Barnett's summary of the
record of early non-Christian sources on the basic facts of the early Christian movement and particularly the existence of Jesus as an historical figure:
On
the basis of . . . non-Christian sources [i.e. Tacitus (Annals, on the fire in
Rome, AD 64; written ~ AD 115), Rabbi Eliezer (~ 90's AD; cited J. Klausner, Jesus
of Nazareth (London: Collier-Macmillan, 1929), p. 34), Pliny (Letters to Trajan
from Bithynia, ~ AD 112), Josephus
(Antiquities, ~ 90's)] it is possible to draw the following conclusions:
Jesus Christ was executed (by crucifixion?) in Judaea during the period where
Tiberius was Emperor (AD 14 - 37) and Pontius Pilate was Governor (AD 26 - 36).
[Tacitus]
The movement spread from Judaea to Rome. [Tacitus]
Jesus
claimed to be God and that he would depart and return. [Eliezer]
His
followers worshipped him as (a) god. [Pliny]
He
was called "the Christ." [Josephus]
His
followers were called "Christians." [Tacitus, Pliny]
They
were numerous in Bithynia and Rome [Tacitus, Pliny]
It was a world-wide movement. [Eliezer]
His
brother was James. [Josephus]
[Is
the New Testament History? (London, Hodder, 1987), pp. 30 - 31. Cf. McDowell & Wilson, He Walked Among Us (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1993) for more details; free for download here.]
Next, here -- as I pointed out recently -- is Paul, on trial for his life c 59 AD, addressing dubious a prioris and actually calling his judge as expert witness . . . who ducks the bouncer:
Ac 26: 2 “I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am going to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews, 3 especially because you are familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.
4 “My manner of life from my youth, spent from the beginning among my own nation and in Jerusalem, is known by all the Jews. 5 They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest party of our religion I have lived as a Pharisee.
6 And now I stand here on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers [--> prophecies, esp. Isa 53], 7 to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by Jews, O king!
8 Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God [= creator & sustainer of life: "in him we live, and move and have our being"] raises the dead? . . . .
24 And as he was saying these things in his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are out of your mind; your great learning is driving you out of your mind.”
25 But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking true and rational words. 26 For the king knows about these things, and to him I speak boldly. For I am persuaded that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this has not been done in a corner.
27 King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”
28 And Agrippa said to Paul, “In a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?” [--> ducks] 29 And Paul said, “Whether short or long, I would to God that not only you but also all who hear me this day might become such as I am—except for these chains.”
This is masterfully picked up, c. 1930, by eagle-eyed English Barrister
Frank Morison in his well-known book:
[N]ow the peculiar
thing . . . is that not only did [belief in Jesus' resurrection
as in part testified to by the empty tomb] spread to every member
of the Party of Jesus of whom we have any trace, but they brought
it to Jerusalem and carried it with inconceivable audacity into
the most keenly intellectual centre of Judaea . . . and in the
face of every impediment which a brilliant and highly organised
camarilla could devise. And they won. Within twenty years
the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish
Church and impressed itself upon every town on the Eastern
littoral of the Mediterranean from Caesarea to Troas. In less
than fifty years it had began to threaten the peace of the Roman
Empire . . . .
Why did it win? . . . .
We have to account
not only for the enthusiasm of its friends, but for the paralysis
of its enemies and for the ever growing stream of new converts .
. . When we remember what certain highly placed personages would
almost certainly have given to have strangled this movement at
its birth but could not - how one desperate expedient after
another was adopted to silence the apostles, until that veritable
bow of Ulysses, the Great Persecution, was tried and broke in
pieces in their hands [the chief persecutor became the leading C1
Missionary/Apostle!] - we begin to realise that behind all these
subterfuges and makeshifts there must have been a silent,
unanswerable fact. [Who Moved the Stone, (Faber, 1971; nb.
orig. pub. 1930), pp. 114 - 115.]
Similarly, N T Scholar Craig Evans, answering the seeping miasma of suspicion spread by the Jesus Seminar and ilk, speaks to the subtle verisimilitude of especially the Gospels (where, too, Luke-Acts has long since been respected for its habitually careful, accurate historicity):
The
story told in the New Testament Gospels—in contrast to the greatly embellished
versions found in the [C2, Gnostic] Gospel of Peter and other writings— smacks of verisimilitude.
The women went to the tomb to mourn privately and to perform duties fully in step
with Jewish burial customs. They expected to find the body of Jesus; ideas of
resurrection were the last thing on their minds. The careful attention given the
temporary tomb is exactly what we should expect. Pious fiction—like that seen
in the Gospel of Peter— would emphasize other things. Archaeology can neither
prove nor disprove the resurrection, but it can and has shed important light on
the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ death, burial, and missing corpse
[--> where, for example, in 1968, an ossuary with the bones of Yehohanan son of Hagakol -- a crucified man -- definitively settled the fact that a victim of such horrific torture-execution could indeed be honourably buried according to Hebraic custom, prior skeptical sneers otherwise notwithstanding]
. . . . Research
in the historical Jesus has taken several positive steps in recent years. Archaeology,
remarkable literary discoveries, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and progress in
reassessing the social, economic, and political setting of first-century Palestine
have been major factors.
Notwithstanding the eccentricities and skepticism of
the Jesus Seminar, the persistent trend in recent years is to see the Gospels
as essentially reliable, especially when properly understood, and to view the
historical Jesus in terms much closer to Christianity’s traditional understanding,
i.e., as proclaimer of God’s rule, as understanding himself as the Lord’s anointed,
and, indeed, as God’s own son, destined to rule Israel. But this does not mean
that the historical Jesus that has begun to emerge in recent years is simply a
throwback to the traditional portrait. The picture of Jesus that has emerged is
more finely nuanced, more obviously Jewish, and in some ways more unpredictable
than ever. The last word on the subject has not been written and probably never
will be. Ongoing discovery and further investigation will likely force us to make
further revisions as we read and read again the old Gospel stories and try to
come to grips with the life of this remarkable Galilean Jew.
Is it, then, any surprise to see the impact of the up to a dozen minimal facts granted by the majority of academic scholarship on the subject, as Habermas reports:
The point of this, is to look at well attested, well-grounded, widely accepted facts that are "a game-changer."
For, if these facts are so, there is but
one really good explanation for them, the well-warranted truth of the
core gospel message. The good news:
i: of God who so loved us that
ii: he gave his one and only Eternal Son as our Saviour,
iii: who died on a cross for our sins,
iv: was buried, rose, was seen of altogether 500 witnesses, and
v: who commissioned the church to go forth to all nations and all generations with that good news, and
vi: to thereby call us all to repentance, trust in Christ, and a new life of discipleship.
vii: All of us, no exceptions.
And, once that is grounded as
well-warranted, bedrock foundation truth, the compelling force of truth
and our patent duty to face the truth at the heart of the Christian
Faith and message and live by it then changes everything.
Everything.
So, as Paul said, this is "of first importance."
Thus, the method is potentially decisive.
The method, in a nutshell -- and Greenleaf's remarks are also highly relevant, is:
The minimal facts
method only uses sources which are multiply attested, and agreed to
by a majority of scholars (ranging from atheist to conservative).
This requires that they have one or more of the following criteria
which are relevant to textual criticism:
Multiple
sources - If two or more sources attest to the same fact, it is more
likely authentic
Enemy
attestation - If the writers enemies corroborate a given fact, it is
more likely authentic
Principle
of embarrassment - If the text embarrasses the writer, it is more
likely authentic Eyewitness
testimony - First hand accounts are to be preferred
Early
testimony - an early account is more likely accurate than a later
one
Having first
established the well attested facts, the approach then argues that
the best explanation of these agreed to facts is the
resurrection of Jesus Christ . . . . [Source: "Minimal
facts" From
Apologetics Wiki. Full article: here. (Courtesy, Wayback Machine.)]
Why is that so?
The easiest answer is to simply list the
facts that meet the above criteria and are accepted by a majority to an
overwhelming majority of recent and current scholarship after centuries
of intense debate:
1. Jesus died by crucifixion [--> which implies his historicity!].
2. He was buried.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).
6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.
7. The resurrection was the central message.
8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
9. The Church was born and grew.
10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.
11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic).
12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic).
[Cf. Habermas' paper here and a broader more popular discussion here. NT Wright's papers here and here give a rich and deep background analysis. Here is a video of a pastoral presentation of a subset of the facts. Habermas presents the case as videos here and here, in two parts. Here is a video of a debate he had with Antony Flew.]
The list of facts is in some respects fairly obvious.
That a Messiah candidate was captured, tried and crucified -- as Gamaliel hinted at
-- was effectively the death-knell for most such movements in Israel in
the era of Roman control; to have to report such a fate was normally embarrassing and discrediting to the extreme in a shame-honour culture.
The Jews of C1 Judaea wanted a victorious Greater David to defeat the
Romans and usher in the day of ultimate triumph for Israel, not a
crucified suffering servant. In the cases where a movement continued,
the near relatives took up the mantle. That is facts 1 - 3 right there.
Facts 10 - 12 are notorious. While some (it looks like about 25% of the
survey of scholarship, from what I have seen) reject no 4, in fact it is
hard to see a message about a resurrection in C1 that did not imply
that the body was living again, as Wright discusses here. Facts 5 - 9 are again, pretty clearly grounded.
So, the challenge is to explain this
cluster or important subsets of it, without begging questions and
without selective hyperskepticism. The old Deist objections (though
sometimes renewed today) have deservedly fallen by the wayside. [Also, cf. ten video shorts on popular myths here.]
We may briefly compare:
"Theory"
Match to four major credible facts regarding Jesus of Nazareth & his Passion
Overall score/20
Died by crucifixion
(under Pontius Pilate) at Jerusalem c 30 AD
Was buried, tomb was found empty
Appeared to multiple disciples,
many of whom proclaimed
& suffered for their
faith
Appeared to key objectors who then became church leaders: James & Paul
Bodily Resurrection
5
5
5
5
20
Visions/ hallucinations
5
2
2
1
10
Swoon/recovery
1
3
2
2
8
Wrong tomb
5
1
1
1
8
Stolen body/fraud
5
2
1
1
9
Quran 4:155 -6: "They did not slay him, neither crucified him."
(I have given my scores above, based on reasoning that should be fairly obvious. As an exercise you
may want to come up with your own scores on a 5 - 1 scale: 5 = v. good/
4 = good/ 3 = fair/ 2 = poor/ 1 = v. poor, with explanations. Try out blends of the common skeptical theories to see how they would fare.)
In short, the choice is between an unprecedented mass, in-common hallucination and "why should it seem incredible that God raises the dead?"
Of course, for many, they are prepared to dismiss God, but (as we will see in coming days) that is not a well founded view.
This also answers to a puzzle.
For, to the millions who have this in hand (directly or from sound teachers and researchers including apologetics specialists), such warrant is good reason to hold high confidence of reliable, God given truth in Jesus and the Scriptures that prophesied him. Even if many others are dismissive or worse.
So, going forward, that will be taken as a given. END
. . . by using seven mountain mapping, to enable reformational, godly prophetic, intellectual, cultural and -- yes -- policy leadership. Oh, yes, let us continue our open letter (and, Google censors, this includes you):
Dear Caribbean and wider Intelligentsia,
There is a "shade" that for nearly a century now, haunts our world: Frankfurt School derived "critical theories" that ever since the 1970's have become increasingly dominant in the academy and so too in ideologically shaping policy through its built-in crooked yardstick thinking. Yes, it is ripe for deconstruction:
A philosophical [ --> so, by 7M analysis, worldview, cultural and policy agenda-shaping] movement and theory of literary criticism that questions
traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth [--> truth is the enemy, so we are clearly dealing with the father of lies here, so then we need exorcism!]; asserts
that words can only refer to other words [--> Kant's self-referential, self-defeating ugly gulch between our inner thought world and things in themselves also lurks*]; and attempts to demonstrate
how statements about any text [--> which includes Government policies, laws and press releases etc, not to mention Kantian texts about ugly gulches* . . . ] subvert their own meanings. [AmHD, 5th Edn, at Wordnik]
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* Words, manifestly, can refer to people, things, actions, attributes, abstract entities [the number 2], etc, as is an abundant fact of our experience. Yes, we use other words to represent these things, but even day to day experience tells us that imposing an ugly gulch is questionable. And, following F H Bradley, to claim to know there is an ugly gulch is to claim to know something about things in themselves.
Yes, too, here our ongoing betrayal of our civilisation exposes itself. Kantians and deconstructionists, self-referentiality haunts philosophical, ideological, cultural and practical/policy thinking: if ANY text is self-defeating, does not this include your own? Can it even be OBJECTIVELY TRUE AND WARRANTED that "words can only refer to other words"?
Is this not all, blatant, crooked yardstick self-defeating fallacious thinking and confusion?
And, duly exorcised, can we not start afresh?
Now, this situation is so toxic, that I need to address censorship before taking up Lord Voldemort, issues that must not be named (at least by those branded with the scarlet F: "fascist.")
And yes, the F-for-fascist scale "authoritarian personality" test was actually set up by Theodor W Adorno, one of the early critical theory practitioners.
I must note this, as, already, Google has subjected me to censorship, refusing to give a clear explanation of just what was allegedly so offensive or misleading that, without warning, they vanished a major post, Unit 2 of a systematic theology course that addressed worldviews issues. Thankfully, I had it open in another browser and with reformatting and some updates, it is now a Samizdat Book, available on request. In censoring me, the anonymous censors at Google left menacing threats for future action, creating a chilling effect. I now defy it, exposing the real censoring authoritarians. (Even as Victor Hugo's letter invited prosecution for defamation: he was of course convicted and stripped of honours, sentenced to gaol: he fled to England. In the end, he was vindicated, and Dreyfuss was released ; even after his second trial predictably found him "guilty" again. Instead, it was the military and civil authorities who were manifestly guilty, guilty, guilty.)
So, now, let me introduce Exhibit A, a right- of- fair- comment and right- of- reply markup and comment on three inadvertently telling, cat- out- of- the- bag Wikipedia articles:
1: On the "Cultural Marxism" alleged conspiracy theory
2: On the tellingly parallel article on "Western Marxism"
3: On "Critical Theory" and its roots, with as a cross-light
4: A brief excerpt on Critical Theory from Enc Brit.
This is in effect, the mother lode I intend to mine, so kindly clip it, expand and peruse it:
The road to deconstruction lies open:
1: By using question-begging, loaded language right from opening words, Wikipedia exposes how part of the critical theory approach can easily become divide and rule: those who question, object or challenge are too often perceived as evil, not just coming from another viewpoint; so, they are to be branded, stereotyped, scapegoated and pushed to the "far right" fringes of nazism. (Notice, Adorno's F Scale, F for fascism. Similarly, Stalin saw himself as the political centre and viewed anyone to his right as some sort of "fascist.")
2: By contrast, once the preferred term "Western Marxism," is put on the table, and once we see that the Frankfurt School originated "critical theory," it is admitted that the roots are indeed Marxist, and in the post WW1 context. However, the point that the Marxist expectation that that catastrophe would be the harbinger of the collapse of Capitalism failed is downplayed. This failure of theory, led to a crisis of Marxist thought and to attempts to find, what blocked the crisis, latching on to key cultural factors, institutions (e.g. the churches, education systems, the media, arts & culture) and linked values (e.g. gospel-based ethics, natural law thinking). Thus, the Frankfurt School.
3: Now, orthodox Marxism projected that Capitalism would see a cluster of crises (in industrialised societies with a proletariat), ultimately leading to collapse and the rise of socialism leading onward to the golden era of communism. It is thus inherently plausible that they would expect a great war like those of the Napoleonic era, to trigger a final crisis; and we should note, how the major power monarchies of Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary and Imperial Germany all collapsed. However, at the start of the war, the working classes flocked to the colours to defend their nations against traditional, threatening enemies leading to mass mutual slaughter of millions. The German Kaiser was pleasantly surprised to see Social Democrat MP's voting for war credits. A leading socialist, Benito Mussolini, broke away from Internationalist Socialism, to fight for Italy; the roots of fascism. Where there were radical socialist uprisings, they by and large failed. For instance, the Spartacists were ruthlessly put down in Germany. When a Hungarian radical government was established, its cultural-moral radicalism and sexual looseness alienated the working classes and when Romania invaded, the government collapsed.
4: Further contrary to Marxist expectations that Socialism would rise as a post-capitalist stage of history, it was in least industrially developed Russia that the Bolsheviks prevailed, and for the obvious reason that they overthrew Kerensky's less radical government and prevailed in a civil war. Later, in the 1930's Stalin would have a leading soviet economist, Kondratiev, shot as his long wave research indicated that the Great Depression was not the expected terminal crisis.
5: In China, again a less developed country with a weak government, Mao prevailed by civil war and led a failed industrialisation thrust, The Great Leap Forward; which cost dozens of millions their lives. Then, having been curbed by less radical leaders, his countermove was to lead the 1966 - 76 Cultural Revolution that targeted the four olds, old customs, culture, habits, and ideas.
6: In our region, Castro stood up against an unpopular dictator, Batista and only declared Communist allegiance after seizing power; indeed, from childhood, I recall reading 1950's Reader's Digest articles defending Castro and his revolutionaries from the accusation: communists.
7: All of this makes sense in light of the mapping model, where the issue is a clash between business as usual and alternative movements, with swirling worldviews, cultural and institutional issues and agendas in play. So, as Alexander Zubatov remarks in Tablet (a Jewish Magazine):
There are certain people—likely those who have never read more than a
few words of the 20th century Marxist and Marx-inspired thinkers of whom
they speak—who have argued there was an intentional, conspiratorial
plot by, inter alia, members of what was known as the
“Frankfurt School” to subvert and destroy Western high culture, dumb it
down and corrupt it from the inside out in order to seed the ground for
the coming Communist revolution [--> he specifically agrees that a significant number are antisemites etc] . . . . So what is cultural Marxism? In brief, it is a belief that cultural
productions (books, institutions, etc.) and ideas are emanations of
underlying power structures, so we must scrutinize and judge all culture
and ideas based on their relation to power. Following from this
premise, advocates for the persecuted and oppressed must attack forms of
culture that reinscribe the values of the ruling class, and disseminate
culture and ideas that support “oppressed” groups and “progressive”
causes . . . . Building upon Lukács’ ideas [a Hungarian Marxist theorist who pioneered the neo-marxist shift], the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, the
key figure in the cultural Marxist canon, developed, in the 1930s, a
more elaborate concept he called “hegemony.” For Gramsci, a war of ideas
necessarily precedes any actual war against the capitalist ruling
class. “Hegemony” is the ruling class’ use of mass culture to dominate
the masses. The elites use mass culture as armies use trenches and
fortifications to defend their core interests. A revolution, then, can
only occur after a long battle of position against these cultural
fortifications and ideological defenses. Every revolution, Gramsci
argued, is preceded by an intense period of criticism, a culture war. [In, "Just Because Anti-Semites Talk About ‘Cultural Marxism’ Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Real," Nov 29, 2018.]
8: Where, it is clear that from the 1970's on, such culture-form, [neo-]marxian theories, with their associated cultural, institutional and cultural agendas, have executed a successful "Long March through the institutions," leading to gradually becoming the new establishment. Deconstructionism and associated postmodern influences have sharply shifted worldviews, even overriding the earlier impacts of evolutionary materialistic scientism. Intersectionality and its demand for "social justice," has led to sharp cultural and policy changes, as witness homosexualisation, the invention of "same sex marriage," and the current push for transgenderism. The major media have been largely taken over by this thinking. Critical legal theory and its offshoot critical race theory have become powerfully influential on law, government, policy, politics. Diversity, equity, inclusion has been a human resources policy battering ram for many of these pushes. Huge swathes of morality are being rewritten through such processes, not to mention, history. And much more. We clearly have here, the new establishment and the question, where is Business as usual now headed, given the Acts 27 voyage of folly challenge.
9: So, when we see how it is promoted that Critical Theories are theories of liberation that address oppressive institutional and cultural structures, providing an analysis, critique and strategy to dismantle them, we would be well advised to take pause. Yes, the oppressive actions of capitalist societies and their colonisation efforts were and are real, but the orthodox Marxist attempted solution failed, costing 100 millions their lives. Repackaging the Marxist oppressor/oppressed, revolution analysis in cultural terms does not remove that trend, and we would be well advised to recognise that in 1989 - 91, Communism's east bloc collapsed for good reason, giving a new birth of freedom for many millions.
10: Further to such, as fair comment: it would be more responsible for those seeking genuine liberation, that they accept the history of Marxist influences on critical theories and frankly, fully address the further history of Marxist tyrannies and their consequences. Then, they might find it profitable to see that critique of oppression and efforts to find a better way forward are longstanding; we need not put Marx on a pedestal. Indeed, "warts and all" notwithstanding, the most successful such liberation analysis and effort on recent record is the US Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776 -- the charter for modern, democratic self government of a free people:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That
to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a
design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
for their future security.
Perhaps, then, it is time for re-thinking and reformation. More on such, next time. END
On January 13, 1898, the famed novellist Emile Zola published a powerful open letter to the President of France, J'accuse. This was because, on investigation, he realised that a Jewish French Army officer, Dreyfuss, had been framed and sent to Devil's Island unjustly on a false charge of spying for the Prussians (one that was fed by institutionalised antisemitism and hostility substituting for sound evidence).
Eventually, after much struggle, Dreyfuss was exonerated and freed, but France's justice system has forever after, been tainted by gross miscarriage of justice sustained for years on end.
And, now, as 2025 AD dawns, it is time to say, again: J'Accuse . . .!
For,
Dear Intelligentsia,
of that civilisation formerly called Christendom and dating its calendar AD, in the year of our [risen!] Lord, but now usually styled as Western Culture -- and dating CE: "the common era"; for no defensible reason, you have betrayed your duties to truth, to right reason and to warrant, so that our civilisation is now embarked on an Acts 27 voyage of folly leading to shipwreck . . .
Yes, for no good reason, you have turned your backs on the One True God, our Risen Lord and Saviour, and have professed yourselves to be bright, wise and utterly rational, even as you have turned to paths of patent, patently ruinous folly -- just as Paul warned against in Rom 1. For capital example, let us ponder for a few moments a certain utterly ill-advised bus advertising campaign of a few years back, sponsored by Richard Dawkins et al:
Yes, this joins his earlier own-goal:
Examples could be greatly multiplied . . . they are Legion . . .
Let's just give one more for the road, this time from Dan Brown:
We could trace out a lot of history, but instead, let us summarise what we face, deeply entrenched, crooked yardstick based institutionally enforced but fallacy-riddled plausibility structures. Here, let us cite Wikipedia, testifying against known ideological bent:
In sociology and especially the sociological study of religion, plausibility structures
are the sociocultural contexts for systems of meaning within which
these meanings make sense, or are made plausible. Beliefs and meanings
held by individuals and groups are supported by, and embedded in,
sociocultural institutions and processes.
The flip side of this coin, is, that dominant worldviews tend to be embedded in cultural institutions, forming a mutually reinforcing power structure: an entrenched worldview comes with a cultural agenda. That means, that for a case where business as usual is oppressive, fallacy riddled, morally bankrupt, unsustainable and perhaps outright tyrannically evil, such may be backed by entrenched power that will make alternatives seem ridiculous (or outright absurd), or may even react to them as perceived threats to those who wield power. That means, marginalisation at best, outright scapegoating and persecution at worst. That may well mean, things have to go over the cliff before change is able to advance beyond the far fringes. But, a damaged culture at the foot of a cliff is now in severe distress, struggling for survival. Ponder, how Europe struggled for the better part of a thousand years after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Hence, the discussion in sustainable development circles of a few years back, on mainstreaming backed by grant money, academic centres, projects, funding, conferences and media engagement to shift the balances of perception, power and policy-making.
In short, the much derided seven mountains of influence missiological mapping model --
yes, it is about how the gospel, discipleship, revival, answers to apologetics and ethical challenges and godly reformation may advance in a given culture given its dominant worldviews and associated cultural agendas [cf. here, Augustine's City of God against the Pagans] --
. . . is right on the money:
Where, so bad is the snide dismissiveness, that we should compare a chart by Cengage, showing key institutional frameworks for society, which lists some now very familiar institutions:
Sigh, this one is so bad, we need to look at it from another angle, macroeconomics, here using the famous five sector model:
Here, Government, families [as "households"], businesses [as "firms"] all appear explicitly. The media is a major sector, under Government and Firms. Education is again, public and private. Arts, cultural activities, entertainment and sports appear under all three. Science and Technology again appears under all three. Finance is a major sector under both the private and governmental spheres. Where, too, where big money is, creeping corruption and linked moral bankruptcy of power classes are always a threat, often ending in Ac 27 style voyages of ruinous folly for the ship of state and wider community. Ideology, philosophy, the individual and his/her identity (so, too, religion and religion-substitutes) again appear across all three -- just ask any practising politician or Newspaper Editor.
Such should be so obvious, there shouldn't be a need to belabour the point. Sadly, there is, because it is key to any sound evangelisation, discipleship and reformation strategy but is harshly spoken against "everywhere." It is denounced as far right fundy theocratic imposition. It is held to be bad charismatic movement theology. It is derided as a species of amillenialism (in a day still dominated by pre-trib, pre-mil popular theology). It is seen as American neo-colonialism, and more.
All of that is wrong: we have here a reasonable, useful mapping model originally championed by Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright, and acknowledged as valid by Francis Schaeffer. To whatever extent it might be taken up by the ill advised or imbalanced, that is no more the fault of the core point than is abuse of building drawings and maps by terrorists to be blamed on such drawings or maps. Just as, we would find it silly to see someone blaming the alphabet, grammar books and the dictionary for someone who abuses our language to promote error. (In the end, I suggest -- as a provocative hypothesis/food for thought: it is hard to escape the force of the point that this 7M mapping model/metaphor, based on obvious societal facts and developed for gospel-related analysis, is in key part objected to because it provides a vivid alternative to fundamentally [neo-]marxist views and agendas that are so deeply embedded in the Caribbean. In short, BAU vs Alt. turf war.)
Enough.
Now, let us ponder the related, Acts 27, cliff's edge problem:
When business as usual, politics as usual, government as usual, media as usual etc are heading for the cliff, it is time to find a sound alternative and turn back!
That starts, with the gospel, anchored on the Risen Christ, for Christ is our Cornerstone:
If you are struggling with the credibility of the gospel (given ever so many hyperskeptical attacks), perhaps, this video may help:
If you are struggling with the objectivity of moral truth [foundational to restoring the natural law], this may help:
If you are struggling with basic logic (yes, things are THAT bad), maybe a bright red ball -- let's call it A -- on a table might help:
We see a world W, partitioned, W = {A|~A}. Law of identity, A is itself, A, i/l/o its core characteristics. LEM: any y in W is A or else ~A, not both nor neither. LNC: no x in W is both A and ~A under the same sense and circumstances. This is for starters.
There are so many more points . . .
We could go on, but this substitute PC is a bit of a pain -- I dropped my main one and face a black screen of death, I have ordered a second screen in half a year (the original one was dying, flickering) -- so, let's pause for now, more to follow.
