Glenn Morton wrote:
> 1/24/00
>
> George wrote:
> > This may seem like a tedious recounting of the obvious. The
> point
> >is that while we do not have "verifiable" physical data about Jesus of the
> sort
> >we have about the Chicxulub event, we do have evidence of the sort that
> >historians usually have to be satisfied with and which in fact they
> routinely
> >use.
>
> But with the flood we should have EXACTLY the physical evidence that we have
> about the Chicxulub event. Yet you find my search for verification of that
> event 'strange'. Yet inconsistently, you admit that we should have such data
> for a physical event. The flood was a physical event. But when faced with
> the falsification of the Mesopotamian flood view, Christians strangely
> decide it is true in spite of the falsification.
>
> & here you'll see the reason for my "sensitivity" to which you referred
> >above, sensitivity which is not simply personal. If you think that the
> "logic"
> >of presenting the supportive evidence which I've sketched is equivalent to
> that
> >of claiming that the gospel accounts make Jesus' crucifixion "automatically
> >true" & therefore reject it, then I have nothing further to say.
>
> George, all I am asking for is evidence supporting your claim that we don't
> have fideism and you can't seem to give it. We can have all the evidence
> for Jesus' life, but that doesn't make him God. Agreed? So we can't verify
> that and we must simply believe--fideism. But some events in Scripture are
> capable of physical verification. Why is it that you find it very strange
> that one would want to verify an account of a physical event spoken of in
> the Bible in every respects similar to Chicxulub in its
> verifiabilty/falsifiability? Especially given the need to simply believe the
> rest of the theology? Only physical events can be verified. The wonderful
> meaning to life and grand theology of Christianity which we say we have
> can't be verified. So why not try to verify the physical events like the
> Exodus or Flood?
>
> > Of course the claims about the resurrection raise harder
> questions.
> >Let me know the extent to which you're with me so far and we'll see if it's
> >worth proceeding further.
>
> You don't need to be condescending. Carry on or don't as you see fit. You
> are the one who started this thread. I declined to pursue this issue in that
> first note you sent by saying I didn't want to have another round at this.
> But then you sent the second note.
1) I did not start this as "another round at this" as I have already
explained. It is you who have turned it into a reset of the same old thing. I
won't say it's been a waste of time, however, because it's made it much clearer
why you're so fixated on the flood.
2) What I have said is "strange" about your arguments concerning the
flood is not that it might be verified but that you think it provides a better
way of supporting belief in the resurrection than does examination of evidence
which might actually be connected with the resurrection.
3) You ask "for ... evidence supporting [my] claim that we don't have
fideism." Actually I've never used the word "fideism." What I've said is that
there is evidence supportive of basic Christian claims about the life, death,
and resurrection of Jesus, and that the Christian teaching that Jesus is God
Incarnate is best able to make sense of this evidence together with basic facts
of human experience and our knowledge of the world. Evidence and reason are
involved in these claims so it is not "fideism" in the sense in which you use
the word. But there is in a sense a "leap of faith" since it is impossible to
_prove_ that Jesus is God Incarnate simply by reasoning from historical or
scientific evidence. Nor to my knowledge has any competent theologian ever said
that it is possible to prove the divinity of Christ in that way.
4) When I asked if you were with me I was not condescendingly enquiring
if you understood what I had said, but trying to see if there was enough
agreement to make it worthwhile for me to continue. But it's obvious that
there's no point in continuing.
Shalom,
George
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Jan 24 2001 - 20:06:15 EST