Re: Statement from Gary Habermas

A sidebar on this: IMO an institution that doesn't give earned doctorates
doesn't have business giving honorary ones. I realize that this would
remove one way that some colleges reward big donors but so it goes.

Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ted Davis" <tdavis@messiah.edu>
To: <glennmorton@entouch.net>; <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 8:27 AM
Subject: Re: Statement from Gary Habermas

> The flap over Dr Habermas' DD is understandable, given the long and
> frankly
> deplorable history of fundamentalists (including some prominent
> creationists
> such as Kent Hovind) giving degrees to one another in less than rigorous
> ways. I've written about this with regard to "Doctor Harry Rimmer,
> scientist" (who never completed a degree at any college or university and
> was a scientist only in the minds of those who gave ear to him) in my
> whale
> story (available on the ASA website), and James Moore has also discussed
> this in an essay on creationism that he wrote at least 20 years ago.
> Given
> this history, I say, I think the questions about the DD were legitimate.
>
> At the same time, however, Dr. Habermas is IMO an excellent scholar. I
> share his view that the resurrection was an actual historical event--in
> contradiction to what John Haught said on the witness stand in Harrisburg
> a
> couple of weeks ago, a camcorder would have seen the risen Christ along
> with
> Thomas and the other disciples; the fact that the camcorder had no faith
> is
> irrelevant to the facts. If Habermas was instrumental in getting Anthony
> Flew finally to admit that there might be a God--however remote and
> impersonal such a God might be--and that the resurrection is better
> evinced
> than any other key religious stories he can think of, is not IMO
> insignificant. Anyone familiar with Flew's writings on atheism and his
> attacks on biblical Christianity, esp the resurrection, can only smile at
> the irony. One does hope for more. At least it's a step in the right
> direction.
>
> Ted
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 18 11:40:21 2005