Lunatic, Liar, Lord, Legend, Logical Leap: What evidence or logic is so compelling that we are willing to believe accounts of Jesus’ miracles? – Guest Post by Thor Odhner

In making my way through Neil’s thorough response to Price’s book and starting to address his arguments individually, I found myself dissatisfied with the discussion, and asking why the whole debate seemed irrelevant to me.  I just don’t feel particularly intrigued by Price’s angle of attack here because it seems to be targeting only a particular subset of Christians – those who believe so strongly in the complete inerrancy of the Bible and the historical reporting of Jesus’ life and works that any compelling evidence that some minute details of the New Testament have been inserted, tampered with, fabricated, etc. would require them to re-examine their entire worldview.

The thing is, many Christians believe that Christ was the son of God, and directs and maintains the gospel through some divine protection so that it is maintained in essence, but that the particular facts and figures of a book that’s been sliced and diced and translated and committee-ized and editorialized throughout history aren’t really all that important.  The religion of my upbringing teaches that both the Old and New Testaments contain an internal sense – the true and direct revelation – that was only fully revealed and documented as of 350 years ago or so.

It would seem, then, that the most important distinction here is, If Jesus existed, was he more than simply human, and did he do things no human can do? This is the only detail of this debate I’m actually interested in discussing.  Why? Because, if the answer is, “No.” then none of the other aspects of this discussion really matter beyond mundane, academic debate, do they?

Now, one very popular line of reason used to discuss the possible ways to regard the Biblical Jesus is the “Lunatic, Liar, or Lord” trilemma popularized by C. S. Lewis and referred to by Neil on this blog at times.  To me, depending on exactly what point you’re trying to make, this reasoning can represent the laziest form of “false trichotomy”.   The explanation for Jesus that I find by far the most probable, the one held by the majority of secular Biblical scholars and historians, and the one held by the Jesus Seminar – that Jesus of the Bible was a legend, whether or not some aspects of the legend are taken from a historical figure – is not represented here.

To me, the “Liar” option is irrelevant, as we have never heard a single word directly from Jesus.  All we know about what he said was recounted by others, and could have been fabricated second hand.  And why does it matter what he said about himself?  If he really DID all of the things that are attributed to him (walking on water, raising the dead) then as far as I’m concerned, the portion of the debate I care about (does that kind of supernatural power exist) is settled.

The “Lunatic” bit is not really too fair either.  That harsh label is not very consistent with how secularists and those with differing religious beliefs view contemporary claims of religious experience.  My grandfather is one of the greatest, most moral men I know.  He is one of my biggest sources of comfort and guidance when I’m grappling with a moral issue.  He’s also been a priest/bishop his entire adult life, describes vividly his relationship and communications with the Lord, and converses regularly with his dead wife.  I assure you, he is not a lunatic.  I don’t think Neil would find him to be a lunatic, even though his claims probably don’t match up with the interpretation of Christianity that Neil subscribes to.  He’s a good human being who has a certain context through which he interprets his internal experiences – that’s pretty normal.

If we can excuse and identify with people who hold such beliefs about their own experiences today, when folks can be expected to know quite a bit about brain chemistry, consciousness, etc. how much more so can we understand and excuse such self-analysis by a figure living in Jesus’ time?

Now, I’m confident that Neil is well aware that this LLL trilemma only even begins to be worth discussing once we have established that Jesus of the Bible really existed, and that he actually taught and said and DID(!) all of the things attributed to him.  This is probably why he’s focusing his attention on the historicity of the New Testament.

This brings me back to my original point… what aspects of the New Testament need to be demonstrated as historically accurate before we can move on to follow-up questions like whether Jesus was truly the Son of God?  Surely, this ALL hinges on the miracles attributed to Jesus.  Take those away, and the story is easily believable, whether or not it’s true.  Sure, there are juicy politics and moral teachings and an interesting plot, but legend or fact, it’s still no more worth focusing on than any other story without those miracles.

So before we can move anywhere else, I propose that the case must be made that:

Based on all evidence and records available, it is more reasonable/logical/prudent to believe that Jesus accomplished the miracles ascribed to him than it is to believe that these claims are mere legend.

So what would it take to convincingly make that case? We are all free to judge the evidence and arguments however we like, so I’ll just speak for myself.

I look around the world today and see many examples of people making extraordinary claims.  There is no shortage of supposed miracle workers.  Ah, but do others testify to the authenticity of these miracles and claim to have witnessed them first hand?  In most cases, yes.  Almost always, there is a lack of determinative evidence one way or the other to verify or falsify the claims.  And remember that in these cases, we’re often only a couple of days, weeks, or years out!  And we have modern science and detection technology and molecular analysis, etc. on our side!  If someone says, “This wine used to be water.” all we can really analyze is whether the substance presented is now wine.  In almost every case, the entire question hinges completely on whether the claims of supposed witnesses, first-hand or otherwise, are enough to persuade us that something extraordinary, and seemingly contradictory to all of our experiences has occurred.

Also, we are usually not simply being asked to believe that something unprecedented occurred; rather than being able to search the universe and look for a way to explain this claimed occurrence, we are additionally asked to believe that this departure from all known experience was and intentional action on the part of a being of superior knowledge and ability to what we have encountered.  The explanation is packaged with the event as one claim.

This is an important distinction.  If an apple were to detach from a tree, but fail to fall to the ground, we would certainly be amazed and shaken to the core, but we’d then set out to look for reasonable explanations and expect to learn something new to incorporate into our understanding of the universe for a more comprehensive picture of how things work.  The claimed event and the claimed explanation (often MORE far-fetched than the claimed event itself) each require consideration and compound the improbability of the claim.

So from what position can we determine that this particular far-fetched story and companion explanation – conveniently tucked in the distant past, with relatively few individuals reported as having ever claimed to be first-hand witnesses, and with the people of that time having hardly a shadow of our current understanding of science, the universe, and what is possible – bears believing over the countless other extraordinary stories we are barraged with every day and dismiss as faulty reporting?

I must say that I have not encountered any evidence or logic that even tickles my curiosity as to whether these claims might be accurate.  I did, however, accept most of these claims as true for most of my life, but that was when my only requirement for belief was, “Might this be true?” and not “Why ought I expect that this is true and not false?” Noting this switch in my own approach, I am not in the least bit surprised or persuaded by the fact that so many still harbor such beliefs.

I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts, comments, responses, etc.  I’m particularly interested in whether anyone has some communicable logic or evidence that they feel warrants acceptance of these claims that otherwise seem so preposterously far-fetched against the backdrop of our experiences.

Thor