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September 20, 2009

Comments

Paul Goings

Dr Toedt,

I think that the classical response to this claim is that "the vicissitudes of human perception and memory" are overcome by what has been referred to as the guidance of the Holy Spirit. While you might respond that this assumes facts not in evidence, I think that you would be in danger of painting yourself into a corner epistemologically. It would, in the end, depend on what you yourself choose to assert as the definitions of "facts" and "in evidence." If your definitions are not the same as those of the reasserters, then to state that their argument--regarding the actions of the Holy Spirit--is inadequate is essentially a meaningless statement, because it proceeds from an unshared axiomatic understanding of reality.

Last Tuesday-ism, for example, is philosophically consistent and fully explains our shared understanding of reality, physical and otherwise, provided that one accepts certain first principles. To reject this understanding requires the acceptance of a different set of first principles, which by definition are themselves facts not in evidence.

Thus, to reject the claims about the veracity of the New Testament accounts is simply to prefer one set of axioms to another; there is no purely objective basis for doing so. So arguments about memory and oral tradition are seemingly secondary; the real question is one of belief or unbelief regarding divine action in this reality. If one rejects such a claim, then the reliability of the New Testament is an interesting academic question, but probably not much more than that; if one accepts the claim, then the issue of human mental frailty is easily dealt with.

D. C. Toedt

@Paul Goings, thanks for the thoughtful comment. You sound, however, like the kind of post-modern relativist that the reasserters love to hate.

You say:


... to state that [the reasserters'] argument--regarding the actions of the Holy Spirit--is inadequate is essentially a meaningless statement, because it proceeds from an unshared axiomatic understanding of reality.

I'd like to think I don't have a lot of axioms about reality. In fact, I've spent a good deal of time over the years trying to identify assertions that I've inappropriately made into axioms.

I guess anti-solipsism is axiomatic for me: the supposition that there is indeed a reality other than (what I think of as) my own mind.

Otherwise, I put my trust — provisionally — in observations that can be corroborated (e.g., by repeatability, or by confirming testimony from other observers). I want some reason to think it likely that a putative observation is more than just the product of someone's imagination or wishful thinking.

I also put my trust — again, provisionally — in mental models that seem successfully to explain and predict.

-------------

You write:


... to reject the claims about the veracity of the New Testament accounts is simply to prefer one set of axioms to another; there is no purely objective basis for doing so.

I disagree completely, for reasons I've written about extensively in the Distortions category.

Thanks again for visiting.

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