Repetitive Disanalogy

I am going to reply to counter apologist on the resurrection and miracles. See his post here.

He writes "What if I told you that I believed that god raised Jesus from the dead, but that I did not believe that Jesus was the son of god, and denied that belief in his death and resurrection was the path to salvation and eternal life in reconciliation with the one true god, Yahweh.

That would just sound crazy. 

Right?"

In Christian theology, the resurrection is the vindication of Jesus' claims and message. It will be interesting to see how he argues this. 

He writes "The argument for the resurrection comes in many forms, but they all eventually come back to referencing the bible’s stories about Jesus being crucified and resurrected. They all are based on testimonial evidence for a miracle occurring in the past, and unfortunately for Christians"

1: There is a hidden premise in here. Notice he says "they all eventually come back to referencing Bible stories about Jesus being crucified and resurrected'. Well, obviously. Who else is supposed to report that the resurrection happened besides Christians? 

2: Is he not aware that Tacitus and Josephus report the crucifixion of Jesus? 

He writes "testimony can not be used in an evidential way to justify belief in a miracle claim in the world we live in"

There is a lot to say about this little sentence 

1: Assuming event M happened, I would expect someone to claim that it did happen. 

2: I need more background knowledge. What type of person are you? Are you a known liar? Are miracles possible, and if so, do they happen?

3: On naturalism, you should be quite skeptical of miracle claims. However, on Biblical theism, the world is chockfull of miracles. Jesus' ministry is supernatural through and through, you can not separate it from that context. So, if you are a trustworthy source, and you tell me that you have experienced a miracle, I will probably believe you. 

4: In CA's article, there is no mention of the necessary readings on this very topic. To take a few:

Keener, Craig S. Miracles: the Credibility of the New Testament Accounts. Baker Academic, 2011.

Larmer, Robert. Questions of Miracle. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1997.

_____. Dialogues on Miracle. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2015.

_____. Water into Wine?: an Investigation of the Concept of Miracle. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996.

Coady, C. A. J. Testimony: a Philosophical Study. Clarendon Press, 2002.

5: Suppose you are sleeping, and your roommate runs into your room, screaming "there is a fire, a huge fire in the kitchen!". I never pull pranks, I am not a jokester, and there is very few things in the kitchen that are flammable. Do you say testimony isn't evidence, or do you take my words seriously? 

Continuing: What if I told you that I woke up in my bed in New Jersey this morning, then had lunch on the moon, but then was home here on earth for dinner?"

1: This is not a miracle claim.

2: Is there good reason to think you were able to go to the moon? Do we have evidence of this happening like we do for miracles? I don't think so. CA's argument fails by disanalogy. 

You probably wouldn’t believe me.

I wouldn't believe you because the evidence isn't on the same playing field. You could say that there is testimonial evidence for alien abduction, but from what I have read, these are almost certainly cases of old hag syndrome.

Continuing: "The difference is the background knowledge in each case. In Star Trek, there are transporters that can span an incredible distance in a second, not to mention galaxy class starships that make such a feat possible. In the real world, only a handful of human beings have undergone the training and incredible journey via rocket spacecraft to make it to the moon, a process that takes a lot longer than a day. 

Now what if my statement was about me doing something physically impossible that no level of technology can overcome? How much more unbelievable is that? Our entire lives we build on this background knowledge of how the world works.

Does my moon lunch scenario become any more plausible if I amend it to say “God transported me to the moon for lunch and then sent me back home to Earth for dinner that same day”?

If I were to try and use a defense in a murder trial that my concealed carry gun levitated out of my holster and fired on my hiking companion in the middle of the woods, would the jury accept or reject that claim? Would you want the jury to accept that claim?"

There is a lot wrong here. 

1: We have a mechanism by which the miraculous can happen. Divine Entities. 

2: You are bound by the laws of nature, God is not. As Craig Keener (2011, p. 131) observes: 

 "“One violates a law only to which one is subject, so the language would not be consistent with the theistic premises…”

3: Christians do not claim that Jesus rose by human powers, rather, they claim God raised him (Acts 2:24; 3:15; 10:40; 13:30; Romans 4:24; 8:11).

4: Jesus is not a mere human, he is God in the flesh.

So, again, CA presents us with a disanalogy.

He says: Even if someone was recently convinced by apologetic arguments to be a “mere theist”, why should the regard the 5 pieces of testimonial evidence we have to the resurrection of Jesus over the other pieces of testimony we have for a wide array of miracle claims for contradictory religions like Hinduism, Mormonism, or Islam?

Miracles are only evidence against CA's naturalism. The Bible is full of miracles from non-believers. Take pharaoh's magicians in the Exodus or Satan himself tempting Christ. Examples abound.

He says "The general fact that there are a lot of non-verifiable, implausible miracle claims would seem to support the idea that a supernatural realm exists. However once we look more closely at the data, the specific details of miracle claims that happen in support of contradictory religions undermine the idea that the supernatural exists, or at the very least that miracles can serve as evidence for the truth of a specific religion."

Again, this does not work against Biblical theism, as per above.

He goes after Mike Licona after this, & I don't have a dog in that fight. I am also not going to do his homework for him. The relevant texts on miracles are cited above.

References

Miracles: The Credibility Of The New Testament Accounts. Baker Academic 2011.