Missing Gospels Make Me More Confident in the Bible

Howard Hughes was an icon both of American aviation and eccentricity. Hughes (later portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2004 biographic film The Aviator) was a groundbreaking inventor and pilot, setting multiple records for aviation1 and his business savvy made him one of the richest men in America. However, Hughes also suffered from a form of obsessive compulsive disorder2, especially a fear of germs which eventually drove him to be a recluse before he died in 1976.

Because Hughes had no children, and his aide testified that Hughes had mentioned a will, a search was conducted by Hughes' Summa Corp, which managed all of his businesses.3 Needless to say, Summa found a lot of potential benefactors who claimed to hold wills written by the eccentric billionaire. 4 It took come twenty years to sort those out and 34 years to finalize the estate he left behind.5

One such will was dubbed "The Mormon Will," which was delivered days after Hughes' death. Encyclopedia.com reports it as:

A tattered yellow envelope, bearing a partly illegible Las Vegas postmark, was addressed to Spencer W. Kimball, president of the Mormon Church. Inside the first envelope was a smaller one that bore instructions written in a large scrawl. Kimball was directed to deliver the enclosed will to legal authorities in Clark County, Nevada. It was signed Howard R. Hughes.6

Although forensic science didn't have the technology we do today to examine the will, the will was deemed a forgery. The World of Forensic Science article explains why:

The will immediately became suspect because of the numerous spelling errors that filled its pages as well as suspect references. Hughes paid painstaking attention to detail throughout his life and never made vague statements. Dummar was suspected of forging the Mormon will, because no one could understand why Hughes would leave him one hundred and fifty million dollars or why the reclusive and germ-phobic billionaire would hitchhike. Dummar later admitted that his story was false. Lastly, lawyers who worked for Hughes found it inconceivable that he would have relied on a handwritten last testament. He had a deep fear that his handwriting could be forged and even tried to keep his signature secret.7

The Problem of Too Many Gospels

I bring up Hughes' will because it is remarkably unremarkable for human beings to create forgeries of items they feel will give them value, power, or prestige. Yet, when the topic of the New Testament comes up, there are those who feel that the Bible's restriction of official Gospel accounts to four is somehow a bad thing. They seem to take the position of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, where he puts the objection in the mouth of historian professor Teabing, who says "More than 80 gospels were considered for the New Testament."8 Such a claim is not simply wrong, but incredibly wrong. There were never any gospels other than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ever considered for inclusion in the Bible. Ever. New Testament Scholar Craig Blomberg points to the book The Canon Debate, which holds every known list of proposed books for inclusion in the New Testament as evidence that such ideas are made up out of whole cloth.

However, one way I answer the objection that gospels were supposedly left out of the Bible is by responding, "Isn't that a relief!" It just seems to me that if the church fathers took the concept of the Word of God seriously, they simply wouldn't let in just any old written document claiming to be an account of Jesus' life, just hat the courts wouldn't let any old document claiming to be Howard Hughes' will stand as legitimate. And just as those examining the fake Hughes wills threw them out because of inconsistencies with the language used, questionable connections between Hughes and the benefactor, and actions that were out of character with Hughes, so too do these other Gnostic writings show inconsistencies in their theology, questionable associations with the eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry (these were forgeries written much later), and presented a Jesus that was completely unlike the one we see in the older, more reliable Gospel accounts.

So, is there a problem when we look at the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Truth, or others? No. If the Gospels are the word of God, then we should expect to see forgeries pop up after a certain amount of time. It's human nature. And because the forgeries and fakes were screened out of the Bible, we should have more assurance that those passing on the Biblical accounts of Christ took their jobs at least as seriously as the judges passing on a billionaire's fortune.

References

1. Lerner, Preston. "Howard Hughes' Top Ten." Air & Space Magazine. Smithsonian. Nov. 2004. Web. 04 Nov. 2014. http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/howard-hughes-top-ten-5206422/?all.
2. Dittman, M. "Hughes's Germ Phobia Revealed in Psychological Autopsy." The American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association, July-Aug. 2005. Web. 04 Nov. 2014. http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug05/hughes.aspx.
3. "Howard Hughes' Will." World of Forensic Science. 2005. As reproduced in Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, 01 Jan. 2005. Web. 04 Nov. 2014. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-3448300293.html.
4. "Howard Hughes Estate Settled... After 34 Years." Living Trust Law Firm. The Law Offices of Jeffery G. Marsocci, PLLC, 21 Oct. 2010. Web. 04 Nov. 2014. http://www.livingtrustlawfirm.com/howard-hughes-estate-settled%E2%80%A6-after-34-years/.
5. Hudson, Kris. "GGP, Howard Hughes Heirs Settle Las Vegas Payment." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 20 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 Nov. 2014. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052748704416904575502292011174892.
6. World of Forensic Science, 2005.
7. Ibid.
8. Brown, Dan. The Da Vinci Code: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2003. 231.Print

What If You Can't Be Reasonable Without Faith?

Sam Harris, one of the new atheists, in his book The End Of Faith defines faith this way:

The truth is that religious faith is simply unjustified belief in matters of ultimate concern—specifically in propositions that promise some mechanism by which human life can be spared the ravages of time and death. Faith is what credulity becomes when it finally achieves escape velocity from the constraints of terrestrial discourse—constraints that you're leaving like reasonableness, internal coherence, civility, and candor. 1

Of courses, Harris is completely wrong in his view of faith. Some aspects, such as his attempt to divorce faith from civility are a bit laughable—especially when it is the "reasonableness" of Harris that tries to label any person of faith as lost in outer space.

Sam Harris is a master at creating straw men when discussing religious belief, and that's just what this is. But the misconception has been around a lot longer than Harris. It was probably expressed most succinctly by Mark Twain who said, "Faith is believing in what you know it ain't so." But people of reason can be also people of faith, in fact the Christian practice of apologetics is designed to give reasons and evidence for faith. Part of the confusion is polemical; atheists like Harris have a desire to make people of faith look as bad as possible, so he writes that the faithful are uncivil and deceitful. But Harris isn't being reasonable here. I've written before about  Harris's misdefinition of faith; you may read articles here and here. I think another key problem with Harris; view is that he misunderstands the concept of reason as well.

What is Reason?

Everyone assumes they know what reason is, but reason involves thinking rightly about the world around us. Ultimately when we talk about reason we talk about a rational enterprise (using our minds) to aim at an objective criterion. We avail ourselves of what we know to try and make sense of ourselves, the world and our experiences. Basically, being reasonable means we are looking for truth by thinking well.

Since reason involves looking for truth, it then becomes important to realize that reason includes going beyond ourselves. Truth is an objective thing; it's something "out there" not just something subjective. Any truth claim lies outside of the individual. Truth may stand in contrast to the experience that an individual has, including even empirical/sensory experience

For example, your senses may tell you that the Sun circles the Earth. If we look up, we watch it; we can see it with our eyes. Isn't that enough proof? No, it isn't. Isn't that empirical evidence? Yes, but just a bit of empirical evidence alone may lead you astray. Just because we see something with our eyes it is not necessarily the end of the matter. How do we know that our eyes are not telling us the truth? We have to find new facts and we then use our reason to compare different sets of data.

When Copernicus offered his model of the solar system where the earth circles the sun, part of the driving nature to his belief is that the Creator of the world would prefer simpler and more beautifully designed way to arrange the planets' motion:

For Copernicus as for many ancient philosophers the sky is the visible God; therefore the study of the movement of the celestial bodies is the most excellent way to the invisible God. The Creator is the great architect of all things; in the cognition of the mathematically simple structure of the universe man will become united with Him. It is suggested that these theological ideas gave Copernicus the pertinacy to work out his heliocentric system despite the misgivings of contemporary Aristotelian physicists.2

Copernicus, then, sought to explain the universe that was as satisfying to his faith as it was to his eye. He dedicated the book containing his findings to Pope Paul III and said:

I am not so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what others will think about them, and although I know that the meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgment of the laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in all things, so far as this is permitted by God to the human reason, I still believe that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy.3

 There was no way to deduce Copernicus' view using sense data alone. Copernicus showed mathematically why his model made more sense, and part of the attractiveness of his model was its simplicity and beauty. But Copernicus says that he wished to remain orthodox in his understanding of the world and it was his use of reason as given by God that led him to his view of a sun-centered solar system. Metaphysical faith helped propel the Copernican model forward.

When one seeks to be reasonable, it means that he must weigh all the information at his disposal. That may include considering ideas that are not based in empirical observation alone, but ones that have a basis outside of nature. If God's existence makes more sense out of things like the emergence of life from nonlife, the emergence of consciousness and the orderly nature of the universe, then, barring actual evidence to the contrary, it would be unreasonable for us to believe there is no God.

I wish Sam Harris and other atheists who like to bring up Copernicus would look at how reasonable Copernicus really was. I also wish that some of the New Atheists would also hold to not being "so much in love with my conclusions as not to weigh what other think of them." That would be a very reasonable thing to do.

References

1. Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W.W. Norton, 2004. 65. Print.
2. G Zimmermann, Die Gottesvorstellung des Nicolaus Copernicus. Studia Leibnitiana 20 (1) (1988), 63-79. As quoted from O'Connor, JJ and E F Robertson. "Christianity and the Mathematical Sciences - the Heliocentric Hypothesis." The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive. University of St Andrews, UK. July 2014. Web. Accessed 03-11-2014.
3. Copernicus, Nicholas. "Dedication of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies." The Harvard Classics. By Charles William Eliot. Vol. 39. Connecticut: Grolier Enterprises, 1993. 55. Print.

Heresies and Scripture - Podcast

What are heresies and why are they so important to avoid? During the first 400 years of the Christianity's existence, the church fathers wanted to ensure that the doctrine passed down from Christ and his apostles would remain uncorrupted. Thus, heresies were a significant concern.

In my most recent podcast series, I reviewed a few of the significant heresies that the early church answered and why a proper understanding of who Jesus is can make all the difference. All four podcasts are available for download by following the links below.

• Heresies and Scripture - Part 1 
• Heresies and Scripture - Part 2 
• Heresies and Scripture - Part 3 
• Heresies and Scripture - Part 4

If you would like to subscribe to the Come Reason podcast, just grab the RSS feed here.

Christianity Properly Diagnoses the Human Conditon

Dr. J.P Moreland, in an article he wrote for Focus on the Family, offered four specific principles that one should use when weighing different religions. In the third of four, he points to the human condition and notes that religion should offer a solution to the problems we face as human beings.

He writes:

Principle 3: A religion's diagnosis of and solution for the human condition should be more profound than its rivals.

A student of mine came from India to study at Talbot School of Theology. Having been raised a Hindu, he began an intense search for religious truth as a teenager. His search led him to study the religious texts of the world's leading religions. His search also led him to Jesus Christ. Why? He said that, by comparison, the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament towered over the others for their depth, profundity and power. While all religions have some truths in them, one should choose a religion that does the best job of diagnosing what is wrong with human beings and how their condition can be solved. 

When one does a cross-cultural study of the human condition, one finds the following universal human experiences and desires: All humans (1) experience threefold alienation — they feel alienated from God, from other people (including those they love), and from themselves; (2) experience deep and abiding shame and guilt; (3) desire personal life after death in which their loves and ideals may continue to be a part of their experience; (4) desire that their individual lives have meaning and purpose; (5) desire a life of beauty and drama, to be a part of something big and important, to be part of the struggle between good and evil; and (6) experience the need for help and empowerment to live a life of virtue and character. 

I believe that if one carefully compares the New Testament with other religious approaches (including atheism), like my student, one will discover that the religion of Jesus of Nazareth provides the deepest, most penetrating analysis of these six factors, along with the richest solution to these longings of the human heart. 

Principle 3 points straight to Christianity.

You may read the entire article on J.P.'s web site here.

Is God Limited by the Laws of Physics?

It seems that yesterday's post on the Fine-tuning argument ("A Mostly Lethal Universe Does Not Disprove Design") struck a nerve on the Twittersphere. I was involved in a long Twitter conversation with a number of atheists concerning the implications of a universe that contains vast spaces where life cannot survive. While I won't recount the entire exchange here, here are a couple of tweets that seems to be indicative of the thinking:

.@comereason @joesw0rld @Justinsweh God could have designed the universe with different laws, constants, and initial conditions
— Secular Outpost (@SecularOutpost) October 31, 2014

@SecularOutpost @comereason @joesw0rld @Justinsweh The FTA makes it seem as if god himself is constrained by the laws of physics.
— Atheism And The City (@AtheismNTheCity) October 31, 2014

This was interesting as it highlighted a couple of atheistic misunderstandings about the fine tuning argument and about the nature of God.

First, the premise of their objection rests on the idea that God can make anything He wants happen. While Christianity holds to an omnipotent God, it has never taught that God can do absolutely anything. God cannot do what is logically impossible (make a rope with only one end or create a triangle with four sides). God also cannot learn, cannot lie, and cannot cease to be. Omnipotence has always been defined as God is capable of doing anything that is within His nature. Since God is logical, his universe would follow logic as well.

Looking at the fine tuning argument then, one must understand that part of God's prerogative is how to set up the universe to begin with. If God chooses to create intelligent beings that are three dimensional, then it follows that there are certain limitations that follow from that choice, such as the beings will need to have the world in which they live also be three dimensional. Other restrictions may also follow from this, but what doesn't follow is that God is constrained by the laws of physics. To show why, we merely need to look in the kitchen.

If a chef desires to create a dessert, he or she has many possibilities. First, he would need to choose whether he wants to make a hot or cold dessert. This is entirely his preference; he has access to both the oven and the freezer and may use either However once he has made his choice, that choice will present itself in a certain way. So, if our chef seeks to make a soufflé, he won't be using the freezer, because soufflés simply are not frozen. And if our chef wants to use cherry filling instead of egg whites, he would no longer be making a soufflé but a cherry pie. The choices are free, but they begin to define the outcome.

Choosing to create a three dimensional universe that can support life requires creating certain parameters by definition. Saying God is limited by physics when creating our universe is like saying God is limited by a geometry textbook because he cannot draw a four-sided triangle. That's silly, because anything with four sides is simply not a triangle. Ultimately, the objection is simply a version of "If God is all powerful, why can't he make salsa so hot that even he can't eat it?" These are nonsense statement.

The fine tuning of the universe that we see shows, as I have said, that the Laws of the universe are set just right, the constants of the universe are set just right, and the initial conditions of the universe are set just right for life. In other words, God's recipe for our universe uses just the perfect ingredients in just the right amounts to achieve his end goal. Arguing that God should have used cherry filling instead of egg whites is not the same thing as proving there was no chef at all.