3 Questions From Leah

Posted in Faith, Quickies, Responses on  | 2 minutes | 25 Comments →

I recently discovered a blog called Unequally Yoked, maintained by Leah, a Yale student. In her post Your Faith Is Vain; Ye Are Yet In Your Sins, Leah invites believers to answer a few questions regarding their faith. Here are my initial offerings:

1. What earthly evidence could cause you to reject your faith (if any)?

I was just thinking about this [yet again] the other day, and while I'm hesitant to say any of the following would cause me to reject my faith, each would certainly cause me to have stronger doubts:

1.1 If recorded history could be reliably proven to extend back hundreds of thousands of years, as opposed to 6,000;

1.2 If scientists could prove that the universe always existed;

1.3 If there were no such thing as entropy;

1.4 If we had an absence of spiritual accounts instead of a consistent abundance of them spanning across multiple cultures in all times;

1.5 If the Jewish race had been exterminated or otherwise died off;

1.6 If humans lived to be significantly older than 120 years without the aid of science.

2. Have you researched these possible disproofs yourself/read the work of scholars in the field?

You bet.

3. Does your faith make any empirical predictions about the earthly world? What are they?

I believe the Bible makes quite a few empirical statements about the future of the earthly world. Here are a few off the top of my head:

3.1 The writer of Hebrews states that the cosmos will "wear out like a garment." That's certainly an empirical statement, in fact, one that seems empirically verified [hence my 3 above];

3.2 The Bible states that the Jewish race would be extant up until the final hour;

3.3 In Revelation, John of Patmos describes a state of affairs where nobody will be able to buy or sell goods without the "mark of the beast."


25 comments

  1. Hi CL,
    Good post! I would add some of the following as predictions, although most of them have since been confirmed.
    1. That the universe is not eternal. Depending on whether you accept Moses or John Phileponus, that prediction was made 1400-3000 years prior to the Big Bang.
    2. Archeological discoveries like Ninevah and Jericho, the discovery of writing back to the time of Moses
    3. Fulfilled prophecies. One that stands out is that Israel will not be fertile land in the future.

  2. Jayman

     says...

    Hi CL:
    (1) I would be interested in your reasoning behind 1.1. Why are you concerned with recorded history and not history in general?
    (2) Is 1.6 based on Genesis 6:3? If so, it seems you are putting a lot of stock in a rather enigmatic verse.

  3. Nate

     says...

    You’re a little light on predictions. The Bible makes tons of other empirical claims that could be tested. For example, Mark 16:18 states that believers can drink poison and handle deadly snakes without fear. The gospels are filled with stories of demon possessions, yet there are no demon possessions in the present day. Don’t you believe that if the Bible was accurately recording history, there should still be wide spread demon possession?

  4. Robert Gressis

     says...

    Hi Cl,
    I don’t understand why 1.1 would weaken the strength of your convictions. If humans had been keeping historical records of some sort since as long as there had been humans, why would that make you less sure of Christianity’s truth?

  5. Jayman

     says...

    Nate:
    (1) Mark 16:18 is not an authentic part of the Gospel of Mark.
    (2) It is debatable whether demon possession occurs today. Certainly there are people who claim to be possessed and there are people who perform exorcisms.
    (3) Some of what the evangelists considered demon possession may be known to us by another name. That would not effect the basic historicity of the Gospels.

  6. cl

     says...

    Justin Martyr,

    That the universe is not eternal.

    That was covered by 1.2, I thought. I agree with you about the other stuff.

    Jayman,

    I would be interested in your reasoning behind 1.1. Why are you concerned with recorded history and not history in general?

    If recorded history could be reliably proven say, millions or hundreds of thousands of years, that would be an instance of a date not arrived at via extrapolation. I would consider it more damning than carbon dating to the young Earth hypothesis.

    Is 1.6 based on Genesis 6:3? If so, it seems you are putting a lot of stock in a rather enigmatic verse.

    What other interpretations are you familiar with? That’s just the one that made the most sense to me.

    Nate,

    …Mark 16:18 states that believers can drink poison and handle deadly snakes without fear.

    People inject snake venom as it is, and “America’s Dumbest” is full of footage of people who handly deadly snakes without fear!

    Don’t you believe that if the Bible was accurately recording history, there should still be wide spread demon possession?

    Yes, I do believe that, though I object to your use of the term “widespread.” Full-fledged possession was certainly the exception and not the rule, even in the times of the Apostles. I believe we still have cases of these incidents today. You simply asserted without argument that they don’t exist. I would be interested in hearing your arguments and/or evidence for such a claim, and would expect something along the lines of an appeal to neurological studies of some sort.

    Robert Gressis,

    I don’t understand why 1.1 would weaken the strength of your convictions. If humans had been keeping historical records of some sort since as long as there had been humans, why would that make you less sure of Christianity’s truth?

    Well, I’m agnostic about the whole “age of the earth” thing and have yet to see a convincing case that’s not based on extrapolation of some scientific principle. As I tried to explain to Jayman in the top of this comment, if recorded history could be reliably proven say, millions or hundreds of thousands of years, that would be an instance of a date not arrived at via extrapolation. I would consider it more damning than carbon dating to the young Earth hypothesis.

  7. NFQ

     says...

    What counts as “recorded” history? If we can date cave paintings to more than 6,000 years ago, does that satisfy this criterion?

    You say you “have yet to see a convincing case that’s not based on extrapolation of some scientific principle.” You say that as though extrapolation from scientific principles invalidates an idea. What are on on about here?

    My limited comments aren’t intended to reflect that I accept everything else you’ve said here, but rather that this is all I have the time/energy to go into right now.

  8. NFQ

     says...

    I’m sorry, that should have said, “What are you on about here?”

  9. cl

     says...

    NFQ,

    What counts as “recorded” history?

    That’s a good question. Let me think a bit more carefully before I give you an answer. If a day or two passes and I haven’t, please remind me.

    You say that as though extrapolation from scientific principles invalidates an idea.

    Extrapolation from scientific principle does not invalidate an idea. Anyone who would argue that is mistaken.

    What are on on about here?

    By that, did you mean, “what kind of drugs or otherwise mind-altering substances” was I on right about there?”

  10. NFQ

     says...

    On the recorded history issue, I’ll wait patiently. :)

    If you do not think that extrapolation from scientific principle is a problem for the validity of a conclusion, then why would you say,

    Well, I’m agnostic about the whole “age of the earth” thing and have yet to see a convincing case that’s not based on extrapolation of some scientific principle.

    That makes it sound as though you have seen convincing cases, but they were based on extrapolation from scientific principle, so they aren’t good enough for you.

    I did not mean to say “what kind of drugs were you on” — don’t parse as [what are you on] [about here] but rather [what are you on about] [here], as in, “what are you getting at, what is the underlying idea you are trying to assert”.

  11. cl

     says...

    As for the recorded history thing, part of my answer would be something like “traceable historical lineage,” and primary sources would factor into the equation. If we could do this back, say, hundreds of thousands or even millions of years somehow, I would consider that near-conclusive evidence against a young Earth.

    If you do not think that extrapolation from scientific principle is a problem for the validity of a conclusion, then why would you say [you] have yet to see a convincing case that’s not based on extrapolation of some scientific principle?

    Extrapolation isn’t a problem for the validity of a conclusion. A conclusion is either valid or invalid based on its relation to it’s premises. If we grant the assumptions in the premises, the logic behind any extrapolation can be valid, but valid is not synonymous with factually true. It’s quite easy to create a valid argument that’s untrue.

    Rather, extrapolation affects the degree of certainty with which we might rely on a particular conclusion.

    That makes it sound as though you have seen convincing cases,

    You’re right. In actuality, I haven’t seen a case – period – that’s conclusive. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying I’m a YEC or anything, it’s just that my official answer to the question of Earth’s age is something like, “I don’t know, we’ve got some predictions based on some models, but nothing really conclusive.”

    “what are you getting at, what is the underlying idea you are trying to assert”.

    Well, there are a few. First is that a string of documents extending back hundreds of thousands or millions of years would be near-conclusive evidence against the youngest of the YEC claims. Second is that although they can be astoundingly accurate [cf. QM], predictions and estimates based on models aren’t necessarily conclusive in the way good forensic evidence is; they’re models and that puts them in a different epistemological category. For that reason, I believe we can assert the identity of a rapist with more epistemological justification than that at least 13.75 ±0.17 billion calendar years have passed since the universe began.

  12. NFQ

     says...

    I am confused when you say,

    Rather, extrapolation affects the degree of certainty with which we might rely on a particular conclusion.

    What I don’t understand is how, if we know p is true, and we know that p implies q (that is, that extrapolation of q from p is a logically valid thing to do), you seem to think that q is less true than p. Can you give me an example to illustrate this changing degree of certainty?

  13. cl

     says...

    I’d like to answer, but I don’t know what you’re alluding to behind P and Q there. If you can define P and Q, I’ll give it a shot. Preferably, run it as a syllogism where P and Q lead conclusively to some conclusion.

  14. NFQ

     says...

    P and Q are commonly used as variables in formal logic. They don’t stand for anything in particular; I’m just using them as placeholders. Like “Suppose I have N apples, and I give away M apples where M is less than or equal to N. Then I have (N-M) apples remaining.” You can think about that conceptually, although we could say that N=30 and M=10, and then (N-M) would be 20.

    What I meant was, P is something we know to be true. Q is something that you believe is valid to extrapolate from P. P and Q don’t lead to some conclusion; P is something factual about the world which we observe and Q is the conclusion that we draw from P. How is it that you think Q is less certain than P is?

    I think that you are not just asking for clarification, but for some sort of concrete example to make it easier. I think we’d be better off, if we have to talk about it concretely, for *you* to pick a P and Q where you think Q follows from P. I don’t want to suggest one you don’t like and get caught up in whether the P->Q part is really true. We should be assuming something were we know P is true and P->Q is true. Then, are you less certain about Q then you are about P?

  15. cl

     says...

    I think that you are not just asking for clarification, but for some sort of concrete example to make it easier.

    Not so much to make it easier, more because I’m not sure that we’re using our underlying processes of logic similarly in the “Earth’s age” question.

    I don’t want to suggest one you don’t like and get caught up in whether the P->Q part is really true. We should be assuming something were we know P is true and P->Q is true.

    Understood. You’re asking for a material implication or an if / then statement, as denoted by the ‘->’ operator in the P->Q example. IOW, something like:

    P: Joe is unmarried
    Q: Joe is a bachelor

    Joe is unmarried [P] -> Joe is a bachelor[Q].

    Then, are you less certain about Q then you are about P?

    If you were looking for something like the case of P->Q I just gave, then no, not at all, so long as we grant the truth of P, which I do.

  16. NFQ

     says...

    So, you have no problem with the statement, “I extrapolate from my observation that Joe is an unmarried man that Joe is a bachelor.” You are just as certain that “Joe is a bachelor” as you are that “Joe is an unmarried man.”

    However, this is the same thing as saying “I extrapolate from my observation that Joe is a bachelor that Joe is a bachelor.” I was under the impression that we were talking about “extrapolation of some scientific principle,” not mere definitions of words.

    Can you give me an example of something extrapolated from a scientific principle, where you *do* think that the extrapolation is logically valid and that the premise/observation is true, where you are less certain about the extrapolated idea (Q) than about the original observation (P)? (This is what I meant when I asked, “Can you give me an example to illustrate this changing degree of certainty?”)

  17. cl

     says...

    How about…

    If Joe is traveling 600 miles at 60mph [P], then Joe will arrive at his destination in 10 hours [Q].

  18. NFQ

     says...

    How about it? Are you less certain of Q then you are of P?

  19. cl

     says...

    What do you mean “less certain of?”

    I ask because P isn’t certain; it’s an “if” statement. If we grant P as certain – that Joe is traveling 600 miles at 60mph [presumably unimpeded] – then I am certain of Q.

  20. NFQ

     says...

    What do I mean, “less certain of”? That is exactly what I have been trying to figure out. You were the one who wrote,

    Well, I’m agnostic about the whole “age of the earth” thing and have yet to see a convincing case that’s not based on extrapolation of some scientific principle.

    and then by way of explanation,

    Rather, extrapolation affects the degree of certainty with which we might rely on a particular conclusion.

    How does extrapolation do that? Under what circumstances would extrapolation cause you to be less certain? I don’t know how I can ask this question any more clearly.

  21. cl

     says...

    Perhaps I can be more clear. Extrapolation doesn’t do that, per se. Certainty decreases in proportion to unknown variables and assumptions in any given evaluation. In Joe’s case, we granted that he traveled unimpeded, and that makes the case pretty much airtight, or as close to conclusive as one might get. Now, if we were evaluating a trip that took place in the past, and if we weren’t sure that Joe traveled unimpeded, we would be less certain of his actual trip time. Right?

  22. NFQ

     says...

    So if we are not so sure that P is true, and we are not so sure that P implies Q, we might not be so sure of Q. That seems obvious. Uncertainty makes us uncertain of things.

    But at least you seem to have changed your stance to a point where “extrapolation of some scientific principle” does not make us less certain of things. I was worried that you thought that the more that science was involved, the more everything became inherently unreliable.

  23. jayman777

     says...

    cl:

    If recorded history could be reliably proven say, millions or hundreds of thousands of years, that would be an instance of a date not arrived at via extrapolation. I would consider it more damning than carbon dating to the young Earth hypothesis.

    OK, so you believe that Christianity’s validity is dependent on a young earth?

    What other interpretations are you familiar with? That’s just the one that made the most sense to me.

    Note that some post-deluvian people in the Bible live more than 120 years. If Genesis 6:3 means that God will restrict the human lifespan to 120 years then it must have went into effect gradually. Another interpretation is that 120 years would elapse between the events of 6:3 and the flood. Considering the difficulty in interpreting Genesis 6:1-4 I think it is foolish to hang one’s faith on any interpretation.

  24. cl

     says...

    NFQ,

    …at least you seem to have changed your stance to a point where “extrapolation of some scientific principle” does not make us less certain of things.

    I didn’t change my stance at all. I just explained what I meant.

    I was worried that you thought that the more that science was involved, the more everything became inherently unreliable.

    I definitely do not think that.

    Jayman,

    I don’t have much of a problem with the gradually thing, and, if you can point me to an extended argument or explanation behind the “120 years would elapse between the events of 6:3 and the flood” thing, I’d be interested in learning more.

    …so you believe that Christianity’s validity is dependent on a young earth?

    Not at all. I acknowledge that idea as one of many promulgated by Christians.

    Considering the difficulty in interpreting Genesis 6:1-4 I think it is foolish to hang one’s faith on any interpretation.

    I agree, and so I don’t.

  25. Gideon

     says...

    Answer to:

    #1 – None. There isn’t anything that can’t be counterfeited. In fact, in the future, Satan will attempt to impersonate Christ and will deceive most of the Earth’s inhabitants. This accounts for Christ’s admonition to all NOT to go after every voice claiming to be His. The Lord’s eventual return will transpire in a very specific way, a way that Satan will not be allowed to imitate. The way that he chooses will nevertheless be sufficient to fool most as most do not study the Word for themselves.

    #2 – All of the pertinent scholars (the Bible writers) are in agreement and have God’s Spirit guiding them. I need no other authority than these.

    #3 – Yes, that man is sinful and imperfect, which is hardly a revelation to anyone living on this planet. That this world is doomed to destruction in favor of a better world to come. Lastly, that Christ has paid my debt to God and that I can now accept God’s grace on the full authority of His Son.

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