I remember often in my pre-college education, while sitting in mathematics courses, wondering what was the use of spending all that time wading through theoretical mathematics. Of course during college and through my professional career I have learned that theoretical mathematics becomes practical very quickly. Who knew? A good example is that it becomes useful even in the field of apologetics and there isn't any need to get real deeper than algebra. William Lane Craig argued for the resurrection of Jesus again Bart Ehrman very effectively using the probablistic calculus. You can read his argument in it's entirety on one of my previous posts and a you can watch the video here. I really like the argument he used.
Let X equal the probability that Jesus supernaturally was raised from the dead.
Let Y equal the probability that there are naturalistic explanations for what happened to explain the historical facts that although Jesus was crucified, that the tomb was empty 3 days later and people claimed to have seen him alive later, following religion based on His teachings and person.
The total probability that Christianity is correct can be mathematically represented as the following equation.
Dr. William Lane Craig then pointed out that as Y becomes smaller and smaller, the probability function becomes closer and closer to being equal to 1. A probability of 1 means that its a certainty and most definitely true. Craig in the debate argued that the Biblical conclusion is most probable because it most adequately answers:
a. Why the Tomb was empty?
b. Why did Jesus' brothers and disciples start claiming Jesus was alive again and that He is God when before the Crucifixion and the aftermath his brothers didn't believe at all and his closest followers lost faith?
Ehrman tried to argue that there are other explanations without appealing to the idea that Jesus was supernaturally raised from the dead. He failed. Craig quoted the above mathematics from a leading mathematician, Richard Swineberg from Oxford University, and even more amazing gave the exact place for more research because X and Y can actually be numerically evaluated. The name of the book is The Resurrection of God Incarnate. If you plug in the numbers you get a number: 0.97; in math and physics a probability of 0.97 means more than likely. It means that it's a proven conclusion! Look at Ehrman's reaction. Research it for yourself!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b4167fb5-1ecd-4817-b39c-6ef611b24778)
0.97. Aha. I wonder what values were plugged into the equation to reach 0.97 and on WHAT BASIS? Why don't proponents of this equation utilise this same equation with countless miracle claims that were made in the past and even today? Also, Lane Craig begs the question that the resurrection story in the Gospels were reliable to begin with. To try and counter this, he outlandishly asserted (in his debate with (Hector Avalos) that:
ReplyDelete"We have over 5000 manuscripts of the
New Testament in Greek alone, and these that come
to within a gap of 100-150 years after the original."
Nonsense. 94% of the New Testament Greek manuscripts come after the 9th century (as Ehrman said in his debate with James White, and other scholars).
If you look at the documentation for the argument, you will see how and where the numbers come from.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that I don't think Dr William Lane Craig was insinuating that all 5000 manuscripts are dated from 100-150 years of the original. Also I have never heard anyone disputing that only a small percentage date to the first and second centuries. The point is that there is 0% of other works of antiquity with such early copies.
I cannot find the values that were input into the calculation to get 0.97, and on what basis. I don't know what documentation your referring to. If you plug values into the same equation to try and find out the probability of a non-supernatural historical event (i.e. getting a heads on a coin toss), do you think that the probability will be less than 0.97?
ReplyDeleteDid you look at the debate and read the documents that went along? Here is a start:
ReplyDeletehttp://mmcelhaney.blogspot.com/2009/02/craig-vs-ehrman-debate-resurrection.html