WHERE WE ARE
Peter Kreeft's fifth objection to the Hallucination Theory was given in two brief sentences. In Part 19 of this series of posts, I clarified the meanings of those two sentences, made explicit the UNSTATED conclusion of this argument, figured out the UNSTATED premises that form the core of the argument constituting Objection #5, and determined the logical structure of the argument:
Based on my analysis of this argument, here is the core of the argument, which consists entirely of claims that Kreeft left UNSTATED:
C. IF the Hallucination Theory were true, THEN some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.
D. It is NOT the case that some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.
Therefore:
A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE.
Kreeft is attempting a reduction-to-absurdity argument against the Hallucination Theory. He is arguing that the Hallucination Theory, in combination with an alleged historical fact, has an implication that is false or extremely improbable. The implication that Kreeft thinks is false or extremely improbable is this:
Premise (D) denies this alleged implication of the Hallucination Theory.Some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.
The logic of the core argument is deductively VALID, so the main questions at issue are:
Is premise (C) true?
Is premise (D) true?
I will argue that premise (C) is FALSE, and that premise (D) is DUBIOUS because Kreeft has failed to provide us with a good reason to believe that premise (D) is true.
IS PREMISE (C) TRUE?
Here is Kreeft's argument in support of premise (C):
2E. Some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus at least three times.
Thus:
C. IF the Hallucination Theory were true, THEN some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.
After his suffering he presented himself alive to them ["the apostles whom he had chosen"] by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.
(Acts 1:3, NRSV)
Who are "the apostles whom he [Jesus] had chosen"? The Gospel of Luke spells out what this means, and the book of Acts is a companion volume written by the person who wrote the Gospel of Luke, so the clarification of this phrase in Luke applies to the use of this phrase in Acts:
12 Now during those days he [Jesus] went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.
13 And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles:
14 Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew,
15 and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot,
16 and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
(Luke 6:12-16, NRSV)
So, when Acts refers to "the apostles whom he had chosen" it is talking about the twelve apostles who are listed in Luke 6:14-16, who had become eleven apostles after the crucifixion of Jesus since Judas Iscariot had betrayed Jesus and left the inner-circle of Jesus' followers.
But Acts 1:3 might be fiction, or it might be a questionable story that the author of Acts heard from some early Christian believers. In any case, even if we assume for the sake of argument that Acts 1:3 provides reliable and accurate historical information, it does NOT show that ANY of the apostles had "at least three different experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus". Nor does it show that the eleven apostles were all "mentally normal" people.
For example, suppose that Peter and John each had two experiences of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus over the course of the forty-day period and that the other nine apostles each had just one experience of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus during the forty-day period. In that case, the historical claim asserted in Acts 1:3 would be true, but it would be the case that NONE of the eleven apostles had "at least three different experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus". Thus, even if we very generously granted the questionable assumption that Acts 1:3 provides accurate historical information, Kreeft's historical claim in (2E) might well be FALSE.
Kreeft also points to stories about alleged appearances of the risen Jesus in Chapters 20 and 21 of the Gospel of John. In the first appearance story, ten of the remaining eleven apostles are present (Thomas is missing), and then there is a second appearance story that supposedly takes place a week later (John 20:26), and in that story all eleven remaining apostles are present.
So, according to the Gospel of John, ten of Jesus' apostles each had at least two different experiences of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus. But Kreeft's claim is that some of the followers of Jesus had "at least three different experiences of an alleged appearance of Jesus". So, the two appearance stories in Chapter 20 of John are insufficient evidence to establish Kreeft's historical claim.
However, in Chapter 21 there is a third story about an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to some of his followers. This event supposedly took place in Galilee (as opposed to the appearance stories in Chapter 20 of John, which took place in Jerusalem):
1 After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way.
2 Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.
3 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
4 Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.
5 Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.”
6 He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.
(John 21:1-6, NRSV)
According to this story Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee (John and James), and two unnamed disciples had an experience of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus in Galilee (the "Sea of Tiberias" is the Sea of Galilee).
Since two of the disciples are left unnamed, we don't know whether they were part of the eleven remaining apostles or just other followers of Jesus. Thomas is one of the eleven apostles, but he was not present at the first alleged appearance of Jesus to his disciples in Jerusalem. That means that Thomas was only present for two of the three alleged appearances of Jesus to his disciples found in Chapters 20 and 21 of the Gospel of John. So, the appearance stories in the Gospel of John do NOT show that Thomas had "at least three experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus".
Nathaniel is NOT listed as one of the twelve apostles in any of the four lists of Apostles found in the NT. Starting about the 9th century, Christians have frequently thought that Nathaniel was the same person as Bartholomew, who is listed in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts as one of the twelve apostles. However, there is no good reason to believe that Nathaniel is the same person as Bartholomew. Here is what John Meier, a leading Jesus scholar, says about this question:
Unless one adopts the erroneous notion that John's Gospel thought of most disciples as members of the Twelve (hardly a central group for the Fourth Gospel), there is no basis for such an identification.
(A Marginal Jew, Volume III: Comanions and Competitors, p.200)
Because there is no good reason to believe that Nathaniel is the same person as Bartholomew, the Gospel of John does NOT imply that Nathaniel had "at least three different experiences of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus."
If we assume that ALL THREE stories in John about alleged appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples are historically reliable and accurate accounts of actual events, then Chapters 20 and 21 would show that the following three apostles had "at least three different experiences of an alleged appearance of Jesus":
- Simon Peter
- John the son of Zebedee
- James the son of Zebedee
However, there are at least two serious problems with this evidence from Chapters 20 and 21 of the Gospel of John.
First, the Gospel of John provides a HISTORICALLY UNRELIABLE account of the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. Kreeft has offered evidence from a Gospel that most Jesus scholars view as HISTORICALLY UNRELIABLE. So, we have very good reason to doubt that ALL THREE of these stories about alleged appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples are true and accurate accounts of actual events. It is likely that at least one of these three stories is fictional or contains some serious inaccuracy, so Kreeft's evidence here is very weak, at best.
Second, there is very good reason to reject the two Jerusalem-appearance stories in Chapter 20 of the Gospel of John as FICTIONAL stories about events that did not actually take place. The earliest of the four Gospels is the Gospel of Mark, and both Matthew and Luke use Mark as a primary source of information about the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. So, if Mark is UNRELIABLE, then so are Matthew and Luke, which would pretty much eliminate all hope of Kreeft being able to "prove" that Jesus rose from the dead. Thus, when an account of an event in Matthew, Luke, or John is in conflict with an account of that event (or other events) in Mark, Mark's account should be given preference over the conflicting account(s) in other Gospels, other things being equal.
But Mark's Gospel clearly implies that Jesus left Jerusalem and headed to Galilee early on Sunday morning and that the FIRST TIME any of Jesus' disciples experienced an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus that event took place in Galilee. Since it would take several days for his disciples to walk back to Galilee from Jerusalem, the Gospel of Mark clearly implies that the FIRST TIME any of Jesus' disciples experienced an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus that event took place in Galilee about a week or more after Jesus was crucified.
But if the FIRST TIME that any of Jesus' disciples experienced an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus was in Galilee a week or more after the crucifixion, then the appearance stories in Chapter 20 of the Gospel of John are FICTIONAL stories about events that did not actually. According to those stories in the Gospel of John the FIRST TIME Jesus' disciples experienced an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus that event took place on the first Easter Sunday in Jerusalem, about 48 hours after Jesus had been crucified. There is no way to reconcile the stories in Chapter 20 of John with the Gospel of Mark. So, we have to choose between the earliest Gospel (Mark) and the latest and MOST UNRELIABLE Gospel (John). Clearly, it is more likely that Mark's account is correct than John's, so it is probable that John's account is FICTIONAL. Thus, we have good reason to doubt the Jerusalem-appearance stories found in Chapter 20 of John.
The MOST that we can reasonably infer from the Gospel of John, is that the story of the alleged appearance of the risen Jesus found in Chapter 21 of John has a significant chance of being based on an actual event and that IF this story is also accurate, then Peter, John, and James each had at least ONE experience of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus in Galilee, about a week or more after the crucifixion of Jesus. But this falls far short of establishing Kreeft's historical claim in premise (2E) that some followers of Jesus had "at least three different experiences of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus." Kreeft's evidence FAILS to show that premise (2E) is true, so that premise remains DUBIOUS.
Premise (C) is based upon premise (2E), so because Kreeft has FAILED to show that (2E) is true, he has also FAILED to show that premise (C) is true. Thus, premise (C) remains DUBIOUS.
However, there are other problems with premise (C), problems that show this claim to be not just DUBIOUS, but FALSE.
Kreeft makes at least two incorrect assumptions in premise (C). First, he incorrectly assumes that the Hallucination Theory implies that
ALL experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus by early followers of Jesus were HALLUCINATIONS.
This is NOT what the Hallucination Theory implies. At most, some versions of the Hallucination Theory imply that some experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus were hallucinations, namely the experience or experiences that were the primary cause of the initial belief among Jesus' early followers that Jesus had physically risen from the dead. This could have been just ONE such experience had by just ONE person.
Suppose that Peter had ONE hallucination of the risen Jesus, and this hallucination gave Peter a very strong conviction that Jesus had risen physically from the dead. Then suppose that Peter preached this and persuaded some or all of the other apostles that Jesus had physically risen from the dead, and they too began to incorporate this belief into their teaching and preaching. Some of the other apostles may have, at a later point in time, had dreams or visions about the risen Jesus that were brought about because of the belief in the resurrection of Jesus that Peter had inspired in them.
In this case, it doesn't matter whether the later experiences of the other apostles and other believers were hallucinations or not. What matters is that the primary cause of the origin of this belief among early Christians was one hallucination of the risen Jesus that was experienced by just one person: Peter. In this scenario, the Hallucination Theory would be TRUE, even though just ONE apostle had just ONE hallucination of the risen Jesus, and nobody else had a hallucination of the risen Jesus.
Second, Kreeft mistakenly assumes that the Hallucination Theory requires that:
SOME early followers of Jesus had HALLUCINATIONS of the risen Jesus.
This would be the case only with some versions of the Hallucination Theory, but not the case with other versions of the Hallucination Theory. Kreeft has a very narrow understanding of the Hallucination Theory. The view that the early Christian belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus came about because some early followers of Jesus had HALLUCINATIONS of the risen Jesus is just one version of the Hallucination Theory. There are other versions of this theory that Kreeft must also refute in order to be in a position to make a case for the resurrection of Jesus. Refuting only one version of the Hallucination Theory might well leave other versions of the theory UNTOUCHED and UNREFUTED.
Part of the problem is that the title "Hallucination Theory" is misleading. A better name for this theory would be the "Non-Veridical Experiences" theory. Another kind of non-veridical experience is DREAMS. Some early followers of Jesus might have had DREAMS about the risen Jesus, and either mistakenly thought those DREAMS were ordinary sensory experiences or that the DREAMS were sent by God and thus the contents of the DREAMS were as reliable as ordinary sensory experiences (or even more reliable than ordinary experiences).
If such DREAMS were the primary cause of the origin of the early Christian belief that Jesus had physically risen from the dead, then the Hallucination Theory would be true, even though the belief in the resurrection was formed on the basis of dream experiences and NOT on the basis of hallucinations. Thus, it is possible for the Hallucination Theory to be true, even if there were ZERO early Christians or disciples of Jesus who experienced hallucinations of the risen Jesus.
In conclusion, there are at least two different ways that (2E) could be true, and the Hallucination Theory could also be true, and yet it would NOT be the case that:
...some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three hallucinations of the risen Jesus.
First, the followers of Jesus who "each had at least three different experiences of alleged appearances of the risen Jesus" might not have experienced ANY hallucinations, because the Hallucination Theory can be true even if no follower of Jesus ever had a hallucination of the risen Jesus.
Second, the Hallucination Theory can be true because one or two of the apostles each had just one or two hallucinations of the risen Jesus. In that case, the fact that other followers of Jesus each had three or more "experiences of an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus" does NOT require one who accepts the Hallucination Theory to view those experiences had by other followers to be hallucinations. So long as the one or two hallucinations of the risen Jesus experienced by one or two of the apostles was the primary cause of the development of the early Christian belief that Jesus had risen from the dead.
Thus, there are plausible scenarios in which premise (2E) would be true and the Hallucination Theory would also be true, but where it was NOT the case that "some mentally normal people who were followers of Jesus each had at least three different hallucinations of the risen Jesus". In other words, there are various COUNTEREXAMPLES to premise (C), and those COUNTEREXAMPLES show that premise (C) is FALSE.
EVALUATION OF PREMISE (C)
The NT passages that Kreeft provides in support of premise (2E) FAIL to establish that (2E) is true. So, premise (2E) is DUBIOUS. Because Kreeft's argument gives (2E) as the only reason in support of premise (C), premise (C) is also DUBIOUS.
However, Kreeft makes some FALSE ASSUMPTIONS about the Hallucination Theory, and once we reject those FALSE ASSUMPTIONS, it becomes clear that there are various plausible scenarios that constitute COUNTEREXAMPLES to premise (C). Therefore, premise (C) is not only DUBIOUS, it is FALSE. Therefore, Kreeft's Objection #5 FAILS, just like Objection #4, Objection #3, Objection #2, and Objection #1 all FAIL.
Notice a pattern here? The fact that ALL of the first five objections in Kreeft's collection of fourteen objections FAIL, is an indication that Kreeft has very little ability to discern whether an argument is good or bad, or else he just doesn't give a damn about the quality of his arguments for the resurrection of Jesus.
In the next post in this series, I will continue my evaluation of Objection #5 by evaluating premise (D), the other key premise of the argument constituting Objection #5.
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