Defending the Hallucination Theory - Part 28: Hallucinations Do Not Eat (Objection #8)

 WHERE WE ARE

In Part 27 I concluded that the core argument for Objection #7 against the Hallucination Theory consists of a dubious premise and a false premise, and thus that the core argument is UNSOUND, and that Objection #7 FAILS, just like the six previous objections have all FAILED:

Now it is time to examine Objection #8 against the Hallucination Theory.

OBJECTION #8: HALLUCINATIONS DON'T EAT

Kreeft presents his Objection #8 in just two brief sentences:

8. Hallucinations do not eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14).  (HCA, p.187)

Once again, Kreeft does not bother to state the conclusion of his argument, but I will state it for him:

1. Hallucinations do not eat.

2. The resurrected Christ ate something on at least two occasions.

Therefore:

A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE. 

SOME INITIAL PROBLEMS WITH THIS ARGUMENT 

Once again, the conclusion DOES NOT FOLLOW from the two premises stated by Kreeft.  For example, there is no mention of the "Hallucination Theory" in either of the premises, so this cannot be a formally valid deductive argument, as it stands.  There must be at least one premise that refers to the "Hallucination Theory" in order for this to be a formally valid deductive argument.

The second premise is also unacceptable as it stands because it assumes that there WAS a "resurrected Christ", but the very question at issue is whether or not there was a resurrected Christ.  So, premise (2) clearly and obviously BEGS THE QUESTION at issue, and thus premise (2) must be either revised or rejected.

Finally, and most importantly, premise (1) is AMBIGUOUS.  There are at least two different meanings that premise (1) could have:

1A. No experience that constitutes a hallucination can ever eat something.

1B. No hallucination ever involves an experience in which it seems that someone (or some animal) eats something.

Premise (1A) is true because an experience is not the kind of thing that can eat, but premise (1A) might be IRRELEVANT to the conclusion.  Premise (1B) is relevant to the conclusion, but premise (1B) is clearly FALSE.  

Premise (1B) is FALSE because it is clearly possible to dream or hallucinate the experience of seeing someone eat something.  If I dream that my friend Eric eats a cheeseburger, then my dream involves an experience in which it seems that someone (i.e. Eric) eats something (i.e. a cheeseburger).  Obviously, we can dream about someone eating a cheeseburger.  But if we can dream about someone eating a cheeseburger, then there is no reason why we could not hallucinate about someone eating a cheeseburger.  

Because it is OBVIOUS that one can hallucinate about someone eating a cheeseburger, it is OBVIOUS that premise (1B) is FALSE. So, since premise (1B) is obviously FALSE, the only hope for this argument is try to make use of premise (1A) which is TRUE.

Before we attempt to make use of premise (1A), we need to revise premise (2), so that it no longer BEGS THE QUESTION.  Kreeft needs to talk about experiences in which it seemed to the experiencer that he or she was seeing the risen Jesus.  That way, the premise leaves open the possibility that this experience was a dream or a hallucination.  It is clearly UNFAIR and ILLOGICAL for Kreeft to simply assume that "the resurrected Christ" did anything, because if skeptics are correct that Jesus did NOT physically rise from the dead, then any such assumption would be FALSE.  So, I have revised premise (2) to talk about what some people allegedly experienced:

2A.  On at least two occasions, some of Jesus' disciples had experiences in which it seemed to them that the risen Jesus ate something.  

The question, from Kreeft's point of view, is whether those experiences could be explained as being hallucinations (or dreams). 

Now let's combine the clarified version of premise (1) that is TRUE, with the revised version of premise (2) that avoids begging the question:

1A. No experience that constitutes a hallucination can ever eat something.

2A. On at least two occasions, some of Jesus' disciples had experiences in which it seemed to them that the risen Jesus ate something. 

Therefore:

 A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE. 

This revised version of Kreef's argument constituting his Objection #8, is still not a formally valid deductive argument, because there is still no mention of the Hallucination Theory in either of the two stated premises.  So there is at least one UNSTATED premise or assumption that Kreeft is making here, that needs to be added to the two premises that Kreeft stated.

It seems reasonable to once again formulate Kreeft's argument here as a reduction-to-absurdity argument, and we can use a conditional statement.  If premise (2A) represents what Kreeft had in mind (minus the question-begging assumption), then we can formulate a reduction-to-absurdity type of argument that is formally deductively valid, using premise (2A):

2A. On at least two occasions, some of Jesus' disciples had experiences in which it seemed to them that the risen Jesus ate something. 

B. IF the Hallucination Theory were true, THEN none of Jesus' disciples had any experiences in which it seemed to them that the risen Jesus ate something.

Therefore:

  A. The Hallucination Theory is FALSE. 

This, it seems to me, is the core argument of Kreeft's argument constituting his Objection #8. 

But what about premise (1A)?  What role does that premise play here?  It appears to be a reason in support of the UNSTATED premise (B).  So, now we can see the basic logical structure of the argument constituting Objection #8:

In the next part of this series, I will evaluate this argument that constitutes Kreeft's Objection #8 against the Hallucination Theory.