On New Year's Eve, I was puzzling over Peter Kreeft's Objection #8 against the Hallucination Theory.
All of Kreeft's objections against the Hallucination Theory seem bogus to me, and so far I have closely examined the first seven of Kreeft's objections and found that they ALL FAIL miserably. So, it was no surprise to learn that his Objection #8 also FAILS, just like each of the previous seven objections has FAILED.
However, the FAILURE of Objection #8 is even worse than the FAILURE of the previous seven objections, because it is SO OBVIOUSLY a crappy objection to the Hallucination Theory.
So, I did a bit more investigation, and I discovered WHY Kreeft put forward such an OBVIOUSLY CRAPPY objection, and my discovery reveals that Kreeft is one of the THREE STOOGES of Christian apologetics! My discovery about Kreeft was a delightful way to end 2021 and to begin the new year.
The first thing to note about Kreeft's objections against the Hallucination Theory is that most of them are borrowed from Josh McDowell. McDowell published his book The Resurrection Factor (hereafter: TRF) in 1981, and McDowell published the revised edition of Evidence that Demands a Verdict (hereafter: EDV) in 1979. Kreeft's book Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA) was published in 1994, more than a decade after those two books by McDowell:
- Kreeft's Objection #1 and Objection #3 and Objection #8 against the Hallucination Theory were clearly borrowed from McDowell's second objection ("Very Personal") against the Hallucination Theory in TRF and/or McDowell's second objection in EDV.
- Kreeft's Objection #7 is clearly borrowed from McDowell's fifth objection ("No Expectancy") in TRF and/or in EDV.
- Kreeft's Objection #2 and Objection #6 might well have been inspired by McDowell's first objection in TRF ("Only Certain People") and/or in EDV.
- Kreeft's Objection #9 appears to be based on McDowell's third objection ("A False Response") as presented in EDV.
- Kreeft's Objection #10 appears to be based on McDowell's fourth objection ("No Favorable Circumstances") as presented in EDV.
- Kreeft's Objection #11, Objection #12, and Objection #13 are all clearly borrowed from McDowell's seventh objection ("Doesn't Match the Facts") in TRF.
Sometimes when Kreeft borrows an objection from McDowell, he leaves out a crucial premise of McDowell's argument. In Kreeft's Objection #1 and Objection #3, Kreeft leaves out McDowell's crucial premise that it is "very unlikely that more than two people could have the same hallucination at the same time." (TRF, p.84). In Kreeft's Objection #7, Kreeft leaves out McDowell's crucial premise that "hallucinations require of people an anticipating spirit or hopeful expectancy..." (The Resurrection Factor, p.85). In Kreeft's Objection #9, Kreeft makes no attempt to explain why the disciples touching Jesus is relevant to the Hallucination Theory, but McDowell at least makes an effort to do this in laying out his third objection ("A False Response") in Evidence that Demands a Verdict. Kreeft attempts to present McDowell's objections very succinctly, but in doing so, he often leaves out a crucial premise in McDowell's reasoning, making the objection UNCLEAR.
When I recently examined Kreeft's Objection #8, I thought to myself, "This has got to be one of the STUPIDEST arguments ever made by a Christian apologist!". Given that every one of Kreeft's first eight objections against the Hallucination Theory FAILS miserably, I don't have much respect for Kreeft's abililty to discern whether an argument is a good and solid one, or a bad and weak or defective one. So, the fact that Objection #8 stands out as an incredibly and obviously bad argument is saying something.
Do you see why Kreeft reminds me of the STOOGES? Kreeft borrows most of his objections against the Hallucination Theory from McDowell, but then he often messes them up by stating only a part of McDowell's objections and leaves out crucial premises. And then he presents Objection #8, one of the STUPIDEST arguments ever given by a Christian apologist. But you might not yet see why I think of McDowell as being a STOOGE. I'll get to that a bit later.
I thought to myself, "I should go check out McDowell to see if he presents the same (or similar) objection as Kreeft's Objection #8, and see if McDowell does a better job of it than Kreeft." Since Kreeft often leaves out a crucial premise of McDowell's, I was going to see if there was a missing premise or a better explanation made by McDowell.
I went looking in McDowell's book The Resurrection Factor, and found a passage that appears to be the source of Kreeft's Objection #8:
Christ also ate with those to whom He appeared. And He not only exhibited His wounds, but He also encouraged a closer inspection. An illusion does not sit down and have dinner with you; and cannot be scrutinized by various individuals at will. (TRF, p. 84-85)
This is the second paragraph by McDowell on his second objection ("Very Personal") against the Hallucination Theory.
But the key idea in McDowell's second objection is that it is "very unlikely that more than two people could have the same hallucination at the same time." (TRF, p.84). That has nothing to do with Jesus eating something. The story in Chapter 24 of Luke about Jesus eating something in front of several disciples fits this objection, but just because there are (supposedly) several people watching Jesus eat. Jesus could just as well have picked his nose, or did a little tap dance, or clapped his hands together. What matters in that story (to which both Kreeft and McDowell refer) is that Jesus was (allegedly) observed by several people in the same place at the same time.
In short, McDowell, just like Kreeft, FAILS to explain the RELEVANCE of Jesus eating something to an evaluation of the Hallucination Theory. Kreeft did not mess up this objection that he borrowed from McDowell; it was already messed up because McDowell had FAILED to explain why Jesus eating something was evidence against the Hallucination Theory. Kreeft simply followed McDowell's lead here.
Note that McDowell also borrows most of his objections against the Hallucination Theory from another Christian apologist: J.N.D. Anderson. McDowell, unlike Kreeft, acknowledged his debt to this other Christian apologist by frequently citing an article by Anderson that was published in the March 1968 issue of Christianity Today: "The Resurrection of Jesus Christ". That article was taken from a pamphlet that Anderson wrote and that was published by Inter-Varsity Fellowship in London in 1950: "The Evidence for the Resurrection". (I'm pretty sure that Anderson borrowed most of his objections to the Hallucination Theory from previous Christian apologists as well, but I have not yet traced the history of his objections.)
Since Kreeft often messes up McDowell's objections by leaving out crucial premises, I thought that perhaps McDowell may have messed up one of the objections that he had borrowed from Anderson. So, I took a look at Anderson's pamphlet from 1950, to see if Anderson had raised the same (or similar) objection, and to find out if Anderson's version was better or clearer than McDowell's version.
I did locate a passage in Anderson's pamphlet where he makes this objection about Jesus eating something (a piece of fish), but what I discovered in that passage was that McDowell had completely mangled Anderson's objection and that Anderson's objection was NOT ABOUT the Hallucination Theory!
McDowell FAILS to explain WHY Jesus eating something is RELEVANT to the Hallucination Theory because there is no such explanation. This was NOT an objection aimed at the Hallucination Theory, and it has NO RELEVANCE to the Hallucination Theory. McDowell misunderstood what Anderson was saying, and thus created an IRRELEVANT objection against the Hallucination Theory, and then Kreeft repeated this IDIOTIC objection that he borrowed from McDowell. Thus, we have the THREE STOOGES of Christian apologetics: Anderson, McDowell, and Kreeft.
In short, Kreeft's Objection #8 is one of the STUPIDEST arguments ever presented by a Christian apologist because he mindlessly repeated a STUPID objection by McDowell, who mindlessly repeated an objection from Anderson, which was NOT actually given as an objection to the Hallucination Theory by Anderson (it was an objection against the theory that the appearances of Jesus after his death were appearances of a ghost or spirit rather than an embodied person - the "Spiritual Resurrection" theory).
Now you are beginning to see why I think of McDowell as one of the STOOGES. I will have more to say on that in a moment.
In the 1950 pamphlet "The Evidence for the Resurrection", Anderson raises five objections against the Hallucination Theory. Immediately after stating his fifth and final objection against the Hallucination Theory, Anderson raises some objections against a DIFFERENT THEORY:
Nor can these phenomena be explained by the alleged results of modern spiritualism, for several of the necessary conditions seem to have been absent. The resurrection appearances were clearly not dependent on the presence of any one medium, nor on any group of seekers after the supernatural, nor yet on any other ascertainable conditions. The One who appeared, moreover, was no mere spirit-emanation. He could clearly be seen and distinctly heard; He could be touched and handled; He could walk into the country, cook fish, and even eat it; and the marks of His suffering could be seen and felt. (emphasis added)
J.N.D. Anderson had finished with his five objections against the Hallucination Theory, and then he switched over to discussing the "Spiritual Resurrection" theory, the theory that the appearances of Jesus after the death of Jesus were caused by the ghost or spirit of Jesus, and not by a physical Jesus in a resurrected body.
The "evidence" that Jesus ate some fish was given by Anderson as an objection against the "Spiritual Resurrection" theory, NOT against the Hallucination Theory. McDowell FAILED to notice that Anderson had moved on to discussing another theory, and then McDowell mindlessly repeated Anderson's objection against the Spiritual Resurrection theory as an objection against the Hallucination Theory in TRF, FAILING to notice that an alleged experience of Jesus eating something is IRRELEVANT to an evaluation of the Hallucination Theory. Then Kreeft mindlessly repeated McDowell's IRRELEVANT objection as his Objection #8 in HCA.
So, we have at least TWO of the THREE STOOGES giving INCREDIBLY STUPID arguments here. I also view Anderson's five objections as all FAILING, because I have refuted all of McDowell's objections against the Hallucination Theory, and most of those objections come from Anderson.
McDowell has done something else rather STUPID regarding his objections against the Hallucination Theory. The first edition of Evidence that Demands a Verdict was published in 1972. McDowell has been giving basically the same set of objections against the Hallucination Theory, up until the publication of Evidence For the Resurrection, published in 2009, where he uses those same objections (p.206-211).
But in the most recent version of Evidence that Demands a Verdict, published in 2017, McDowell drops most of the objections that he has been repeating for over four decades, and instead, he quotes Peter Kreeft's objections from HCA (EDV, 2017, p.291-292).
Apparently, McDowell FAILED TO NOTICE that Kreeft messed up many of McDowell's objections from TRF and previous versions of EDV, by leaving out crucial premises of McDowell's arguments. So, McDowell dropped his bad but CLEAR objections from his previous books in favor of UNCLEAR versions of his objections from Kreeft, shooting himself in the foot. (Although the UNCLARITY of Kreeft's versions of McDowell's objections helps disguise the weakness and defects in those objections).
Happy New Year!
I'm going to keep on fighting the THREE STOOGES and their incredible STUPIDITY in 2022.
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