CRAIG'S SUB-ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (5c)
If Craig's sub-argument in support of (5c) is a weak or defective argument, then he has failed to give us a good reason to believe that (5c) is true, and since (5c) is not obviously or self-evidently true, we should then conclude that premise (5c) is dubious. Because (5c) is a key premise in Craig's core argument, this would be a third good reason to reject Craig's core argument and to conclude that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails.
Here, again, is Craig's sub-argument for the key premise (5c):
3b. IF IT IS NOT THE CASE THAT the resurrection hypothesis (i.e. God raised Jesus from the dead) has been shown to be more implausible than the alternative naturalistic explanations for Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate, THEN the best explanation for Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate is the resurrection hypothesis (i.e., God raised Jesus from the dead).
4b. IT IS NOT THE CASE THAT the resurrection hypothesis (i.e. God raised Jesus from the dead) has been shown to be more implausible than the alternative naturalistic explanations for Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
THEREFORE:
5c. The best explanation for Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate is the resurrection hypothesis (i.e., God raised Jesus from the dead).
My initial evaluation of premise (3b) is that this premise is false. In Part 9 of this series, I gave a good reason to believe that (3b) is false. However, Craig has provided a sub-argument in support of (3b), so we should consider that sub-argument before forming a final evaluation of the truth or falsehood of (3b). If Craig's sub-argument is weak or defective, then we should conclude that premise (3b) is false, based on my initial evaluation.
CRAIG'S SUB-ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (3b)
Here, again, is Craig's sub-argument in support of premise (3b):
1b. IF Craig's three key historical claims concerning Jesus' final fate can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence AND alternative naturalistic explanations for Craig's three key historical claims concerning Jesus' final fate can be shown to be implausible, THEN IF IT IS NOT THE CASE THAT the resurrection hypothesis (i.e. God raised Jesus from the dead) has been shown to be more implausible than the alternative naturalistic explanations for Craig's three key historical claims concerning Jesus' final fate, THEN the best explanation for Craig's three key historical claims concerning Jesus' final fate is the resurrection hypothesis (i.e., God raised Jesus from the dead).
2a. Craig's three key historical claims concerning Jesus' final fate can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence AND alternative naturalistic explanations for Craig's three key historical claims concerning Jesus' final fate can be shown to be implausible.
A. A historical claim C is an established historical fact IF AND ONLY IF historical claim C can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence.
THEREFORE:
3b. IF IT IS NOT THE CASE THAT the resurrection hypothesis (i.e. God raised Jesus from the dead) has been shown to be more implausible than the alternative naturalistic explanations for Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate, THEN the best explanation for Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate is the resurrection hypothesis (i.e., God raised Jesus from the dead).
In Part 10 of this series, I argued that all three premises of this sub-argument for (3b) are unclear, and their unclarity is significant enough that it precludes rational evaluation of the truth or falsity of these premises. For this reason, Craig's sub-argument fails to provide us with a good reason to believe that (3b) is true.
However, problems of clarity of premises or conclusions can often be fixed by clarifying or defining the meaning of problematic words or phrases in such premises or conclusions. We should attempt to clarify the problematic words or phrases in Craig's sub-argument before we reject the premises of this sub-argument, and before we conclude that the sub-argument is a weak or defective argument.
There are at least two unclear phrases in the premises of Craig's sub-argument for (3b):
"historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence"
"shown to be implausible"
CLARIFICATION OF THE PHRASE "HISTORICALLY ESTABLISHED WITH A REASONABLE DEGREE OF CONFIDENCE"
Because premise (A) is basically giving a definition of the phrase "historically established fact", and because the term "fact" is usually reserved for claims that are KNOWN to be true, the degree of confidence that is specified in this definition ought to be a fairly high degree of confidence.
The claim "I know that such-and-such is the case" usually implies certainty, or at least a degree of confidence that is very close to certainty. Because the word "fact" is usually reserved for claims that are known to be true, the word "fact" implies or strongly suggests that the speaker is certain of the truth of the claim being asserted, or is very close to being certain of the truth of that claim.
However, in the context of ancient history, there is little if anything that is known with certainty. So, in the context of ancient history (such as claims about the historical Jesus), the words "know" and "fact" might well be used without implying certainty or even a level of confidence that is very close to certainty. Reasonable educated people understand that certainty is very rare or non-existent when it comes to claims made about ancient historical events.
In most contexts, the word "know" and the word "fact" imply a very high degree of confidence. In terms of probability, these words suggest the claim in question has at least a 90% chance of being true. In contexts where the stakes are high, these words imply an even higher degree of probability, like a 95% chance of being true.
But in the context of claims of "fact" or "knowledge" concerning ancient history, a probability claim of 90% chance of truth seems too high. A probability of 80% seems like a more reasonable implication for a claim of "fact" or "knowledge" concerning persons or events in ancient history.
Craig does not offer clarification in terms of a numerical characterization of the chances or probabilities of a historical claim being true. However, it does seem that he has in mind the idea of a historical claim being determined to be "highly likely" on the basis of relevant historical evidence:
It's strange that Allison doesn't seem to notice that that the same arguments which lead to his unqualified verdict of "highly likely" for the burial by Joseph also support the historicity of the empty tomb, which he deems "with great hesitation" to be "historically likely"...(Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., footnote #49, p.367)
Craig clearly thinks that Allison should have concluded that the historicity of the empty tomb was also "highly likely". This implies that Craig believes the relevant historical evidence makes his empty tomb claim highly likely (or very probable).
It seems to me that asserting a historical claim to be highly likely (or very probable) means something like asserting that the historical claim has at least an 80% chance of being true.
This lines up with my previous thinking about how the words "fact" and "knowledge" normally indicate certainty or a level of confidence that is nearly certain, but that the context of claims about ancient history weaken the implications of these words, so that instead of implying at least a 90% chance of being true, they imply at least an 80% chance of being true.
I propose that we interpret the phrase "historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence" as pointing to historical claims that are supported by historical evidence that is sufficient to make those claims "highly likely" or "very probable", i.e., so that the claims have at least an 80% chance of being true.
CLARIFICATION OF THE PHRASE "SHOWN TO BE IMPLAUSIBLE"
I have previously pointed out that there is a problem of vagueness in this phrase. Because there is a wide range of plausibility and implausibility, it is unclear where to draw the line between hypotheses that are plausible and hypotheses that are implausible.
There also appears to be an ambiguity of meaning in the phrase "shown to be implausible". Craig's methodology is based upon comparative claims, such as: "Hypothesis A is MORE PLAUSIBLE than hypothesis B" or "Hypothesis B is MORE IMPLAUSIBLE than hypothesis A". As a result, there does not appear to be any clear way to make categorical claims about plausibility or implausibility, such as: "Hypothesis A is plausible" or "Hypothesis B is implausible".
Given that such categorical claims don't fit with Craig's methodology, it might well be the case that Craig's use of the phrase "shown to be implausible" was a sloppy and careless way of referring to a comparative claim about implausibility rather than referring to a categorical claim about implausibility. If this is the case, then what Craig meant, and he ought to have written, is the phrase: "shown to be MORE implausible than" the alternative hypotheses.
Thus, we have an ambiguity between a comparative claim and a categorical claim:
"shown to be categorically implausible" (without reference to the plausibility or implausibility of the alternative hypotheses)
"shown to be comparatively more implausible" (than the alternative hypotheses)
On the comparative interpretation, there is no problem of vagueness. The claim "Hypothesis A is MORE PLAUSIBLE than hypothesis B" is not a vague or unclear claim in this context, nor is the claim "Hypothesis B is MORE IMPLAUSIBLE than hypothesis A".
However, on the categorical interpretation, the problem of vagueness remains: where should we draw the line between plausible hypotheses and implausible hypotheses?
I have already mentioned two reasons to prefer the comparative interpretation. First, Craig's methodology is based on comparative plausibility. His method is aimed at determining which hypothesis provides the MOST plausible explanation for a given collection of historical data.
Second, if we interpret the phrase "shown to be implausible" in terms of comparative plausibility, then there would be no problem of vagueness or unclarity in that phrase, but if we interpret this phrase in terms of categorical implausibility, then this phrase would remain vague and unclear.
However, there is also a reason to prefer the interpretation of this phrase in terms of categorical implausibility. When Craig examines various naturalistic explanations of his three key historical facts, he implies that they are categorically implausible as explanations of the alleged empty tomb, not just that they are MORE implausible than the Resurrection Hypothesis:
There simply is no plausible natural explanation available today to account for how Jesus' tomb became empty. (Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., p.377)
This is not a comparison of the plausibility of naturalist hypotheses with the plausibility of the Resurrection Hypothesis. This is a statement by Craig that the naturalistic hypotheses are all categorically not plausible, meaning that they are all categorically implausible.
Craig makes a similar categorical claim about the naturalistic hypotheses in relation to the alleged appearances of the risen Jesus:
So once again, if we reject the resurrection of Jesus as the only reasonable explanation of the resurrection appearances, we are left with an inexplicable mystery. (Reasonable Faith, 3rd ed., p.387)
Craig here asserts that the Resurrection Hypothesis is "the only reasonable explanation" of the alleged appearances of the risen Jesus. That implies that none of the naturalistic hypotheses provides a "reasonable explanation" of this alleged key historical fact.
To divide hypotheses into the two categories of those that provide "reasonable explanations" and those that do not provide "reasonable explanations" is much the same as dividing hypotheses into the two categories of those that provide "plausible explanations" and those that do not provide "plausible explanations". It appears that Craig is using the word "reasonable" here as a synonym for the word "plausible".
Because there are two good reasons to interpret Craig's phrase "shown to be implausible" in terms of comparative plausibility, and at least one good reason to interpret this phrase in terms of categorical plausibility, it remains unclear which interpretation is correct.
Thus, we should consider both interpretations, one at a time. The interpretation of this phrase that makes the premises of Craig's argument true or that makes those premises the most plausible should, other things being equal, be the interpretation that we use to evaluate Craig's sub-argument for premise (3b).
By giving his sub-argument the best chance of success, we can avoid committing the Straw Man fallacy. The Straw Man fallacy occurs when someone mischaracterizes an argument presented by an opponent in order to make the argument seem weak or defective. This is a dishonest and unfair way of treating the arguments of other people. People who care about critical thinking try to be fair to the arguments of others, and thus avoid mischaracterizing arguments in order to make those arguments seem weak or defective.
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