William Craig's Case for the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 17: "the alternative naturalistic hypotheses"

WHERE WE ARE 

In Part 16 of this series, I pointed out a serious problem with Craig's sub-argument for the key premise (5c).  The premises of this sub-argument are too UNCLEAR to be rationally evaluated. Thus, Craig's sub-argument, as it stands, fails to provide a good reason to believe that premise (5c) is true.

The only chance for Craig's sub-argument supporting premise (5c) to be successful is for us to figure out the meaning of his unclear premises, so that it will be possible to rationally evaluate whether those premises are true or false, probable or improbable. Otherwise, Craig's sub-argument for (5c) fails, and that would give us a third good reason to conclude that his case for the resurrection of Jesus fails.

THE SUB-ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (5c)

Here, again, is the sub-argument for the key premise (5c):

D. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the alternative supernatural hypotheses.

B. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the alternative naturalistic hypotheses.

C1. A hypothesis H is the best explanation of a specific set of facts IF AND ONLY IF hypothesis H is a more plausible explanation of that set of facts than the alternative naturalistic hypotheses and the alternative supernatural hypotheses.

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). 

I have put the UNCLEAR phrases in red italicized font, showing that all three premises in the sub-argument are infected with unclarity because of the problematic phrases.  

NOTES ON MY REVISIONS TO CRAIG'S PHRASE

On page 360 of the 3rd edition of Reasonable Faith, where Craig summarizes his case for the resurrection, Craig actually uses a slightly different phrase: 

"alternative naturalistic explanations"  

However, when Craig discusses various examples of "alternative naturalistic explanations" later in the same chapter, he refers to them as "hypotheses" and "theories" as well as calling them "explanations".  It is clear that Craig uses these various terms as more-or-less equivalent expressions.  

In order to make the logic of Craig's argument clear, I regularized the vocabulary in the argument when I re-stated it.  Because Craig's discussion, later in the chapter where he evaluates the various "naturalistic explanations," usually refers to these explanations as "hypotheses", I have set aside the other terms (like "explanations" and "theories") and instead consistently use the term "hypotheses".  That makes it easier to see logical connections between the premises.

I have also inserted the definite article "the" to the front of Craig's original phrase from page 360. I have done so because the lack of the definite article makes the phrase somewhat vague.  

The phrase "alternative naturalistic hypotheses" might be a reference to "some" such hypotheses, or to "all" such hypotheses, or to a specifically characterized subset of such hypotheses.  By inserting the word "the" at the start of the phrase, I draw attention to the potential vagueness of the scope of what is being referenced by this phrase.  The potential vagueness should be eliminated, if possible, to make it clear what this phrase actually means. 

ONE POSSIBLE "SOLUTION" DOES NOT WORK