WHERE WE ARE
Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus can be summarized this way:
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).
THEREFORE:
8. The best explanation of the established historical facts that are relevant to Jesus' final fate is the Resurrection Hypothesis (i.e., God raised Jesus from the dead).
THEREFORE:
9. It is more likely than not that God raised Jesus from the dead.
In Part 6 of this series, I argued that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus was Dead on Arrival, because the final inference from (8) to (9) is weak and dubious.
In Part 4 and Part 5 of this series, I argued that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus was Dead on Arrival because the inference from (5c) to (8) is weak and dubious.[1]
Thus, it is clear that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus was Dead on Arrival.
DID CRAIG PROVIDE A GOOD REASON TO BELIEVE PREMISE (5c)?
Because the key premise (5c) is neither obviously true nor self-evident, Craig needs to give us a good reason to believe that this key premise of his core argument is true. If Craig has failed to give us a good reason to believe that (5c) is true, then we may reasonably conclude that premise (5c) is dubious, and that would be a third good reason to conclude that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus (in Chapter 8 of the 3rd edition of Reasonable Faith) FAILS.
I previously indicated that I would be critically evaluating a modified instance of a simplified version of Craig's sub-argument for the key premise (5c) in his core argument. This particular sub-argument is based on one interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "shown to be implausible" in Craig's argument for premise (5c).
This ambiguous phrase has two possible meanings:
"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)
I had decided to try out the comparative-plausibility interpretation first, because that interpretation immediately clarified Craig's sub-argument, while the categorical-plausibility interpretation left the meaning of his premises vague (thus requiring further effort to clarify those premises).
However, since publishing Part 13, it has occurred to me that Craig might well have had BOTH interpretations of this ambiguous phrase in mind. I suspect he was confused and failed to clearly distinguish these two different ideas.
However, we can separate these two ideas and specify two different lines of reasoning for premise (B). Rather than trying to figure out which interpretation of this ambiguous phrase is correct, I think it is better and more charitable to Craig to clarify his sub-argument for (B) by splitting it into two different lines of reasoning. That is what I am going to do in this post.
THE COMPARATIVE-PLAUSIBILITY SUB-ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (5c)
In Part 13, I worked out a simplified and improved version of Craig's sub-argument for his key premise (5c), based on the comparative-plausibility interpretation of the ambiguous phrase "shown to be implausible":
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 and 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).
Premise (B) makes a comparative plausibility claim. Furthermore, Craig actually argues for premise (B) based on the following more specific comparative plausibility claims:
10. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the Conspiracy Hypothesis.
11. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the Apparent Death Hypothesis.
12. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the Wrong Tomb Hypothesis.
13. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the Displaced Body Hypothesis.
14. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a more plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate than the Hallucination Hypothesis.
However, Craig also strongly hints at a different line of reasoning that supports premise (B) on the basis of categorical-plausibility claims.
THE CATEGORICAL-PLAUSIBILITY SUB-ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (B)
I believe that Craig had in mind another line of reasoning that supports premise (B), whether he realized this or not:
15. The alternative naturalistic hypotheses are categorically implausible explanations of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
16. The Resurrection Hypothesis is a categorically plausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
E. IF a hypothesis X is a categorically plausible explanation of a specific set of facts, and a hypothesis Y is a categorically implausible explanation for the same specific set of facts, THEN hypothesis X is a more plausible explanation for that specific set of facts than hypothesis Y.
THEREFORE:
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 explanations.
Premise (E) appears to be a self-evident analytic truth. If we divide various hypotheses into the categories of "plausible" and "implausible", then the hypotheses that are determined to be plausible are obviously going to be more plausible than the hypotheses that we have determined to be implausible. So, premise (E) allows us to infer a comparative-plausibility claim, like (B), from categorical-plausibility claims, like (15) and (16).
Premise (15) needs to be argued for on the basis of these more specific categorical-plausibility claims:
F. The Conspiracy Hypothesis is a categorically-implausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
G. The Apparent Death Hypothesis is a categorically-implausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
H. The Wrong Tomb Hypothesis is a categorically-implausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
I. The Displaced Body Hypothesis is a categorically-implausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
J. The Hallucination Hypothesis is a categorically-implausible explanation of Craig's three key established historical facts concerning Jesus' final fate.
I'm not sure (at this point) that Craig actually argues for all of these specific categorical-plausibility claims (while I am sure that Craig argues for all of the specific comparative-plausibility claims), but in making the more general claim (15) about the alternative naturalistic hypotheses, Craig implies that these more specific claims are all true.
ARGUMENT DIAGRAM FOR THE CLARIFIED VERSION OF CRAIG'S SUB-ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (5c)
Here is my revised argument diagram of the sub-argument supporting the key premise (5c), which includes both the comparative-plausibility line of reasoning and the categorical-plausibility line of reasoning for premise (B):
CONCLUSION
There is no need to determine which of the two possible interpretations of the ambiguous phrase "shown to be implausible" is the correct interpretation, because we can use both senses of this phrase in two different lines of reasoning in support of premise (B), which is a premise in the clarified instance of a simplified version of Craig's sub-argument for the key premise (5c).
I'm confident that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus includes the comparative-plausibility line of reasoning in support of premise (B). I'm not as confident that Craig's case also includes the categorical-plausibility line of reasoning in support of premise (B), but there are significant indications that Craig also had that other line of reasoning in mind. So, my current understanding and interpretation of Craig's case includes both lines of reasoning in support of premise (B).
END NOTES
1. Actually, I argued that the inference from (5a) to (8) was weak and dubious. But the same objection to that inference (i.e., the problem of confirmation bias) applies to the inference from (5c) to (8).
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