IS THE CORE ARGUMENT A DEDUCTIVE ARGUMENT?
The first comment I received on Part 1 was an objection about how I characterized the logic of the core argument of Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus:
It seems to me that in restating Craig’s argument as a deductive proof, you are disregarding the original type and intent of the argument that Craig put forth in Reasonable Faith.
My initial response was that I had NOT restated Craig's core argument as a deductive argument. I never stated that his core argument was a deductive argument. I never implied that his core argument was a deductive argument. Furthermore, the core argument, as I stated it, did not have the form of a valid deductive inference or argument (e.g., it was not in the form of a modus ponens or a modus tollens or a disjunctive syllogism).
However, when I took a second look at the paragraph I had quoted from Craig, which was the basis for my statement of the core argument in his case, it became clear to me that the core argument is, in fact, a deductive argument.
THE LOGICAL FORM OF THE MAIN PREMISE
The logical form of the main premise in the core argument of Craig's case is a conditional statement. That is to say, it has this form:
IF P, THEN Q
This is a big clue indicating that the logical form of the core argument is a modus ponens:
IF P, THEN Q
P
THEREFORE:
Q
I will now show that the main premise in the core argument is a conditional statement.
Craig put the main premise of his core argument into one long sentence. In fact, nearly the entire core argument is contained in that one sentence:
...If these three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence (and it seems to me they can) and if alternative naturalistic explanations for these facts can be shown to be implausible (and the consensus of scholarship is that they can), then unless the resurrection hypothesis is shown to be even more implausible than its failed competitors (and my experience in debating the comparative merits of the hypotheses convinces me that it cannot), then the preferred explanation ought to be the one given in the documents [of the New Testament] themselves: God raised Jesus from the dead. ... (Reasonable Faith, p.360)
Notice that Craig asserts three different claims in three parenthetical remarks. Those three claims are three premises in Craig's core argument. But they are separate from the main premise of the core argument, so let's delete the parenthetical remarks to focus on just the main premise:
...If these three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence... and if alternative naturalistic explanations for these facts can be shown to be implausible... , then unless the resurrection hypothesis is shown to be even more implausible than its failed competitors... , then the preferred explanation ought to be the one given in the documents [of the New Testament] themselves: God raised Jesus from the dead. ... (Reasonable Faith, p.360)
Now I will use different color fonts to identify four different ideas or statements that constitute parts of this complex sentence:
If these three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence... and if alternative naturalistic explanations for these facts can be shown to be implausible... , then unless the resurrection hypothesis is shown to be even more implausible than its failed competitors... , then the preferred explanation ought to be the one given in the documents [of the New Testament] themselves: God raised Jesus from the dead. (Reasonable Faith, p.360)
We can assign letters to each of these parts of the above complex sentence:
T: These three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence.
A: Alternative naturalistic explanations for these three facts can be shown to be implausible.
R: The resurrection hypothesis (i.e. God raised Jesus from the dead) is shown to be more implausible than the alternative naturalistic explanations for these three facts.
P: The preferred explanation for these three facts ought to be the resurrection hypothesis (i.e., God raised Jesus from the dead).
Now we can more easily see the logical structure of Craig's complex sentence by replacing these ideas/statements with the letters we have just assigned to them:
If T and if A, then unless R, then P.
This is a conditional statement in which the first part of the conditional, called the antecedent, is the conjuction of two claims:
T AND A
The second part of the conditional statement, called the consequent, can itself be understood as a conditional statement:
IF NOT-R, THEN P
This is a reasonable way to represent the logic of the statement "Unless R, then P".
Using parentheses, we can represent the main premise of Craig's core argument, using the above abbreviations:
IF (T AND A), THEN (IF NOT-R, THEN P)
We can simplify this representation of the main premise a bit further by using the letter P to stand for the conjunction in the antecedent, and the letter Q to stand for the conditional in the consequent:
IF P, THEN Q
P: T AND A
Q: IF NOT-R, THEN P
It is very clear now that the main premise of Craig's core argument is a conditional statement. This suggests that the logical structure of the core argument is a modus ponens:
IF P, THEN Q
P
THEREFORE:
Q
In fact, in addition to the main premise, Craig clearly implies that the antecedent of the conditional statement (that constitutes the main premise) is true. Recall that P represents a conjunction of two statements:
P: T AND A
Craig asserts that T is the case:
...If these three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence (and it seems to me they can)... (Reasonable Faith, p.360)
The parenthetical remark here basically asserts the claim that "these three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence", and that is the claim that T represents:
T: These three facts can be historically established with a reasonable degree of confidence.
Craig also asserts that A is the case:
...if alternative naturalistic explanations for these facts can be shown to be implausible (and the consensus of scholarship is that they can)...
The parenthetical remark here basically asserts the claim that "alternative naturalistic explanations for these facts can be shown to be implausible", and that is the claim that A represents:
A: Alternative naturalistic explanations for these three facts can be shown to be implausible.
So, in the complex sentence where Craig summarizes the core argument of his case, he asserts claim T and he also asserts claim A. We can draw a valid deductive inference from these assertions to this conjunction:
T AND A
Recall that this conjunction is the antecedent of the conditional statement that constitutes the main premise of Craig's core argument:
IF (T AND A), THEN (IF NOT-R, THEN P)
By the valid deductive inference known as Modus ponens, we may now infer the consequent of the main premise:
IF NOT-R, THEN P
Furthermore, in the complex sentence that we have been examining, Craig also asserts that NOT-R is the case; in other words, Craig asserts that R is NOT the case:
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