William Craig's Case for the Resurrection of Jesus - Part 24: Craig's Case is still Dead on Arrival

 WHERE WE ARE

In Part 23 of this series, I made a fresh start in analyzing and clarifying William Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus.  Instead of starting with Craig's two-paragraph summary of his case on page 360 of the 3rd edition of his book Reasonable Faith (hereafter: RF3), which is a bit confused and unclear, I started with his clearer and shorter one-paragraph summary at the bottom of page 360 and the top of page 361.

The one-paragraph summary presents the sub-arguments supporting the key premise (B). But (B) is not the ultimate conclusion of Craig's case.  To find the additional inferences and the ultimate conclusion, we had to turn back to key claims made in Craig's two-paragraph summary. 

When I completed my fresh-start analysis of Craig's case, it turned out that his case consists of four inferences or sub-arguments. All four inferences are valid deductive inferences (three are modus ponens inferences). So, any problems with Craig's case, as I have analyzed and clarified it, would be problems with the truth of the premises.

THE LOGICAL STRUCTURE OF CRAIG'S CASE

Here is an argument diagram, showing the logical structure of Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus:

OVERVIEW OF MY EVALUATION OF CRAIG'S CASE

The last three sub-arguments are unsound arguments, giving us three good reasons to declare Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus Dead On Arrival.  I believe that the remaining sub-argument, which is the sub-argument for premise (C), is also an unsound argument, but I have not worked out my objections to that fourth sub-argument yet.

THE FINAL SUB-ARGUMENT IS UNSOUND

Here is the final sub-argument of Craig's case:

E. IF the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" furnishes the best explanation of the historical data relevant to Jesus' final fate, THEN it is more likely than not that the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is true.

3. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" furnishes the best explanation of the historical data relevant to Jesus' final fate. 

THEREFORE:

 4a. It is more likely than not that the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is true.

 This argument is unsound because premise (E) is clearly false. Also, because the argument supporting premise (3) is unsound (which I will show later in this post), we have no good reason to believe that premise (3) is true, and since premise (3) is not obviously true nor a self-evident truth, we may reasonably conclude that premise (3) is dubious.  Because premise (E) is false, and premise (3) is dubious, we should reject this sub-argument for the conclusion (4a) as a bad argument.  Therefore, Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails and is Dead On Arrival, because the final sub-argument of his case fails.

Premise (E) is clearly false, because even if it were the case that the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" was the best explanation of the historical data relevant to Jesus' final fate, there would still be a significant chance that this hypothesis was NOT more likely than not to be true.

For example, consider the case where the relevant historical evidence shows the following hypotheses to have these probabilities of being true:

• God raised Jesus from the dead: Probability = .30
• The disciples of Jesus conspired to lie about Jesus' rising from the dead: Probability = .25
• Someone moved the body of Jesus but didn't tell his disciples: Probability = .25
• Jesus only appeared to die on the cross, but was actually still alive when taken down from the cross:  Probability = .20 

In this case, the "God raised Jesus from the dead" hypothesis would be more probable than any other hypothesis, based on the relevant historical evidence. That means that the "God raised Jesus from the dead" hypothesis would be more plausible than any other hypothesis, based on the relevant historical evidence.  

But, the probability of the "God raised Jesus from the dead" hypothesis would, in this case, be significantly less than .50.  Therefore, although the "God raised Jesus from the dead" hypothesis would be the best explanation of the historical data relevant to Jesus' final fate, this hypothesis would NOT be more likely than not to be true.

Many other such counterexamples could be constructed, showing that there is a significant chance that it is both the case that the "God raised Jesus from the dead" hypothesis was the best explanation of the relevant historical data AND yet also the case that this hypothesis was NOT more likely than not to be true. Therefore, premise (E) is clearly false, and the final sub-argument in Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus is an unsound argument.

THE NEXT-TO-LAST SUB-ARGUMENT IS UNSOUND

The next-to-last sub-argument is the argument supporting premise (3) of the final sub-argument (which we just examined):

D. IF the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the most plausible explanation of Craig's three key historical claims being historical facts, THEN the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" furnishes the best explanation of the historical data relevant to Jesus' final fate.

B. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the most plausible explanation of Craig's three key historical claims being historical facts.

THEREFORE: 

3. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" furnishes the best explanation of the historical data relevant to Jesus' final fate.

This sub-argument is also unsound, because premise (D) is false. Also, because the sub-argument supporting premise (B) is unsound (as I will argue later in this post), and because premise (B) is neither obviously true nor is (B) a self-evident truth, we may reasonably conclude that premise (B) is dubious.  

As with the final sub-argument, one premise of this next-to-last sub-argument is false, and the other premise is dubious. This sub-argument clearly fails to give us a good reason to believe that premise (3) is true, and this gives us a second good reason to conclude that Craig's case for the resurrection of Jesus fails and is Dead On Arrival.

THE SUB-ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (B) IS UNSOUND

The third sub-argument is the argument supporting premise (B) of the next-to-last sub-argument (which we just examined):

1c. IF Craig's three key historical claims can be established as being historical facts and no plausible nautural explanation can account for them as well as the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead", THEN the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the most plausible explanation of Craig's three key historical claims being historical facts.

C. Craig's three key historical claims can be established as being historical facts AND no plausible nautural explanation can account for Craig's three key historical claims being historical facts as well as the hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead."

 THEREFORE:

B. The hypothesis "God raised Jesus from the dead" is the most plausible explanation of Craig's three key historical claims being historical facts.

This sub-argument for premise (B) is unsound because premise (1c) is clearly false.  I also suspect that premise (C) is false or dubious, because I have significant doubts about both of the claims asserted by (C).  However, I have not worked out my objections to those two claims asserted by (C), so for now, I will reject the sub-argument for (B) based simply on the fact that premise (1c) is clearly false.

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