Why Is There Belief in the Divinity of Jesus?

Originally posted by Scriabin
Why do people accept, without evidence, as fact that a human being called Jesus was conceived by the union of the deity of monotheism and a virgin human woman?

How is this different from the story of Hercules? What if the name of God was Zeus or Jupiter?

In other words, defining reality in terms of faith, any faith, simply baffles me.

I think it's because we accept a great deal on faith already, including what's considered "evidence." For example: Although you don't particularly care one way or the other (and that does make belief easier in this example) you take it on faith that I am an American and a teacher (if you've been around when these things have come up). These are minor things. You also take it on faith that state (Arizona) exists, unless you've been here. There is no proof that Arizona exists. People have written down tons of things that claim it exists. People have taken boatloads of photographs and claimed that the photos are of a place called Arizona. You take it on faith that people and places you've never seen exist. You take it on faith that what people claim to be evidence truly is. Similarly, if your father tells you stories of your great grand-pappy, you believe him unless you have evidence to the contrary.

People believe what works for them, and they are constantly defining reality in terms of (non-religious) faith. That's why some believe in global warming or having weapons in the house or spanking or polygamy or wrestling or creationism (with or without evolution) or the moon landing and some don't.

Originally posted by pawnhandler
I think it's because we accept a great deal on faith already, including what's considered "evidence." For example: Although you don't particularly care one way or the other (and that does make belief easier in this example) you take it on faith that I am an American and a teacher (if you've been around when these things have come up). These are minor estling or creationism (with or without evolution) or the moon landing and some don't.

I am not familiar with you. Pardon me for being equally skeptical, but I have no faith at all as to the truth of what you represent yourself to be. I've nothing on which to base that except your say so, which I find doubtful due to your general lack of knowledge about the theory of knowledge -- I would think any teacher would have had to know how they and their students know anything.

However do you teach anything of value knowing so little about how we know anything? Having said that, you do provoke a deep answer because the skeptical hypothesis you put forth is so superficially powerful. If you read the article Responding to Skepticism, cited below, you may find why your argument fails.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with questions concerning the nature, scope, and sources of knowledge. The article cited above and below concludes that in any fully general account of our knowledge, we'll have to rely on a starting point which we simply must accept to be true without a non-circular reason for thinking it true.

So we are supposedly to accept some circular argument -- I for one, am simply not willing to accept the circular argument called the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. The argument examines the concept of God and argues that it implies the existence of God: if we can conceive of God, it asserts, He must exist. The argument is often criticized as committing a bare assertion fallacy, as it offers no supportive premise other than qualities inherent to the unproven statement. This is a circular argument, because the premise relies on the conclusion, which in turn relies on the premise. It is rather like the Monty Python bit entitled How to Put Your Budgie Down.

No fully general account of our knowledge could succeed in also being a legitimating account. Skepticism will be the winner if we pursue epistemological theories in the traditional way. The problem with the traditional way is that it seeks a fully general, legitimating account of our knowledge.

You can seek a fully general account or you can try for a legitimating account. You can in fact pursue both types of account separately. What you can't have, and shouldn't seek, is an account of our knowledge that is, at the same time, both fully general and legitimating.

Under what conditions does a subject know something to be the case?

See Edmund Gettier's short classic, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis 23 (1963): 121-123 [in the journal Analysis, volume 23, published in the year 1963, on pages 121-123 http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html

Gettier's target is an initially tempting account of knowledge: the "JTB" account, as it's often called, which analyzes knowledge as justified true belief. According to such an account, a subject S knows that P if and only if [Gettier uses the common philosophical abbreviation of IFF for "if and only if"] :
1. P is true,
2. S believes that P, and
3. S is justified in believing that P.

According to this account, then, you know that it's raining outside, for example, if and only if it is true that it's raining outside, and you believe that it's raining outside, and you are justified in so believing. To refute such accounts, Gettier advanced two examples, each of which involve (or at least intuitively seem to involve) instances of justified true belief that nonetheless fail to be instances of knowledge.

One could try to maintain the JTB account in the face of Gettier's cases either by arguing (against appearances) that the the true beliefs in question in these examples are not really justified, or by maintaining (again against initial appearances) that the subjects in the examples really do know the propositions in question. But most epistemologists have accepted that Gettier's cases are genuine counter-examples to the JTB theory -- they are genuine examples of situations in which the questions "Does S know that P?" and "Does S have a justified true belief that P?" get different answers, and thus refute the JTB account of knowledge.

Epistemology also concerns itself with other, closely related concepts.

Some examples: When is a subject rational in believing something? When are you certain of something? When do you know for certain that something is the case? When is something doubtful, for a subject, or not? When is something possible (in an epistemic sense of "possible" ) -- under what conditions is a belief possibly false from its subject's point of view? When is a belief adequately supported by one's evidence? (And what constitutes our evidence for our beliefs, and when does a belief need to be supported by evidence in order to be rational?) All of these are epistemological topics in their own right, of interest beyond what contribution an understanding of these concepts might make in a successful account of knowledge.

Skepticism, or pessimistic accounts of the scope of our knowledge, has it that we know less than we think we know; radically pessimistic accounts have it that we know very little, or perhaps even nothing! Or that we know nothing except through faith -- but even though I've been in Arizona quite a bit, it isn't really necessarily a precondition that I go there to know it is there.

There are powerful skeptical arguments that threaten to show that skeptical assessments of the scope of our knowledge are actually correct. A central epistemological obsession has been showing what is wrong with these skeptical arguments -- or, occasionally, arguing that there's nothing wrong with them.

Theories according to which surprisingly few, or perhaps none, of our beliefs are justified, or rational, or adequately supported by our evidence, or known with complete certainty, etc., are also examples of skepticism.

See Responding to Skepticism
http://pantheon.yale.edu/%7Ekd47/responding.htm

also, try an introduction to epistemology at http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/EPISTEMI.Html

Then look at another couple of good sources
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

Originally posted by Scriabin
see http://www.springerlink.com/content/w3789t8683073023/

Spinoza argued
1. Miracles are violations of natural laws.
2. Natural laws are immutable.
3. It is impossible for immutable laws to be violated.
4. Therefore, miracles are not possible

The flaw in this is that Spinoza also assumes too much, just as those ...[text shortened]... t he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window.

The flaw in this is that Spinoza also assumes too much, just as those who assume miracles have happened assume too much.

This is precisely my point. You assume too much when you say that miracles are impossible. You're committing the same error that you recognize in Spinoza here, since his argument is essentially no different than yours.

How about assuming that miracles are possible? That, on the other hand, is not assuming too much. For whatever reason you cannot allow yourself to entertain such a possibility. It really doesn't matter how scientifically air-tight you make your position sound, you cannot logically rule out the fact that miracles are possible.

It doesn't bother me in the slightest if you choose not to take evidence of miracles seriously. Like I said, that's your prerogative, and I respect that. But it's really quite ridiculous to sit on your high horse and pronounce anyone a fool who dares to believe the testimony of the apostles - especially since your only argument against the veracity of scripture is your belief that miracles are impossible.

C'mon, man!

Originally posted by Scriabin
Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]I see you haven't spent much time studyng the Greek NT. If you're ever interested in "testing" the Bible's veracity (I'm guessing you'd prefer ingesting VX nerve gas),

You evade the example of the VX gas -- that is because you do not know how to classify knowledge correctly -- the VX example is offered to ...[text shortened]... ipture... [/b]

Never said that. But those who believe in dominionism say it is ...[/b]

In other words, it is you who assumes the truth of that which is not in evidence, not me. I await the evidence and haven't seen any yet.

Here are few questions to ponder:

(1) If you haven't yet objectively examined the evidence presented, then how can you justify rejecting it?

(2) If scripture isn't sufficient evidence for you, then what would be sufficient evidence for you to believe in Christ's divinity?

(3) Is it possible that your criteria for evidence is not reasonable? For instance, if God would appear before you in blazing glory, how would you know if it was truly God or simply a hallucination?

Originally posted by epiphinehas
(2) If scripture isn't sufficient evidence for you, then what would be sufficient evidence for you to believe in Christ's divinity?

The accompanying tradition?

(sorry...had to be deliberately argumentative.)

Originally posted by Conrau K
The accompanying tradition?

(sorry...had to be deliberately argumentative.)

Was it tradition that convinced you of Christ's divinity?

Originally posted by epiphinehas
Was it tradition that convinced you of Christ's divinity?

It is tradition which posits Christ's divinity, not the scriptures.

Originally posted by Rajk999
You talk like a fool.

The wise man will say "nothing I know of, is capable of bringing one of those bodies back to life ....."

I doubt you know everything that goes on in your own petty little household.
Im sure you do not know everything that goes on in you own little village,
far less for your town
your country
certainly not this planet.
Definit ...[text shortened]... n ?

The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!

… The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!…

It has just occurred to me that if you claim that you know that the proposition:
“The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know“
is true, then it must logically follow from this you are the biggest fool:

Do you not know that you do not know that the following proposition is true:
“The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know“ ?

If you answer YES to this question, then, according to your own criterion “The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know” you admit that you are the biggest fool because it means according to you:
“ “you not know that you do not know” that the following proposition is true:…”

If you answer NO to this question, then, it must logically follow that:
“you DO know that you do not know that the following proposition is true:
“The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know“ "
Which means you do NOT know that;
“The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know“ is true.
But if you don’t know that that proposition is true, then you cannot claim that that proposition is true and, therefore, you cannot answer NO to that question without contradicting yourself.

Originally posted by Conrau K
It is tradition which posits Christ's divinity, not the scriptures.

There you are again, putting the carriage before the horse. 🙂

If scripture did not attest to Christ's divinity, then 'tradition' wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
There you are again, putting the carriage before the horse. 🙂

If scripture did not attest to Christ's divinity, then 'tradition' wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

The scriptures are ambivalent on the subject of the divinity of Christ; Jesus shows himself subordinate to the Father and of limited knowledge; he is never referred to explicitly as God. Scripture is inconclusive and the early church was divided on the controversy. It was not until the fourth century and the popularity of Arianism and Ebionitism that the Church began to articulate definitively that Jesus was divine. Without tradition (and the ecumenical councils), there is no way to settle these controversies.

Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]The flaw in this is that Spinoza also assumes too much, just as those who assume miracles have happened assume too much.

This is precisely my point. You assume too much when you say that miracles are impossible. You're committing the same error that you recognize in Spinoza here, since his argument is essentially no different than yours.

H ...[text shortened]... inst the veracity of scripture is your belief that miracles are impossible.

C'mon, man![/b]

No,besides the fact that I am unwilling to accept the necessarily circular argument in favor of the possibility that supernatural causes intervene to suspend or change the operation of natural laws, I also am unwilling to accept as credible enough words from alleged witnesses who are not available for cross examination -- they've been dead since the 1st century. Thus, only another circular argument establishes anything about them. I prefer to withhold judgment on them as it isn't really possible to prove one way or another whether they falsified what they said they witnessed.

Further, I do not accept, either, a lot of scientific speculation on the same grounds: I am unwilling to accept as true, as one would have to do, the circular argument that just because we don't know for certain it never could be done, faster than light travel is impossible in a vacuum.

Now, the reason for all this comes down to some very practical considerations.

For example: do you know how environmental laws call for scientific standards to be set regarding the risk presented, the probability of harm, due to exposure to certain kinds of chemicals?

If we cannot prove with absolute certainty, as we cannot, that exposure to high doses of Benzene causes leukemia, then why act and legislate against such exposure?

How do we manage risk when human life is in the balance?

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]… The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know. And that you are!…

It has just occurred to me that if you claim that you know that the proposition:
“The biggest fool is the one that does not know that he does not know“
is true, then it must logically follow from this you are the biggest fool:

Do you not know ...[text shortened]... n is true and, therefore, you cannot answer NO to that question without contradicting yourself.[/b]

Thank you for a very funny post -- you are terrific. What a wonderful epistemological examination of that fool. Very clever and amusing,

Originally posted by epiphinehas
There you are again, putting the carriage before the horse. 🙂

If scripture did not attest to Christ's divinity, then 'tradition' wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Well, it is circular logic either way, guys.

Just choose the circle you want to dance in -- or the bottle you want to live in, and let the real world just go hang.

In other words, it makes no difference. Descartes walked into a salon and the hostess offered him a glass of wine. He sniffed, and started to say:
"I don't think ..." and vanished.