Tue, 16 September 2008  Famed Christian apologist, author, and chairman of the philosophy department at Liberty University, Dr. Gary Habermas will be our guest for the whole hour. Dr. Habermas will take questions from listeners on the resurrection of Christ and other related issues. Spread the word. LIVE right here @ infidelguy.com.A special thanks to Jim Lazarus and Chris J. for arranging this. Direct download: Tape462_gary_habermas_resurrection.mp3 Category: Religion and Spirituality -- posted at: 7:24 PM Comments[2] |
Reggie and his guest, Gary Habermas, disagreed on whether free will and omniscience are compatible. I think they differed in one background assumption which was not made explicit. I think Reggie assumed the only way an omniscient god could know in advance what a human would do is if the universe is deterministic. That would exclude free will. The background assumption is that causality goes only one way, that causes come before effects. Habermas' argument was that an omniscient god would know in advance what you later do of your own free will. That can only work without determinism if causality can reach back in time. The people most competent to judge whether that can happen in a universe with coherent laws of physics are the physicists and the mathematicians. If backwards causality is not compatible with the universe we see, then omniscience and free will are incompatible.
Habermas also argued that God would not offer incontrovertible proof of Jesus' resurrection because offering incontrovertible proof denies people free will. That is a strange concept of free will. If a mathematician shows me proof of a theorem, the mathematician does not deny me free will by any concept of free will I find even remotely reasonable. If the mathematician gave me a (hypothetical) drug that made me believe anything I'm told and then said "The following is true: ..." without offering proof, that would deny me free will.
I also wonder why a just and merciful god who is so concerned about our free will then says "You will only have eternal bliss if you believe this, for which I will offer no proof, only a vaguely plausible story that is contradicted by lots of other stories that are at least equally plausible. If you don't back a winner, you will suffer eternal damnation." I would much prefer the sort of respect for my free will that gives me incontrovertible proof, and then lets me decide how I act on it.
Habermas also argued that God would not offer incontrovertible proof of Jesus' resurrection because offering incontrovertible proof denies people free will. That is a strange concept of free will. If a mathematician shows me proof of a theorem, the mathematician does not deny me free will by any concept of free will I find even remotely reasonable. If the mathematician gave me a (hypothetical) drug that made me believe anything I'm told and then said "The following is true: ..." without offering proof, that would deny me free will.
I also wonder why a just and merciful god who is so concerned about our free will then says "You will only have eternal bliss if you believe this, for which I will offer no proof, only a vaguely plausible story that is contradicted by lots of other stories that are at least equally plausible. If you don't back a winner, you will suffer eternal damnation." I would much prefer the sort of respect for my free will that gives me incontrovertible proof, and then lets me decide how I act on it.
Second comment: I think Habermas' claims to have evidence of consciousness and perception in the absence of brain activity in near death experiences needs a little statistical reasoning. Imagine someone emails you and promises to predict the winning number when you play roulette. The email offers to prove the accuracy of the predictions, giving you the first number that will come up when you play. The offer is that after four successful predictions, you will pay for future predictions. You calculate that the probability of getting the prediction right by chance is 1/36 in each case. The probability of correctly predicting four independent events with a 1/36 chance is 1 in 1679616. Should you pay up after four successes, or could this be a scam?
To decide, you need to know whether the sender might have sent the same email to a few million people. If they all play independently (perhaps online), it's even possible to send them all the same numbers, and it's likely that the prediction will hold for a few of them.
The kind of evidence Habermas described could therefore come from sampling bias. The cases where the reports of people with a near death experience match verifiable events are the cases that get enough attention that a researcher can collect them. That sampling bias is likely to be massive. Then there is the problem of defining the chance level. Without knowing both possible sampling biases and relevant chance levels, it is impossible to evaluate the data in a meaningful way. Before I accept a claim as extraordinary as an afterlife, I want to be sure there are no statistical flaws in the evidence. Habermas' description didn't convince me he has even considered the problem, never mind solved it.
If there were no statistical flaws, I'd accept Habermas' anecdotes as evidence that there is something interesting going on that is worth further investigation. Before I accept his interpretation that he has evidence for an afterlife and resurrection I would like two more points cleared up. The first is how claims of consciousness in the absence of brain activity are compatible with consciousness normally being dependent on brains, and being affected by brain damage. The second is how this remote sensing is supposed to relate to conservation of energy. Are we talking about an immaterial soul interacting with matter and energy so that it can see and hear? As I understand it, that would violate conservation of energy. That would be quite important.
To decide, you need to know whether the sender might have sent the same email to a few million people. If they all play independently (perhaps online), it's even possible to send them all the same numbers, and it's likely that the prediction will hold for a few of them.
The kind of evidence Habermas described could therefore come from sampling bias. The cases where the reports of people with a near death experience match verifiable events are the cases that get enough attention that a researcher can collect them. That sampling bias is likely to be massive. Then there is the problem of defining the chance level. Without knowing both possible sampling biases and relevant chance levels, it is impossible to evaluate the data in a meaningful way. Before I accept a claim as extraordinary as an afterlife, I want to be sure there are no statistical flaws in the evidence. Habermas' description didn't convince me he has even considered the problem, never mind solved it.
If there were no statistical flaws, I'd accept Habermas' anecdotes as evidence that there is something interesting going on that is worth further investigation. Before I accept his interpretation that he has evidence for an afterlife and resurrection I would like two more points cleared up. The first is how claims of consciousness in the absence of brain activity are compatible with consciousness normally being dependent on brains, and being affected by brain damage. The second is how this remote sensing is supposed to relate to conservation of energy. Are we talking about an immaterial soul interacting with matter and energy so that it can see and hear? As I understand it, that would violate conservation of energy. That would be quite important.
Post your comment:
