I’ve been running this blog for 11 years. It presents my carefully researched arguments for the truth of the historic Christian faith.
This week I reached quite a cool milestone – I published my 300th post. It’s wonderful to see how many thousands of people have visited the site over the years.
I’m thankful for the opportunity to engage with them all. Including my merry and sarcastic band of haters.
Check out the archives if you want to know more. I have plans to revamp the site to make this easier in the future.
For now – I’m looking forward to the future. I’ll be engaging with more ideas and arguments and responding to them. And my aim – is to present a careful argument for the truth of Christianity. And to respond to dumb counter arguments with gentleness and respect.
If Jesus of Nazareth really rose from the dead, why doesn’t the earliest written Gospel (Mark) have an account of the resurrection in it? Did the writer even know about the resurrection, or was it a later addition to the “story?”
Who Was the Author of Mark’s Gospel?
The 2nd century church fathers Irenaeus and Papias record the author as Mark. Mark was the Apostle Peter’s interpreter in Rome. Scholar Peter J Williams notes this is thought to be the John Mark mentioned in Acts. His mother had a house in Jerusalem (Acts 12:12).
John Mark was probably not an eyewitness of the Jesus events himself. Tho Papias notes he was recording the Apostle Peter’s first hand account.
Dating Mark:
NT scholar James Crossley has dated Mark’s authorship to the 40ADs. Bart Ehrman prefers 70AD.
It seems important to point out that when attempting to date Mark, it reflects a general understanding of the environment and the people living in and around Jerusalem before the Romans destroyed it in 70AD. That’s the case for all four gospels. Consequently, we can argue that the gospels were all probably researched and possibly written before or around the Roman destruction of the temple, written by individuals who knew what it was like to live there at that time. They were certainly researched and probably written within the lifetime of the eye witnesses of Jesus. They are not therefore later fabrications.
Problem with Ending of Mark’s Gospel:
Unlike the other Gospel’s, Mark ends abruptly. The original ending (v8) has the women fleeing from Jesus’ tomb scared and saying nothing to anyone. No empty tomb account, no appearances of Jesus.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” 8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Mark 16:6-8
There are various theories for this abrupt ending.
First – remember the autograph and original copies were produced pre-codex using Israel’s scroll technology. It’s possible that the copy of Mark that led to all subsequent copies had lost the final few inches. Apparently that sometimes happened to well used Jewish Hebrew Torah scrolls. Perhaps it also happened to this Greek Mark scroll? It would have been read regularly to the gathered 1st century church. Perhaps the original ending to Mark has simply been accidentally lost?
Second – Mark intended the ending to be abrupt. He was writing for a community well familiar with the events surrounding Jesus death and resurrection. He wished to make a point by ending in this way, perhaps about the important role the women played in launching the Christian church. They were the apostles before the male apostles, as Thomas Aquinas points out.
Did Mark Know About the Resurrection Accounts?
Is it possible that Mark did not actually know about Jesus’ resurrection? Was he writing to a community that had not invented such a fantastical and non-Jewish idea yet?
Evidence that Mark Did Know About the Resurrection Account
Even tho his conclusion does not mention them, I think we see evidence that Mark absolutely did know about the un-Jewish resurrection account, the empty tomb and the appearances of Jesus. How do we know that? Because he makes references to them earlier in his gospel.
27 “You will all fall away,” Jesus told them, “for it is written:
“‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’[d]
28 But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
Mark 14:27 – 28
Jesus predicts his resurrection and his subsequent appearances in Galilee. Appearances and empty tomb are implied here.
6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Mark 16:7
The messenger who frightened the women at the tomb informs them that must tell the disciples and Peter to meet the resurrected Jesus in Galilee as he told them to do. Implication again.
There are no surviving copies of Mark that do not have these verses in them. There is no evidence therefore that they were later additions to Mark’s gospel. They are original.
Consequently, we can say Mark absolutely DID know of the accounts of the risen Jesus and his appearances in Galilee when he was writing his gospel. These events were not later additions to Mark’s version of the events.
How Did Mark Know of the Resurrection Account?
Given how early Mark was written, it is striking that he knows of this resurrection tradition. One reasonable explanation for this fact is that the resurrection was well known amongst the early Christians and the enemies of the church at the time. Is there any evidence of this knowledge?
Yes. The Apostle Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthian church in the early to mid 50s. In that letter he quotes a Christian creed that is believed by many scholars to be the earliest Christian statement on the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus:
“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
Paul wrote this letter in the 50s, but this creedal statement is presented by him as a tradition that the church was well aware of. He’s writing about 20 years after the events he describes, and various scholars including Gary Habermas date the creed he quotes to within a few months of the events. The first Christians shared it orally in the early days of Christianity. Paul wrote it down for the Corinthians around 20 years later.
The creed suggests Jesus appeared physically, though he was confirmed dead by crucifixion a few days before. Additional accounts support the physical nature of the resurrection. For example, Thomas checking his wounds (John 20:24-27), and sharing a meal of fish with his friends (John 21:9).
So. How did Mark know about the resurrection tradition when he was writing? There is literary evidence that many many people knew of this tradition at the time, and we see this in Paul’s record of the creed. Consequently, it is unsurprising then for Mark to be aware of the resurrection.
Resurrection is Not a Later Invention:
Notice what these details lead us to conclude. Jesus resurrection wasn’t a later invention to somehow elevate his importance after his death. It was an event that friends and enemies were aware of from the earliest days of the Christian church.
While the ending of Mark’s gospel is curious and we don’t fully understand why it is as it is, this does not count against the knowledge of the resurrection amongst the earliest Christian believers.
Keith Goode / Ken Thackery (KG) sets out to prove Christianity is based on a resurrection that never happened, and the Gospels record well-meaning but fictional details about a Gospel-Jesus who is a misleading representation of a Historical-Jesus. He thinks this secular narrative is much superior to the traditional orthodox Christian version of history.
KG is not convinced by Jesus mythicists. Jesus lived and was crucified. However, KG complains that no evidence for the resurrection exists beyond the New Testament (NT). He says the consensus of experts agree the Gospels were all written after the death of eyewitnesses. Because there is no proof the resurrection happened, the Christian apologist must therefore rely on the martyrdom of Peter to prove the resurrection. But to KG, you cannot prove Peter’s martyrdom either. The resurrection is therefore unprovable.
KG observes how influential the Pharisee Saul was, and how he moved from persecutor to Christian evangelist as the Apostle Paul. KG decides this can only be explained by the existence of temporal lobe epilepsy. Further, neural science has shown KG that neural wiring is the cause of religious experiences.
Where did Paul’s idea of a resurrected Jesus come from? Unlike the other Pharisees in Jerusalem, KG asserts that Paul was somehow ignorant of the original Christian message, even though he was also personally active in persecuting them. He had to ask the Apostle Peter to help him understand Christianity properly. Because he felt threatened by Paul, Peter lied to him, saying Jesus had been resurrected. It’s not clear whether KG thinks only Peter claimed to see the resurrection, but KG says the lie was perpetrated as a power play by Peter over Paul.
When it comes to the NT, KG asserts the documemts were written many years after the fact. To say otherwise is just a convenience by Christian apologists. KG says the gospels were written after the death of all the eyewitnesses by nameless authors of fiction. KG also claims that the Christian message delivered by Paul was different to the Apostolic message. Over time, KG claims the apostles faded away apart from a few notable people like Peter.
Positive Feedback
Writing a book is hard graft, and so all authors need encouragement for that. Well done to KG for writing a book.
KG has clearly learned a number of things about Church history that he brings to bear when constructing his arguments and his alternative narrative. I can see this in his chapters on the Arian controversy in particular, leading to the Council of Nicea and that creed.
KG presents a fascinating chapter where he describes neurotheology. This subfield of neuroscience explores the relationship between regions of the brain, and subjective religious experience in the patient. Epileptics experience God, and when regions of the brain are stimulated electrically, subjective spiritual experiences occur.
Christianity is an important topic for KG to consider, particularly from the perspective of the first century. Agnostic historian Tom Holland observes that in today’s culture wars, our underlying assumptions about the existence of values, the value of human persons, and the ethical air we breathe is actually uniquely Christian. In every way, Tom recognises he is Christian.[1] If our culture is not Greek or Roman but Christian as Holland says, then it would be valuable to explore just what originally caused that.
Negative Feedback
Unfortunately, KG has come to his project with a predetermined outcome. He has decided there is no God, and so there must be a Godless explanation for Christianity. He doesn’t justify his atheistic position, he just assumes it to be the case. Given the logical problems with this from the off, KG unpacks his secular narrative which he thinks is superior to the orthodox Christian explanation for the birth of Christianity.
If KG had shown willingness to examine the evidence in a balanced way, and then honestly conclude there was no supernatural cause of Christianity, then I would value his process and his decision. Instead – he seems to have tried his hardest to come up with reasons why he was right in the first place that there is no God. He seems desperate to disprove Christianity which he really seems not to like. And he also does not like any claim that Christianity is what it claims to be. He singles out one individual in particular over this behavior. His book seems emotionally driven to me for that reason.
Let me make some commentary on a few of his arguments:
1 – We Don’t Need No Citation
On the one hand, KG is doing a work of history here. Like Holland, he is seeking to understand the past. Unlike Holland, he seems unable to cite scholars to justify his core positions.
First, the non-existence of God. He gives no support but assumes this position. Wouldn’t it help to at least give some reasons here? Second, he asserts the experts all know the gospels were written after the death of eyewitnesses. But who are these experts, and how do we know KG has correctly communicated their consensus position? No supporting evidence is given, so we must simply trust KG is correct. This means we cannot assess his claim as being true or false. He just expects us to go along with it. This seems unfair to his readers. I know many conservative scholars who date the gospels as early. I summarise some of those arguments below in “The Gospels as Fiction.” I also give an atheist NT scholar’s argument for early dating. But my main concern here is the way KG seems to pose as someone with the position, knowledge, and authority to declare a scholarly consensus. And his lack of citations show this is what he is doing. I think he just states a position that helps his case and hopes no one checks up on it. Third, KG assumes the NT documents should never be trusted to tell the truth about the events relating to the origins of Christianity, especially the resurrection. Who thinks this apart from KG? I have no idea based on his lack of citations. And I know plenty of NT scholars, James Crossley and Bart Ehrman among them, who would challenge his blanket assumptions here.
2 – Prove It
KG thinks the job of Christian apologists is one of proof. They must prove to him without a doubt that the resurrection happened if they are going to have any credibility. However, because KG says you cannot prove the resurrection, apologists have no credibility to him. I think this is a basic error in his thinking that I have pointed out to KG on many occasions. The historian does not attempt to prove anything. They gather data and pose arguments. We then assess the quality of those arguments and choose which one seems more likely on the balance of evidence and argument. In fact, KG tries to do this later with some of his own arguments when he tries to interpret Paul’s Galatians text. He even makes reference to some Christian arguments later too.
So – on the one hand KG requires cast iron proof to show apologist credibility, but then on the other hand he is happy to work with historical arguments. This shows profound confusion on the part of the author. It sounds like a straw man view of Christian apologetics. Frankly – I could respond to KG, prove to me there IS no God. Then I might take your book more seriously. But I know that is an irrational requirement in metaphysics and also history.
Interestingly, toward the end of the book, theologian and apologist Gary Habermas is suddenly named out of nowhere as being untrustworthy. I think KG’s anti-apologist axe grinding becomes very clear here…if it wasn’t blindingly obvious beforehand.
3 – Contrasting the Historical and the Gospel Jesus is Outmoded NT Scholarship
KG is stuck in the past on his view of Jesus – the first quest for the historical Jesus.
The ideas of the first quest for the historical Jesus were influential between the 1700s and around 1953. Gotthold Lessing had initiated this quest by claiming a ditch separated the two, and Rudolph Butmann widened that ditch further. David Strauss said the gospels were mythical. Yet NT scholars like Robert H Stein and Paul Copan have shown there is an approach we can take to cross Lessing’s ditch. The Criteria of Authenticity is applied to specific problems that present themselves when interpreting literature and understanding history. This involves detection of multiple attestation.[2] When multiple independent sources refer to a past event, this gives the historian grounds to think that this event happened. We do this between literary sources inside and outside the NT. The resulting arguments challenge KG’s distinction between the Christ of history and the Christ of faith. Although – if KG already knows there is no God (how?!), it’s hard to know how to discuss these challenges with him. This is the problem with KG’s type of work – it shuts down discussion rather than opening it up.
4 – Martyrdom Obsession
KG is obsessed with Peter’s supposed martyrdom in Rome. He seems to think if he can disprove this, he can disprove the resurrection. This is a profoundly odd idea to me. No Christian I have ever met thinks this way. It is only KG that seems to think the truth of Christianity hinges on Peter’s martyrdom.
I think KG is confusing primary sources, the NT, with secondary sources. The account of martyrdom of the apostles is not an essential part of the Christian message. It is merely a supportive argument. When you notice how willing the apostles and the first Christians were to face persecution and die for their belief in the resurrection of Jesus (reported inside + outside the Bible), this is merely a supportive argument for the truth of the resurrection. The apostles were witnesses of these things. Why would they be willing to die for something they knew was a lie perpetrated by Peter…or anyone else? The primary data is the text of the NT alone, and KG is simply wrong to think otherwise.
5 – A Low Opinion of the Ancients
KG has a low opinion of significant figures in Christian history. The Apostle Peter is portrayed as a pathological liar. The Apostle Paul is without a doubt the dumbest, and the worst Pharisee in all Jerusalem. Everyone else was well aware of the Christian preaching about the resurrection of Jesus in the days and weeks following the events. This is recorded throughout the first ten chapters of Acts and suggested by the extra Biblical evidence too. But Paul? He knows nothing of any of this. How odd that this idiot Apostle Paul would go on to write words that shaped the civilization that we live in today. Paul was a brilliant debater on Mars Hill, right? No – KG wants us to believe he was Peter’s gullible stooge.
6 – Self Refuting Ideas of Christian Conversion Thru Epilepsy and Brain Wiring
The idea that someone’s religious conversion could be attributed to epilepsy is profoundly disturbing to me. I know many adults who have become Christians later in life, yet they are very physically healthy.[3] I also know epileptics who are committed to a particular religious outlook for very different reasons that predate their epilepsy. I think someone who attempts to pin Christian conversion solely on epilepsy, a legitimate and distressing disease, shows desperation and hard heartedness towards epileptics and Christian believers.
But there are deeper problems with KG’s claim here. It is profoundly self-refuting. He cites neurological studies on religion and in a burst of insight, he declares that religious persuasion is down to neurological wiring alone. A person’s religiosity is down to brain cortex wiring. Well – this means that atheism is also down to wiring, just as Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhist persuasions are. Atheism is a religious position in the same way theism is. But if religious persuasion is down to physical wiring, then the issue of truthfulness in religious matters becomes irrelevant. There is no truth or falsehood. Just wiring. That the author writes an entire book arguing AGAINST a Christian religious belief system shows that he DOES think there are matters of truth and falsehood to consider here. So his neural wiring arguments become completely self-refuting for him. If they are true, his book project is a complete waste of time and he is speaking into the wind.
7 – Confusing the Original Christian Message
The Christian Kergyma is the original preaching of the Christian church. We see this reflected in Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, for example. From the start, they preached Jesus is Lord. They observed Jesus was raised supernaturally from the dead, and the was God’s demonstrated of the truth of Jesus Lordship. The first sermons explained this and called everyone to worship Jesus. (e.g. Acts 2, Acts 10) To KG, however, this must be false because the idea of Jesus resurrection came much later. The resurrection was not the miracle that launched the church. It was a lie perpetrated by Peter, the head of the Christian church, when Paul came to visit him some years later.
I have problems with this idea.
First, if the resurrection was a lie, what was it that the early Church preached about that got them into so much trouble and earned converts and notoriety early on? Why were they persecuted, as recorded in both the Biblical and extra-Biblical historical accounts? The Jews believed in a final resurrection at the end of time. The resurrection of Jesus made the church a threat to the Jewish establishment, and to the Roman authorities who described them as atheists for not worshipping all the Roman gods. Josephus and other sources record the pitiless persecution of 1st century Christians. Why all this trouble if there originally was no resurrection of Jesus? Without a resurrection, Christianity is just one of many 1st century cults that come and go. If the resurrection was a later idea added to Christianity, what was the original Kergyma? What did it contain? The NT is clear the resurrection was front and center from the very beginning. Even skeptical scholars concede the resurrection tradition was early.[4] KG disagrees with them all. The resurrection was a later invention by the church. But KG fails to suggest an alternative original Kergyma that would have been of sufficient importance to warrant Jewish 1st century persecution. We therefore only have a fraction of an idea here. We need to understand the full picture for it to make any sense of the historical data.
Second, why would a 1st century Jew fabricate a resurrection? This is bizarre in the extreme in that culture at that time. Third, why would Peter suggest such a subversive lie that he knew would get him into so much trouble in Roman society? It makes no sense for anyone to do that to themselves. Did Peter lack such a grip on reality, that he welcomed eventual persecution by Emperor Nero (as documented by Josephus) for a mere lie? He had followed Jesus for years and he knew that implications of such a claim. Fourth, if Peter was this much of a masochist, why didn’t the other Apostles (whatever church they served in) all band together to shut him up? After all, they were all implicated in this thing together. If Peter was telling dangerous lies, why didn’t his colleagues shut him down to save their own skin? Why would they go along with Peter’s craziness and collude with such a meaningless but politically dangerous conspiracy?
KG also asserts that the Apostles and the Apostle Paul have a different understanding of Christianity. He thinks the Christian message was different depending on who you listened to. Yet the NT indicates differently. The Kergyma I described earlier is what the consistent message was in the Christian church. We see this reflected in the earliest oral testimony, which is probably located in 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.
I suggest KG confuses the Apostles, who were spreading Christianity far and wide (e.g. Peter and Cornelius in Acts 10), with the Judiazers who thought Christians had to be circumcised and follow Levitical law like orthodox Jews. When Paul challenged this idea, he was writing to the church in Galatia (chapters 4 and 5) who had apparently been influenced by such teachers Paul does not name or identify. Whatever the relationship between Paul and the other Apostles, there is no evidence presented by KG that shows convincingly that Peter and the other Apostles were Judaizers. He simply asserts that the Apostles only preached to Jews (this is contradicted by Biblical and extra-Biblical evidence), and so they must have also preached law observance. The extant evidence of Apostolic preaching in Acts and elsewhere shows otherwise. And the teaching of Jesus that the Apostles were exposed to for three years also says otherwise. Why would they divert from this so quickly? KG doesn’t even notice this as a problem.
8 – The Hanging Sword of Confirmation Bias Cuts Two Ways
In most if not all chapters of KG’s book, he says we engage in confirmation bias if we disagree with his assertions and arguments. The irony here is as follows. Confirmation bias is about getting railroaded in our thinking. It happens if we only stick to what we think, and don’t spend time honestly considering what other people’s contrary opinions are and what they might mean and how we might respond to them. But KGs book reads as someone who sticks to what he thinks and does not consider contrary positions and how to respond to them to show his ideas work better. He simply asserts things. This book is in itself a work of confirmation bias. If he had engaged with other ideas, and assessed counter arguments showing how and why his ideas are better, he would not have engaged in confirmation bias. His book would have been improved considerably if he had engaged with other thinkers and other ideas.
9 – He Corrects History When He Wants To
KG corrects the historical record whenever it does not fit with his supposedly superior secular narrative. For example, in chapter 10 he talks about the meeting with Peter and Paul where the resurrection lie is supposedly shared (mentioned in Galatians 1). KG is obsessed with James, the brother of Jesus, and a leader in the church at that point. KG does not allow James to be present at this meeting, presumably because this makes the telling of the lie unlikely. So even though the Galatians 1 verse states Paul met Peter and James, KG corrects this verse. James wasn’t there after all, and its incorrect to reach this conclusion even tho the text says so. KG’s ideas are shown here to be an exercise in fictionalism and wish fulfilment rather than a valuable interpretation of historical events.
It’s worse for KG however. In chapter 13, KG is forced to agree with Galatians 2 that many of the apostles were present at Paul’s second visit to Jerusalem. What has happened in the in between years? Why do those additional apostles stick with the Peter that got them all into hot water by lying about Jesus being resurrected? And why has the fictional claim of the resurrection taken hold amongst the early church anyway? Why haven’t saner minds shut the fiction down? All it would have taken was someone to get Jesus’ corpse out of the tomb to show it to be a lie. Rather, if the resurrection is on the lips of the earliest eyewitnesses, as the NT says, then subsequent believers would be led by those who actually saw and interacted with him. When persecution came, from the Jewish establishment and Nero, the Apostles were holding something they knew first hand to be true. KG’s secular narrative sounds utterly absurd to me here.
10 – Ignorance of Apostolic Tradition
To KG, most of the Apostles just faded away and didn’t do much of note later in their lives. Honestly – it is like KG has decided not to permit the data from the second century to figure into his thinking. He’s edited it all out. There’s a rich tradition of the spread of Christianity by the Apostles in the first century. You can read about that tradition in The Fate of the Apostles.[5]
11 -Gospels as Fiction
KG claims the gospels were written by nameless writers as works of fiction. He gives no solid argument for this claim. His problem is the arguments for early authorship of the gospels are numerous but he recognizes and responds to none of them. For example, the 2nd century church fathers attest to the gospel authors’ identity, and their statements align with traditional authorship. Are they written very late? Probably not. Historians like Eusebius refer to them in the early 2nd century, the Didache from 100AD, quotes them, Clement quotes them in 90AD, the destruction of the temple in 70AD is not mentioned, the martyrdom of James in 61AD is not mentioned. None of the gospels mention significant events you would expect to hear about beyond 61AD. Further, Paul was still alive at the end of Luke-Acts, and Paul quotes Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:17 – 18, written around 64AD. So the material had to already be in circulation by then. Even atheist scholars like James G. Crossley think the Gospels are early. He dates Mark’s gospel to the AD40s based on its reference to dietary laws.[6] I pose many other arguments for the early authorship on Luke-Acts in my blog here. These and many more arguments point toward early Gospel authorship during the lifetime of eyewitnesses, affirming the reliability of those accounts in the form of ancient biography.
I think to KG, if he can convince us we are stupid to think the Gospels are early, that that helps his position. But it doesn’t. Even if the Gospels WERE late additions (I don’t think they were) the earliest reported material about the birth of Christianity is not even found in the Gospels. It is located in the NT creeds.
KG dismisses the gospels in chapter 15 as just containing ideas that were around in the first century. Yet he doesn’t realise this is an argument for the reliability of the gospels. He seems unaware of the possibility that this might just be exactly what would have been the case in the first century, the gathering of oral testimony prior to the penning of the Gospels. The Apostle Paul quotes some common and very early creedal statements that summarized Christian belief in the weeks and months following Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. For example, 1 Cor 15, Romans 4:24-25, 1 Thess 4:14, 1 Peter 3:18. These sound like pre-Pauline oral creeds in circulation in the church very early on. These give you a sense of what the church’s oral testimony was.
When the gospels were ready to be written, they were presented in an internationally recognised Koine Greek language, understood by Jews and other nationalities, and then shared amongst the churches along with apostolic authority. By the way – THAT is why they are written in Greek. KG says it’s a mystery on Orthodox tradition. It’s never been a mystery and is not that hard to work out that a missionary movement would write the new post-Jesus “law” in an international language.
In summary, KG describes the period where information is gathered prior to the Gospels but does not consider the possibility that this fact poses a counter argument for him to address. This sounds like another result of his own confirmation bias to me.
12 – Neurotheology
KG is summarising the evidence gathered by some neuroscientists in his book. His conclusion from this is, that “adult religiosity is more or less determined by the biological wiring in the temporal lobe region of our brains.”[1] Also, epileptics become hyper religious.
The assumption here is that mind and brain are the same thing. Our beliefs in a religious sense are physically predetermined by our brains. And if someone like Saul of Tarsus has an epileptically compromised brain, this fact is enough to explain his religious conversion.
I think the following:
12.1 – Many people have religious conversions in life, including epileptics and non-epileptics. To treat this subject in a balanced way, we have to compare the number of epileptics to non-epileptics who have had sudden religious conversions. KG does not do this, preferring rather to present only part of the data – the epileptics only. He then concludes that this must have been what Saul experienced to turn him into Paul. This is a weak argument because he makes no attempt to give us the full picture here.
12.2 – KG doesn’t consider the possibility that even if Saul was an epileptic (he has little evidence to go on that he was), that he could have had a genuine encounter with the external reality of Jesus on the road to Damascus.
12.3 – Let’s say KG is right that religiosity is wired into some peoples brains. Is it wired into all brains or just some? How could we know who is hard wired and who isn’t? And if KG is wired for atheism, does this undermine his ability to even tell the difference between someone wired and someone not wired for religion? Maybe he is wired for atheism while other people have no wiring at all and can understand reality truthfully?
12.4 – Everyone has a spiritual dimension to their lives, even if it involves actively rejecting the reality of it or seeking to ignore it. KG’s dimension seems to be reflecting on how he can explain it away. This dimension involves things that we know. Either I know there is a God, or I know God does not exist.
The problem with the brain wiring argument is that it removes our ability to know objective reality. If I am wired to be an atheist, for example, then if there is a God I could never know it. And vice versa. So, this idea poses the idea of a real handicap in human beings. Worse, if religious belief is wired, then perhaps other important beliefs are also wired like moral beliefs, beliefs about the structure of the universe and how it supports scientific analysis, and so on. Prejudice? It is not morally wrong, because it’s just how I’m wired to think and believe. If I am predetermined by my brain wiring, then I might think I am free to find the truth and believe it, but I am not.
This is a huge problem for KG’s whole thesis. If he is right that people like Saul are wired to belief, then the matters of truth or falsehood are irrelevant. All we have are bundles of physical wires in our brains. KG wants to convince us of the truth and value of his ideas. But on his neurotheological argument, there is no truth or falsehood. So, he has refuted his own argument. If it is true, it is of no value whatsoever because there is no truth or falsehood in spiritual beliefs, and probably other beliefs as well.
12.5 – The implication of KG’s chapter is that religion is physical. God is the result of brain chemistry, not external and immaterial reality. Yet this is not a belief that is held be all neoroscientists. Wilder Penfield was a pioneer of physical brain stimulation experiments. What he found was that on stimulating brain regions, causing responses in his patients, the patients described their responses as being drawn out of them by Penfield’s stimulation. They knew the difference between what their own decisions were in their minds, and what their bodies were caused to do by the experiment. This is evidence that mind and brain are separate but correlated things in human beings. Penfield concludes, “There is no place in the cerebral cortex where electrical stimulation will cause a patient . . . to decide”[2] Neuroscientist John Eccles reached similar conclusions.
Actually, I think human beings are born with belief in the separation of mind and brain. Children assume they are not their bodies, but they have bodies. It takes other people to convince them of materialism.
12.6 – I think the mistake being made in KG’s argument is to conflate correlation between two events, and identity of two events.
Here’s what I mean. It does not follow that because two events are correlated that they are identical. We cannot say that because a brain is stimulated and religious events occur, that therefore all subjective religious events are physical. For example, when I eat something and get a sore stomach, I do not identify the eating of the food with an upset stomach. Rather, the eating of the food is linked, or correlated, with the occurrence of the upset stomach. They are two separate things. Similarly with the brain. Human responses are correlated with many regions of the brain. But just because these two things are correlated, this gives no reason to think they are the same thing. KG brings that presumption to his argument without justifying his presumption.
So – while the neurotheology discussion is interesting, I think KG’s approach actually begs the question. It plays a role in his argument only because he has already decided there’s no God, brains and minds, and so religiosity is wired. It doesn’t help explain Saul’s religious conversion in a secular way. It actually refutes the thesis of his book!
Summary
I do not like self-refuting arguments built on shaky premises. These sorts of arguments help no-one, and so I will strongly point out what is wrong with the argument. I have tried to do that in this review. Further, I have come away from this book suspecting this author believes he knows better than:
The original authors of the NT. Paul didn’t really witness the risen Christ, he was sick in the brain. His statements in the NT are simply false. The Apostles didn’t really witness the risen Christ, they were lying / lied to / mistaken. None of the first Christians ever saw the risen Christ despite what the earliest oral testimony was. The Christian message wasn’t what Acts 1 – 10 says it was. KG knows better than all that.
The Jewish establishment who challenged the Christian church and made reference to Jesus miraculous deeds later in the Talmud.
The Roman authorities who thought the Christians believed in Jesus as their resurrected God and so were atheists relating to all the other Roman pantheon.
The early fathers of the Christian church, some of whom know the Apostles, and had close proximity to the events in the first century.
The NT scholars of the past one hundred years. KG has such a handle on this subject, he doesn’t have to cite any of them when making his assertions. But this makes his assertions about NT scholarly consensus to be unsustainable.
His readers. He knows so much better than us that we are downright illogical to disagree with him.
All Christians who have lived throughout human history and professed faith in Jesus Christ and his resurrection and his transformative impact on their lives.
Evangelistic preachers and Christian Apologists. Especially Gary Habermas. Ken knows so much better than all of them. Especially Gary.
I’ve got to conclude I don’t think KG is trying to get to the truth. He already thinks he knows the truth, and no one else can see it. I’ve pointed out some of the glaring problems with KG’s “truth” in this review. I think he needs to refrain from plucking ideas out of thin air. He needs to ground his statements with proper citations. He needs to engage with legitimate counter arguments. Maybe then – he’s more likely to draw legitimate conclusions and spark constructive discussion about how Christianity began.
[2] Robert H Stein, Criteria for the Gospel’s Authenticity in Contending with Christianity’s Critics: Answering New Atheists & Other Objectors and Robert H. Stein, The Synoptic Problem (Grand Rapids: 1987).
[4] Dale Allison, Resurrecting Jesus (2005) and R W Funk, The Resurrection of Jesus: Reports and Stories as reported my Michael Licona in The Resurrection of Jesus a New Historiographical Approach, (IVP Academic), 234.
[5] Sean McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles, (Routeledge).
[6] James G. Crossley The Date of Mark’s Gospel: Insight from the Law in Earliest Christianity (2004).
[1] K G Thackery, Why We Cannot Trust the Gospels, 51.
I read a brilliant description of Christian Apologetics, and the role of the Christian apologist this week. In her book Apologetics and the Christian Imagination Holly Ordway describes the task of the apologist as that of a gardener.[1] The narrow way of life that Jesus spoke of, involving belief in Christ and assent to his Lordship in our life, can be blocked by rocks, brambles, and overgrowth so that the path is barely visible to people who are walking past. What this garden needs is a simple gardener to roll up his sleeves, and start the task of clearing the ground, and pruning back the weeds. That way, the path will become visible once again. What are the rocks and brambles that Holly is talking about? I guess it’s anything in our culture that tries to usurp Jesus’ position or obscure his gospel message. What am I talking about?
How about the culture’s imperative for people that their goal in life should simply be to indulge personal autonomy, decide what their best life looks like, and do everything they can to live that life? Do you recognize that big rock? Or perhaps it’s the lie that matter and energy is all there is. That I am a physical being that will one day cease to exist physically, and this means I will cease to exist completely. So, I need to trust the activity in my physical brain, because that’s who I am. Of course, the problem with that knot of weeds is that the notion that the material world is all there is, is itself a metaphysical statement and the meaning of those words is not itself material! So it is, to some extent, a self-refuting position. When we claim physical matter is all there is, we are refuting the meaning of the words we are uttering. This is a useless knot of brambles that needs to be trimmed back and removed at the root by a talented and hardworking gardener.
Here are two important observations on Holly’s notion of apologist as gardener. First, the job of the gardener isn’t a greatly rewarded one in Western culture. It’s a lowly position, and probably not generally well paid. The value the gardener brings is not matched by a high salary. Maybe you could describe a gardener as a blue-collar worker. I think this is generally in line with the role of Christian apologist in the church. This role is not well accounted for generally, and probably not well understood by those in the church. We are good at recognizing problems in the culture. But perhaps we don’t know how to work those problems and uproot them. Second, gardeners are not generally high-profile individuals. When we employ a gardener to sort out the mess in our garden, we release them into that mess. They need to go, and we don’t want to see them again till their job is done. In some cases, they may be physically obscured by all the undergrowth they are rooting out. The worker is hidden for a while by the garden they are working in. But eventually, the result of their skilful hard work becomes evident. The garden is cleared, and the path is revealed again. Yet the gardener takes a back seat at that point to the beauty and utility of the garden and the path. And then he moves on to the next garden. Christian apologists, as gardeners, are generally not high-profile super stars. Rather, they are lowly and hardworking individuals who are committed to the cause of Christ in the world. Their goal is to make the good news visible and understandable to those who need it. That’s not to say some apologists might become well known. But on the whole, if we are working in this field of apologetics, our role does not require either fame or notoriety.
Here’s one final point Holly makes. She draws a distinction between the apologist and the evangelist.[2] It’s the role of the apologist, or gardener, to clear the way for the path to become visible. However, it’s the role of the evangelist to call people toward walking the path. The evangelist says – “Here’s Jesus’ path, walk it!” But the apologist makes that journey possible in the first place. She suggests that apologists are required to work both inside and outside of the church. That this role is as much about the strengthening and equipping of Christians to live their Christian lives, as it is about responding to questions about the faith. The danger of leaving undergrowth alone is that it increases in size, and eventually becomes a problem. Unaddressed questions and issues in the life of the Christian can lead to problems later. So, it’s important to get help from a skilled worker to help clear these issues before they become problems in the life of the believer.
I’ve heard apologists described as those who are working to fill potholes in the road so that people can make progress spiritual progress in their lives towards a life that honours Christ. I think the gardener metaphor is also useful as it highlights the culture’s role in obscuring the Christian message. And it also highlights the hard work involved in identifying and removing false cultural messages, not just making up for them.
[1] Holly Ordway, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith, (Steubenville:Emmaus Road Publishing, 2017), 12.
I am wondering whether David Gordon Green and Peter Sattler understood the subject matter before sitting down to write “The Exorcist: Believer.”
They clearly have a great understanding of the original William Friedkin movie. It’s referred to powerfully from their first to their final frame. They have story elements that resonate for those who remember the original. Green, who directs the picture, executes familiar moments of dread early on that were quite effective on the audience. People freaked out a few times. Green even has at least one actor from the original movie in it. This film is a well-made horror film, even though it sometimes seems a bit ponderous.
On a positive note, I appreciated some ways they raised the subject of unexpected evil and suffering. They mention these in a careful way that will relate to people. They also attempt to give a perspective on evil and suffering that (while it is inadequate – more in a moment) at least is thoughtful and seems well intentioned. This has distant echoes of William Peter Blatty, writer of 1973’s “The Exorcist” and devout Catholic. I also like the fact that Christianity is represented in this film. Now – I would argue the church is shown to be wholly inadequate, impotent, and lacking in any agency here. But at least it is there, and Christian people are active and part of the resolution to the crisis that unfolds.
There is also encouraging evidence that Green and Sattler researched demonic possession. At least one element in this story has been lifted straight from accounts I’ve read from experienced medical doctor, and psychologist Richard Gallagher.[1]
But here’s where I come to a fundamental and serious misunderstanding at the centre of “The Exorcist: Believer.”
I worry that it could potentially have dangerous implications for the audience were they to take its dumb message seriously. On the one hand, Green and Sattler want us to know that the demonic realm is a real one. Demons exist whether or not we believe in them, and they hate people. I think Green and Sattler are right to say that. But on the other hand, their stated solution to the problem of demonic possession seems to be – the love of a parent for their child. This is a big problem for me. Why?
1 – In the original movie, part of the dread and the horror related to Chris MacNeil’s powerlessness to help her daughter Regan in their shared situation. Chris loved Regan, but this made no difference to the demon, or to her daughter’s plight. A parent unable to help a suffering child is a terrible thing to see. Green and Sattler’s tale lacks this central dilemma.
2 – If demons exist (I think they do based on scripture + contemporary professional accounts) and if demons hate people (I think they do based on the same evidence) then why would they be defeated by a parent’s love for their child? Human love isn’t a weapon against the demonic. Rather, it’s one weapon the demons use against us. They hate us, and so they use everything at their disposal to make us suffer. We see this in the New Testament, in Richard Gallagher’s work, and even in Blatty’s original “The Exorcist”. Because Green and Sattler’s demon is vulnerable to human love, it is clearly the dumbest demon on the block. But I don’t think real demons are dumb. They have existed for thousands of years, and they know just were to get us and how. This movie paints a real threat as an idiot. That’s unwise.
3 – But there is worse to come. Green and Sattler have unwittingly set up possible conditions that could lead to demonic influence in gullible people’s lives. At best, that’s irresponsible. How have they done this? They’ve told us that our love for the living and the dead is powerful, and solves all problems. This would be dangerous if it led unwise audience members to attempt to contact dead loved ones who they love. Why dangerous?
The evidence would suggest that demons are real – and they don’t give a hoot what we think and feel about anyone. In the past, people turned to spiritualism and Ouija boards as a way to make contact with dead relatives. They did that because they loved these people and missed them. There was a resurgence of this practice during the First World War, and it has been on the rise again more recently. Reportedly, there’s sometimes an initial sense of connection to the deceased. Yet this is followed by destructive and harmful events in the life of the grieving and budding spiritualist. I would argue that this suggests if we go looking to speak to the dead, we will only encounter demons who pose as our loved ones, and want to mislead and harm us. Green and Sattler’s message – human love conquers all – is like sending you into battle without any defence or weapon at all. On the one hand – demons are real – on the other, we can take ’em guys! I’m wondering why they would send such unwise and mixed messages in this movie?
Finally, while I found parts of the movie’s climax touching, I also found it deeply unsatisfying. Green and Sattler want us to believe that human love conquers all, and all God can expect of us is to do our best to keep going in our lives and keep loving people. That’s all God can expect of us when it comes to us being good enough for heaven after we die. Right? Loving people is good, but the God bit here is exactly wrong.
Blatty was closer to the truth of the matter in the original “The Exorcist”. Demons want us to think we’re not good enough to receive God’s love. That’s why he said the child was possessed – to make us think we are animals. But the demon is wrong. God loves all people, we are precious, made in his image. He wants us to know him. Life is not about being good enough for God. It’s not human love that conquers all. Rather, it’s Jesus Christ’s love that defeats the power of man’s freely chosen rebellion against God. For those who decide to put their trust and belief in Christ, a future in heaven is assured. Human love is not the solution, it’s an important signpost towards the powerful love that God has for people. That’s where the true eternal hope lies. “The Exorcist: Believer” mistakes the signpost for the true thing. And it underestimates the threat of the demonic in people’s lives. I would argue – William Peter Blatty made neither of these mistakes.
“There is more than enough room in my father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the father except through me.”
John 14:2, 6, NLT
“You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror.”
James 2:19, NLT
[1] Richard Gallagher, Demonic Foes: My Twenty Five Years as a Psychiatrist Investigating Posessions, Diabolic Attacks, and the Paranormal, (2020).
Former evangelical Charles Taze Russell founded the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society in 1880, and his successor Joseph Rutherford later adopted the name “Jehovah’s Witnesses” for its members. Robert Bowman opines Russell’s anti-Trinitarian ideas originated from his Adventist influences in the 1870s.[1]
JW Anti-Trinitarianism
In Should You Believe in the Trinity, JWs describe the Trinity doctrine as denoting one God in three persons, each eternally existing, each equally almighty. They claim this is contrary to reason; three persons cannot represent one God.[2] Further, were one to read the Bible without preconceived trinitarian notions, one would not locate trinitarian doctrine in it.[3]
Biblical Examples of Trinitarian Doctrine
The Bible is God’s inspired revelation. Despite JW claims, trinitarian doctrine is threaded throughout scripture. William G. T. Shedd identifies two ways it presents the Trinity. First, texts exist where all three members of the Godhead, Father, Son and Spirit, are mentioned directly. Second, some texts teach the deity of individual Godhead members.[4]
An example of type one is Jesus’ baptism. As Jesus emerged from the water, Matthew reports the Spirit descended like a dove and a voice identified Jesus as God’s dearly loved Son.[5] This implies the one speaking is the Father. Second, Jesus commission of his disciples has a trinitarian form, commanding the baptism of Christian converts in the individual names of the Father, Son, and Spirit.[6] Third, the Apostle Paul commonly sent trinitarian greetings to the church. To the Corinthians, he blessed them with the grace of Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.[7]
We find instances of Shedd’s second type of trinitarian text, the deity of individual Godhead members, in the Old Testament. First, Shedd observes a trinitarian three-ness evident in the early priestly blessing the Lord gives to Moses; blessing, grace, and peace.[8] Second, Isaiah declares that God the Father is the only God,[9] yet also states that a Son is given to us called Mighty God and Everlasting Father.[10] While Genesis reports the Spirit of God hovered over the deep,[11] Shedd observes the Gospels assume the first century Jewish audience understood God’s Spirit to be a person from Hebrew scripture.[12] In Matthew, John the Baptist tells the Jewish Pharisees one is coming to baptise in the Holy Spirit, without needing to identify that Spirit.[13]
JW Rebuttals
JWs say the New Testament (NT) views Jesus as a creature, not a divine being. Because Jesus is not God, the Trinity is necessarily false.[14] I will explore three JW arguments opposing Jesus’ divinity.
First, Jesus was created in heaven prior to visiting earth,[15] in Colossians 1:15 he is “first-born of all creation,”[16]and the one who Revelation 3:14 identifies as the beginning of God’s creation.[17] Michael Licona poses two challenges to JW interpretation. First, the Greek for “first-born” is “prototokos.” It is used in the Greek Septuagint in two ways. It denotes a chronological relationship, identifying Canaan’s oldest son,[18] and it also identifies a person’s position. When David is described as the first-born, mightiest king,[19] this cannot denote a chronological position as Saul was Israel’s first king.[20] Rather, “prototokos” is a title designating David’s position.[21] Similarly, “prototokos” in Colossians 1:15 can also be interpreted positionally. Verse 16 identifies this interpretation as the correct one. Rather than stating God made everything after he created Jesus, Paul says he made things through Jesus, implying his divinity.[22] Licona’s second challenge relates to Revelation 3:14. The Greek for “beginning” is “arche.” This word is either expressed passively or actively. If passive, the subject is being created, otherwise the subject is doing the creating. Revelation can read either way. Yet Licona urges interpretation of the verse alongside other instances of “arche.” For example, Colossians 1:18 describes him as the “beginning, supreme over all,” and Colossians 1:15-16 says he was the one who began everything. Consequently, Revelation 3:14 should be interpreted similarly; Jesus as creator, not creature. The word “arche” also denotes political rule, and this is appropriate for Jesus.[23]
The second JW argument notes Jesus is described as the only-begotten Son of God.[24] The writer to the Hebrews uses the same Greek word, “monogenes,” when describing the relationship between Abraham and his son Isaac.[25]Usually, begetting relates to procreation. JWs claim the relationship between Father and Son is therefore similar to the relationship between Abraham and Isaac. Yet while “monogenes” can refer to a single, naturally born son,[26] Licona identifies another meaning. Abraham did not only have one son, he also had a second son named Ishmael. Hebrews therefore cannot correctly identify Isaac as Abraham’s only naturally born son. So, “monogenes” must mean something else in Hebrews, and also in John 1:18, and 3:16. It means special and exalted. Jesus is the exalted Son of God, like Isaac is the exalted son of Abraham.[27]
Third, JWs deny that people ascribed deity to Jesus in the first century.[28] He was the Son of God, not God. Yet this misunderstands the meaning of Jesus’ title and is at odds with the text. For example, monotheistic Jews knew worship was due to God alone.[29] Yet the disciples worshipped Christ,[30] and the author of Hebrews states the angels also worship him.[31] Further, Jesus himself took authority over the sabbath that God instituted,[32] and he claimed divine authority to forgive sin.[33] Further, the Jewish Sanhedrin demonstrated their understanding of the divine office of Messiah. Prior to his crucifixion, when Jesus agreed he was the Messiah, the high priest accused him of blasphemy.[34]First century Jews clearly did understand Jesus’ claim to deity.
Conclusion
The JW claim that scripture fails to teach trinitarian doctrine is unsustainable. Their rejection of the Trinity may stem in part from confusion; they miss the distinction between essence and person. Shedd notes the divine essence subsists paternally in the first, filially in the second, and is spirated in the third person, simultaneously and eternally.[35]While there are three persons, there is only one divine essence, and they are each the whole of it.
[1] Robert M Bowman, Jr., Jehovah’s Witnesses, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995), 12.
[21] Michael Licona, Behold I Stand at the Door and Knock What to say to Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses when they knock on your door, (Alpharetta: TruthQuest Publishers, 1998), 34.
The term Near Death Experience (NDE) was first proposed by Dr. Raymond Moody in Life After Life. It relates to an event occurring in three categories of people: first, people resuscitated after having been pronounced clinically dead, second those close to death, and third those describing what happened as they died.[1] These subjects often report similar experiences, containing some or all of the following: one hears oneself pronounced dead while simultaneously navigating a tunnel, landing outside the physical body (OOB) while remaining in one’s original physical environment. The subject observes their resuscitation from above. Other beings come to help the individual, including deceased family. A loving light is encountered, a review of life experiences, and eventually a barrier is reached. Rather than cross it, survivors decide, or are instructed to return to their physical body. On recovery, they find their ineffable experience hard to communicate.[2]
While NDEs were not well studied before Moody, they do appear in history. George Ritchie’s NDE was published in 1955,[3] Anna Atherton’s was published in 1680,[4] and around 300 BC Plato recorded a Greek soldier’s NDE in The Republic.[5]
Moody’s research was followed by Bruce Greyson who constructed a scale permitting the differentiation of true NDEs from other clinical diagnoses.[6] Michael Sabom studied seventy NDE cases, discovering autoscopic NDEs where the patient observes specific details of their resuscitation that could not have been naturally sensed by them.[7] These evidential NDEs suggest the NDE experiencer (NDEer) had an OOB where they perceived events later confirmed by third parties. Kenneth Ring studied NDEs in the blind and eighty percent reported visual impressions. Their observations were corroborated in two cases.[8]
Responding to Secular Skepticism
Michael Shermer claims all NDEs are in Moody’s category two because no physical death occurred. He opines that if a heart stops for ten minutes, this does not make one clinically dead. Successful resuscitation indicates the patient’s low-level bodily processes had not yet ceased. Consequently, the NDEer remained potentially alive even though they had flat electroencephalogram (EEG) output.[9]
I will make four responses to Shermer. First, the clinical definition of death involves absence of clinically detectable vital signs. Moody notes people in this state have been correctly declared dead for centuries, including category one NDEers.[10] The clinical death diagnosis does not preclude the possibility of resuscitation. Second, Shermer seems unwilling to allow OOB experiences. Because the mind is a product of the brain, and Shermer believes science definitively demonstrates that minds cannot exist apart from brains, OOBs are impossible.[11] Yet Moody’s evidential NDE studies support OOBs. Rather than producing mind, perhaps Shermer could consider the possibility that brains receive immaterial minds like radios receive radio waves.
Third, Shermer’s medical diagnosis seems misaligned to the reported heightening of consciousness during NDEs. Jeffrey Long observes surviving cardiac arrest patients generally experience confusion following resuscitation.[12]Shermer’s idea that brain produces mind supports this discovery; a low functioning brain would impede one’s consciousness. Yet Long also reveals a second group of cardiac NDEers who recall a heightened level of awareness during their resuscitation.[13] Shermer’s physicalism fails to account for both the second group, and the contrast between patient confusion in one group and recall of heightened awareness in another. Understanding the brain as a receiver rather than a producer may help explain this difference. Steve Miller opines we can assume an oxygen deprived brain undermines the mind’s activity. However, if the NDEer’s mind has become freed from their dysfunctional brain, this could present conditions that explain their heightened level of awareness.[14]
Fourth, Shermer’s naturalism means NDEs cannot be evidence for minds separate from brains. Yet science is not as definitive as he claims it to be on the relationship between mind and brain. Perhaps Shermer must assess all the evidence before reaching his conclusions.
Responding to Christian Skepticism
Norman Geisler rejects NDEs, observing a Biblical definition of death involves leaving the body and not returning without God’s intervention. Cases of final death include Jacob’s wife Rachel dying in childbirth,[15] and the Apostle Paul preferring to be away from his earthly body to be at home with Jesus.[16] Cases of divinely initiated return include Jesus’ raising of Lazarus,[17] and Jesus’ own resurrection.[18] Geisler opines only God can raise the dead.[19] This may be the case. Yet NDEers are resuscitated, not resurrected. Their physical body sustains life once medical intervention has restored it. Second, the possibility exists that God was involved in the resuscitation. NDEer’s commonly encounter a loving being of light. This seems somewhat consistent with Daniel’s vision of God’s blazing throne,[20] and the God who lovingly knits people together in the womb.[21]
Geisler also observes that non-Christians experience NDEs, asking why God would miraculously allow people to resume their unbelieving lives.[22] Perhaps God grants unbelievers the NDE to draw them towards himself? Jesus knew the hearts of those he spoke to; the rich young ruler loved his money,[23] and the hearts of the Pharisees were far from God.[24] It is plausible Jesus also therefore knows the state of every NDEer’s heart, recognizing the importance of a supernatural experience of his love before their ultimate demise. Moody describes changes in NDEers after their recovery; increased moral sensitivity,[25] and spiritual seeking is common.[26] These are often characteristics of those who eventually bow the knee to Christ.
Finally, because scripture teaches people only die once,[27] Geisler thinks the NDE is unbiblical.[28] Yet category one NDEs describe someone who dies but is resuscitated to live in the body a while longer. Their final death still awaits them. The NDE phenomena is therefore compatible with the Biblical observation that people only finally die once.
Importance of NDEs for Apologetics
NDEs evidentially support Jesus’ teaching that the human soul and body are distinct.[29] Gary Habermas explores this by discussing evidential NDEs that involve the patient’s unexpected conscious awareness during resuscitation, and NDEs in the blind. These NDEs contain veridical testimony pertaining to this world that remains unexplained naturalistically.[30] They therefore establish an evidential case supporting Jesus’ teaching about the nature of human beings.
[1] Raymond A. Moody, Life After Life, (London: Ebury Press, 2016), 8.
[6] Bruce Greyson, “The Near-Death Experience Scale Construction, Reliability, and Validity,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 171, no. 6: 369 – 375.
[7] Michael B. Sabom MD, Recollections of Death, (London: Corgi Books, 1981).
[8] Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper, “Near-Death and Out-of-Body Experiences in the Blind: A Study of Apparent Eyeless Vision,” in Journal of Near-Death Studies, 16, no. 2, (Winter 1997): 101 – 147.
[9] Michael Shermer, Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia, (London: Robinson, 2018), 90.
[12] Jeffrey Long, “Near-Death Experiences Evidence for their Reality,” in The Science of Near-Death Experiences, ed. John C Hagan III, (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2017), 65.
[14] J Steve Miller, Near-Death Experiences as Evidence for the Existence of God and Heaven: A Brief Introduction in Plain Language, (Georgia: Wisdom Creek Press, 2012), 27.
[30] Gary R Habermas, “Evidential Near-Death Experiences,” in Minding the Brain: Models of the Mind, Information, and Empirical Science, eds. Angus J. Menuge, Brian R. Krouse, and Robert J. Marks, (Seattle: Discovery Institute Press, 2023), 651 – 673, summarised.
Are you interested in what happens to us after our bodies die? If so, then this book is a great resource.
We’re going to bring many assumptions to this subject. Maybe we are involved with one of the world’s religions, or perhaps our background is completely secular. I think this book will be relevant for everyone, whichever worldview we are personally starting from. (1)
We’re all coming with different assumptions, yet we’re all going to die one day. So, it is very helpful to read Miller’s careful assessment of the data gathered from people in two main groups. First, those who have not yet reached their final death, but apparently have had a sneak peek into what comes next (NDE). Second, those who had surprising encounters as their final death approached them (DBE). Various professional studies have been done on these phenomena. In this book, Dr Miller focuses on the Near Death Experience Research Foundation (NDERF) database and assesses the experiences recorded there. He balances the data entered by medical professionals with reports from the general public, and assesses both in an even handed way.
Dr Miller has two strengths that he brings to this book. First, his rigorous and curious approach to the world. He’s not trying to confirm what he thinks he already knows. He’s genuinely looking at all the data he can find that seems to relate to what happens for ordinary people as they approach death. Second, he is incredibly generous in his scholarship. I can see that generosity in the extensive reference list he provides. But I can also see it in the way he forms his arguments. His rigor is matched by kindness, tentativeness, and accessibility. It’s a joy to read, and I never felt railroaded as I assessed his arguments in the book. But I did leave wanting to know more.
He covers a lot of ground, and so inevitably, Dr Miller cannot go into depth on every area he explores. For example, his treatment of the problem of evil in chapter 17 is very brief indeed. There is much more that can be said here, and some readers may feel their own issues with evil and suffering are not addressed. Yet perhaps a comprehensive treatment of this area is not really Miller’s goal. There are other resources that he points to that do that job. I think in this book, he helpfully faces the common complaint that life sometimes just does not make sense to us. He illustrates this problem by referring to the death of his first wife when she was very young. He then sketches out an argument to suggest that NDE’s point to a divine love and justice that will only be fully known and understood by us after our final death. I think this is helpful in two ways. Dr Miller might be breaking some new ground with this argument, and he is also laying helpful groundwork for future scholars to run with. Generosity again.
Are you skeptical about NDEs and DBEs based on your religious or secular commitments? Why not read Dr Miller’s book, and then come to your own opinion based on both the data and the inferences that he draws from it.
Consciousness is hard to understand. I’m conscious as I write this, and you are conscious as you read. But it is very hard for scientists to understand just what our “consciousness” amounts to. The resources in philosophy help. Some philosophers only allow an explanation of consciousness to be formed in materialistic and reductionist terms. For example, Daniel Dennett thinks that consciousness is matter.[1] Others think that brain matter itself, while correlating with our experience of consciousness, cannot be the cause of conscious experience. In other words, we are not our brains. Rather, we have brains.
A theory is emerging called the non-locality of consciousness. It comes from the field of Quantum Physics, and the observed phenomenon of quantum entanglement (QE). QE describes the behaviour of two sub-atomic particles that once entangled, remain mysteriously connected over long distances with no apparent physical connection existing between them. Pim van Lommel, cardiologist and Near-Death Experience (NDE) researcher for over 30 years describes a theory of nonlocal consciousness:
Our endless or nonlocal consciousness with declarative memories finds its origin and is stored in a nonlocal realm as wave-fields of information, and the brain only serves as a relay station for parts of these wave-fields of consciousness to be received into or as our waking consciousness. The function of the brain … [is as a] transceiver.[2]
In this blog, I want to give three examples of phenomena that seem to support the hypothesis of nonlocality of consciousness. All three relate to the practice of medicine:
1 – neuroplasticity
2 – terminal lucidity
3 – consciousness during a period of brain malfunction
1 – Neuroplasticity
Mindfulness studies show the ability of the human mind to shape the physical composition of the brain. Van Lommel observes that both neural networks and electromagnetic activity are shaped by one’s mind. He asks, how can we explain this scientifically if the conscious mind is merely a side-effect of a functioning brain, or if consciousness is just an illusion?[3]
He cites an example of a three-year-old girl whose left-brain hemisphere was removed surgically to alleviate symptoms of epilepsy. This procedure would be disastrous on adults. However, young children appear to have a high degree of adaptability, or plasticity, in their brain function. The number and location of neuron connections is highly adaptable. A year after her operation, she showed virtually no symptoms and could see and think clearly. She proceeded to develop normally, did better at school than others with a whole brain, even though she only physically possessed half a brain.[4]
Clearly, for this outcome to have been achieved, the girl must have been able to form new neural connections that allowed all function to be taken over by the remaining half of the brain. She re-programmed her brain because she had the conscious will, and the ability to do so. Her conscious mind changed the construction of her brain.
For this to be possible, that means brain and mind cannot be the same thing, though they are closely related things. If the mind is the product of the brain, we would expect her mind to suffer the massive loss of brain matter. Yet this was evidently not the case over the long term. She was able to overcome the loss of brain tissue and carry on after a period of recovery. If the mind is an illusion, we would not expect it to have the ability to rewire the functioning of the brain. And yet this is evidently what it did.
2. Terminal Lucidity
Sometimes, in the last week or day of a terminal patient’s life, they regain capabilities that are not easily explainable by normal neurological processes. David was dying of lung cancer. His head was stuffed full of tumors, and on his final scan, he had virtually no brain tissue left. All he had were haphazardly growing grey masses. He was non-responsive, his body kept alive on machines.
On his final evening, the consultant checked on him and noticed his breathing indicated that death was imminent. He did not expect David to survive the night. The next morning, the room had been cleaned, and the bed made up following David’s death. However – the nurse that had cared for David as he died stopped the doctor in the corridor to talk.
He woke up, you know, doctor – just after you left – and said goodbye to them all. Like I’m talkin’ to you right here. Like a miracle. He talked to them and patted them and smiled for about five minutes. Then he went out again, and he passed in the hour.[5]
This was a wonderful opportunity for David’s heartbroken family to say goodbye. But notice this. It couldn’t have been David’s brain that woke him up. He didn’t have any brain tissue, only metastases. This strongly suggests that David’s mind was able to push through the physical impairment for a short time prior to death. This is hard to explain on a materialistic understanding of brain but makes sense on the non-locality of consciousness hypothesis.
3 – Conscious During Brain Malfunction
On patients under general anaesthetic, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and registration of electrical activity of the brain (EEG) show functional loss of all major brain tissue. Connections are temporary severed while under anaesthetic, making information flow between neural centres impossible. In this state, conscious experiences should not be possible on a materialistic understanding of consciousness (where mind = brain). Van Lommel gives the following report from an anaesthetised patient that challenges materialism:
I suddenly became aware of hovering over the foot of the operating table and watching the activity…soon it dawned on me that this was my own body. So I … heard everything that was said: ‘Hurry up, you bloody bastard,’ was one thing I remember them shouting … I could also read the minds of everybody in the room…I later learned … it took four and a half minutes to get my heart … going again. As a rule, oxygen deprivation causes brain damage after three or three and a half minutes. I also heard the doctor say that he thought I was dead. Later he confirmed saying this, and he was astonished to learn that I’d heard it. I also told them that they should mind their language during surgery.[6]
A common response to this phenomenon is to suppose that the person’s hearing remained active during the procedure, and they imagined a visual scene based on prior experience of medical procedures seen in their lives, perhaps on TV or films. If so, their memory is not an example of the non-locality of consciousness.
However, this materialistic explanation has been well studied by Dr Penny Sartori. She shows convincingly that the recall of patients who claimed an out-of-body (OBE) experience is much more accurate compared to patient recall based who did not claim an OBE and were working on their limited background knowledge.[7]We therefore have good reasons to believe van Lommel’s patient when she claims to have seen and heard her operation while physically unconscious and unable to do so in a natural sense.
4 – Conclusion
The clinical examples quoted in this blog are not easily explained on a materialistic account of consciousness. They are, however, compatible with the non-locality of consciousness. When taken together with the evidence of NDE, this forms a robust argument for the non-locality of consciousness and refutes the physical argument for consciousness.
[1] Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained, (1991), mentioned in Pim van Lommel, The Continuity of Consciousness A Concept Based on Scientific Research on Near-Death Experiences During Cardiac Arrest, Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies, https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/index.php/essay-contest/.
I’ve been reading about Vipassana Meditation this week.[1] This is a practical approach to finding peace and freedom from suffering in life. Given the fears many people carry around with them today (will I have enough to live on, will there be a war here, will my family be okay), I can see why a strategy for peace and freedom is attractive.
The Buddhism on which Vipassana is based is one of the world’s oldest religions, starting somewhere around the fifth century BCE, although it is hard to be precise on those dates.
Vipassana seems to be built upon some core Buddhist doctrines. Oxford University Buddhist Scholar Sarah Shaw says that while there are many different schools of Buddhism, they tend to share these core tenants of the Buddhist dharma, or law:[2]
Impermanence (anicca). Huston Smith describes this as an ontology where nothing in nature is identical with what it was a moment before.[3] John Dickson suggests this means there is no Buddhist thinker, just thoughts.[4]
Suffering (dukkha). This is the first of the Siddhartha Gautama’s (the Buddha’s) Noble Truths. Everything is impermanent and imperfect, and it leads to suffering in our lives.
Egoless-ness (anatta). This is about an absence of self, or the illusion of self. The Dali Lama says this means people possess no immutable essence,[5] and Zen scholar Masao Abe notes that there is therefore no Hindu atman or eternal self, just anatman.[6]
The Buddhist dharma teaches that while there is no self, we are composed of five parts or skandas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness that appear together like grains of sand in a pile.[7] Our goal is enlightenment, and one way that many Buddhists work towards that is by following the eightfold path, which is moral instruction.
In this blog, I will assess the metaphysical problems that result from this ontology. I will argue these problems seriously undermine the rationality of Buddhism as a world view. Consequently, while it is right to seek peace and freedom in life, we need instead to find these important things in something which is solid and real.
The Problem of Buddhist Ego-lessness
There is a metaphysical commitment that seems to be held by almost everyone, including Buddhists. J P Moreland describes this as the absolute view of personal identity. A person moves through time and exists fully at each moment of his life, even though his physical attributes (e.g. height and weight) and mental attributes (e.g. understanding) change throughout the whole of life.[8] The Buddhist talks about achieving peace and freedom in life, and ultimately attaining enlightenment. So, the Buddhist makes the metaphysical commitment of “sameness through change.”
Yet there is a problem. On Buddhism, we are under the illusion that there is actually a self. There is no eternal self. Rather, there is a pile of parts. I am therefore defined by what my parts are now. I do not have a simple core essence, or soul, that defines me. If the Buddhist is right that I am an assembly of parts, then as one part changes, I therefore must necessarily become a different person. Why? Because I am defined by my parts. Once a part is different, so am I. Imagine swiping through a sequence of photographs of different people on your phone. That’s what change actually must accomplish on the Buddhist view of self.
The Buddhist talks about “my freedom,” and ”my enlightenment.” They apparently assume that the same person exists through all the changes that lead towards eventual enlightenment. So, they are committed to “sameness through change.” But their view of self does not allow for it. The idea that we are a collection of parts, and the idea we are a simple core self, are mutually contradictory. And “sameness through change” is only possible on the latter. This is a metaphysical problem for Buddhism.
Joe cannot become enlightened on the Buddhist view of the self. As Joe’s skandas change, his identity alters in metaphysical terms. Joe is no longer Joe anymore, his changes have made him into someone else. If Joe is Siddhartha Gautama, then Buddhism has a problem because Siddhartha can never attain enlightenment on his own doctrine of personhood.
So – there is a big problem with the doctrine of ego-less-ness. It makes the Buddhist aim at freedom and enlightenment impossible. But here’s a second problem.
Why Be Good on Buddhism?
There appears to be no absolute good or evil on Buddhism. After all, “all things … abstract concepts … are devoid of objective, independent existence.”[9] Abe notes that good and evil are co-dependent, they arise together, and the “distinction between [them] is not only relativised but the two values are reversed.”[10] If Buddhism recognises no objective moral categories, perhaps good and evil are just human conventions?
Yet at the same time, Abe requires the Buddhist to “seek good and avoid evil.”[11] And the Dali Lama agrees, seeing personal values as, “the basic, innate capacity for compassion in all human beings … [all people have] an equal potential for goodness.”[12] So – on the one hand, moral knowledge is available to Abe and Lama and moral statements are factual and have objective meaning. Yet on the other hand, they say moral categories do not exist in an absolute sense. If everything is impermanent, there are no absolutes, so it is not clear how Abe and Lama can legitimately require us to seek the good. Worse, if Abe is right that the meaning of good and evil is reversed on Buddhism, then we cannot objectively assess the rightness of anything. Including Buddhism!
However, in the real world, the problem of evil exists. We intuitively know the good we should do but tend not to do. And human beings recognise evil actions when they see them and rail against them, demanding justice to be done and for the evil to cease. We might disagree on what constitutes “evil,” but people don’t tend to doubt the existence of “evil” actions themselves. Buddhism therefore seems to be at odds with the intuitive understanding of people. Could this be a strength of Buddhism?
Perhaps not. Abe says the solution to the problem of evil is to recognise that we need to overcome good-evil duality. We must be freed from all desires and ethical demands. The Buddhist solution to the problem of evil is found in the realization of absolute nothingness; the awakening to sunyata.[13] But if he is right about that, why it is right for good actions to be prioritised on Buddhism anyway? Why should anyone want to be good on Buddhism? The answer seems to be that we must get past good and evil and achieve personal freedom from suffering. It is not about developing moral virtue. In that case the danger for the Buddhist seems to be moral indifference. If the Buddhist’s aim is to overcome thinking about good and evil actions, then this means Buddhism lacks the resources to justify ethical behaviour. They can ask us to follow the eightfold path and be good, but in the end, there’s no ethical reason for it.
This has an impact on how we view human atrocities on Buddhism. Think of the attempted genocide in Rwanda in the 1990s. If there is no good or evil, there really is no difference between the perpetrators and the victims. If perpetrators are no different from victims, why should we do anything to stop the genocide? Why should we have a justice system that holds people accountable for crimes? This view is at odds with our deepest moral insights.
Why should we be good on Buddhism? There doesn’t seem to be a good reason. Abe admits that Buddhist doctrine cannot ground or motivate compassionate, moral behaviour without Christianity. “Buddhism [needs] … a serious encounter with Christianity which is ethical as well as religious.”[14] Maybe this is required because Christianity is a closer account of reality than Buddhism.
Conclusion
Vipassana calls us to cultivate freedom and peace in our lives. This is also an important call in the New Testament. People who welcome Jesus to lead their lives can grow in the fruit of the Spirit. This includes love, joy and peace.[15] Both Buddhism and Christianity point us to these virtues, yet the core doctrines of Buddhism prevent a person from developing them as a Buddhist.
Also, there seems to be no reason to prioritise these as good things on Buddhism. I suggest the Buddhist’s goal is right, but their means of getting there is not. Like Masao Abe, it seems like the Buddhist needs a genuine encounter with true Christianity and the person of Jesus Christ to effect real positive change in their life. Christianity is rooted in the historical resurrection of Christ, it offers an understanding of personhood consistent with the life change that it offers, and it also offers to solve the problem of evil rather than to claim the problem is of no ultimate importance.
[3] Huston Smith, The World’s Religions, (HarperOne, 1991), 117.
[4] John Dickson, A Doubters Guide to World Religions, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Reflective, 2022), 76.
[5] His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Universe in a Single Atom How Science and Spirituality Can Serve Our World, (London: Little Brown, 2005), 49.
[6] Masao Abe, “The Problem of Evil in Christianity and Buddhism”, in Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Mutual Renewal and Transformation, ed. Paul O. Ingram and Frederick J. Streng, (University of Hawaii Press, 1986), 145.
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