Monday, December 03, 2012

Did the Virgin Birth happen?

Okay, so I am having this discussion in the comments section of a previous post about the Virgin Birth of Christ with "Singring," one of our resident skeptics (we keep a few here as pets). Now when you utter the expression "Virgin Birth" to a skeptic, they react like a vampire who has been shown a cross: they half cover their face with their red cape, cringe, foam at the mouth, and scowl, saying, "I vill refute zis vile beleef!"

Singring, who worships at the altar of empirical science, is very practiced at this routine.

In any case, this being the Advent season and all, I thought the discussion relevant enough to bring out on the main page for discussion. I thought we could address each particular topic, one at a time. I might even split up the posts to dedicate one to each topic to make it a little more manageable.

The discussion started when Singring said, "So are you saying that you, as a Christian, believe in the virgin birth? You believe that a woman who never had sex was impregnated miraculously by God?"

To which I answered: "Precisely," this belief having been a fundamental part of the Christian Creed since, oh, I don't know, about the 4th century. But this belief, it turns out, is at odds with the secular creed, which proclaims ".. and was NOT incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, since we believe, on the basis of a metaphysical principle which we deny having, that miracles cannot happen ..."

And at this point of course, Singring went into his vampire routine.

Now he has come forth with is first set of actual arguments, which, to give him credit, he usually does after the first shock of hearing somebody actually say that they believe something that people, not sharing his metaphysical presuppositions, have, in fact, believed for thousands of years (and which hundreds of millions, if not billions, still do today).

If you want to see all his arguments, you can go to the comments section of the post. But we'll take them all up eventually. But for the time being lets address his first one. Here it is:
The documents we have containing this testimony (empirical evidence) clearly indicate that the authors lived dozens of years after the death of Jesus and did not even speak his language. They were Greeks and certainly were not direct eye-witnesses to the events. It is highly doubtful they even had contact with any actual eye-witnesses.
It would be interesting to apply this to all historical documents to see what we get. In fact, one wonders how many historical events we currently take for granted that we will now have to call into question, since many (if not most) are based on writings written by people who lived not only dozens of years after the events they relate, but hundreds--and didn't witness the events they relate and didn't even have contact with any witnesses--not to mention not speaking the language they speak.

As it happens, the New Testament documents have less of a problem in these areas than just about any other ancient documents. The number of manuscripts, their historical proximity to the events--and the access to witnesses is better than just about any document of ancient history.

If we can't accept the reliability of the New Testament documents, then we're going to have to dump most of what we know about the ancient world.

Go Singring.

11 comments:

Singring said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Singring said...

'It would be interesting to apply this to all historical documents to see what we get. In fact, one wonders how many historical events we currently take for granted that we will now have to call into question, since many (if not most) are based on writings written by people who lived not only dozens of years after the events they relate, but hundreds--and didn't witness the events they relate and didn't even have contact with any witnesses--not to mention not speaking the language they speak.'

Well, another day on VR, another whopper of a categorical error.

The claims in historical documents that historians accept as reliable aren't the ones that claim to describe the miraculous. Moreover, not that much hinges on the question fo whether Jerusalem was burned down at this time or another (at least not if we want to compare it to how much hinges on the virgin birth, as you yourself have emphasized).

Based on our current emprirical evidence, there is nothing to suggest that Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon (armies invade countries and cross rivers all the time) and there is nothing in our current knowledge that would cause us to doubt simple testimony about what happened to him on the stairs of the senate - people kill people today, nothing unusual about that.

If I see a news report about 'murder in X' today, empricial evidence suggests to me that this is reasonably credible testimony, because there is ample evidence for murders occuring all over the place, all the time. If the same news report was: 'Man's amputated arm grown back!', then I would be instantly scpetical due to the lack of empirical evidence we have of this kind of thing hapening.

The same goes for virgin births...when is the last time we had empirical evidence of that happening? In fact, it is the christian claim that this only ever occurred once - an we are supposed to believe it based on the say-so of someone who wasnt even alive when it happened and certainly didn't have access to the boudoir of the lady in question. So a claim like that has to be taken with extreme scepticism, just like we take the claims about Mohammed taking a flight on horseback with extreme scepticism.

I must suppose you reject all such miracle claims about Mormonism, Islam, Hinduism and so on - seeing as you are a Christian.

I ansked you some specific questions onm these issues, so I'm quite disappointed that you took the time to write a post about our discussion but didn't even attempt to give us an account of the grounds upon which you would - for example - reject the miracle claims of Hindus living today.

They are eye-witnesses - they often even have video footage to prove their claims of statues weeping milk etc.

Why do you reject their claims, yet accept the claims written by Greeks and transcribed many times, who lived decades after the death of an Arameic-speaking Jew they claim to have intimiate knowledge about in terms of who she slept with (or rather, who she didn't sleep with)?

What is the rational process you use to make these discriminations?
If you want to convince me of one (the virgin birth), then why shouldn't I also accept all the others - some of which have far stronger witness testimony in their favour?

These are the actual issues, unfortunately you barely even skirted them.

Singring said...

P.S.: When I said 'prove' above, I obviously meant in the figurative sense - I mentioned before that 'proof' doesn;t really apply to empirical questions.

Lee said...

Martin, if you present the Virgin Birth not as a miracle, but as random mutation of a human egg that somehow produced the other chromosomes it needed, maybe it will be more palatable to our materialist friends.

And since Jesus never married and was crucified before he could have a family, this evolutionary adaptation obviously failed the feedback mechanism of natural selection.

This is all recorded, by the way, in a stone tablet preserved in the Greek monument we call the Parthenogenesis.

So when something seems at odds with the odds, all we have to do is say twenty "Hail Darwins" and the improbable becomes probable.

That's the approach I'd take, anyway.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

Well, another day on VR, another whopper of a categorical error.</i>

It's only a category error if you think there are two kinds of history: the history that happened and the history you want to believe happened.

Here you go importing your metaphysical assumptions into the process of historical investigation. What you're trying to do is set up two standards: one by which you can judge events you deem to be normal, and another by which you can judge events you deem to be abnormal or fanstastic.

But how can you make that distinction at all unless you have one standard by which to discriminate between them? How do you know some events are normal and others not unless you have applied one common standard to both?

[Answer: you can't]

You do exactly what Chesterton accuses thinkers like you of doing: you jump back and forth between the empirical and the metaphysical. When flushed out of one, you hide behind the other, and when flushed out of the other, you hide again in the former.

You say there is a "lack of empirical evidence" of these things happening. This amounts to either saying you have never seen them, which is irrelevant (since there are a lot of things you haven't seen that exist all the same) or that other people haven't seen them, which is special pleading, since you already admit you would not accept any reports which went against your materialist presuppositions. Your rejection of miracles is either based on too narrow pool of experience or is unfalsifiable.

Singring said...

'You say there is a "lack of empirical evidence" of these things happening. This amounts to either saying you have never seen them, which is irrelevant (since there are a lot of things you haven't seen that exist all the same) or that other people haven't seen them, which is special pleading, since you already admit you would not accept any reports which went against your materialist presuppositions.'

I never said that I wouldn't accept any reports that go against my presupposition, amterialist or otherwise. Nothing fo the sort.

I said that I am scpetical of claims that seem to violate the empirical evidence we have today - whetehr I have personally seen this empirical evidence is secondary - since empirical evidence works by extension: How do I know scientist A has observed phenomenon X? Well, he describes to me in his scientific publications exactly the materials and methods he used and the observations he made. These will almost always consist of materials and methods that I do have direct empirical experience of, or that I can check up on using the same extended empiricism.

Thsi is precisely the process of scientific peer review - I get a paper written by another scientist and without ever having seen anything he did directly, based on his description of his materials and methods and the results, i can make rational (empirically based) judgements about whether the contents of his paper are rationally justifiable or not. Of course he just might be straight-up lying, but the ultimate test is to repeat the experiments or re-analyze the data and see if I make the same empirical observation.

The reason we have been able to fly to the moon and cure diseases is exactly this process. I know you and Chesteron would arther we stick to categorizing and classifying and then just 'marvel' at the rest - but that doesn't quite cut it for me, sorry.

Historical inquiry works a bit differently, of course - but ultimately, the claims of historians are evaluated by measuring them up to current empirical evidence and our knowledge of the world. Miracle claims by definition violate this knowledge and should therefore be taken with extreme scepticism. They amy be true - but we certainly shouldn't be accepting them based on the say-so of a couple of folks who eren't even there to see what they are claiming happened!

Are you going to claim that we don't have ample empirical evidence that eye-witness testimony is often wrong or inaccurate? That people lie all the time?

And finally, even if I grant you all of your points, I would like you to tell me how - using this bizarre lenience in accepting hostorical testimony - you come to reject the claims of Hindus and Mormons and Muslims, who's claims are more recent and in some cases far more numerous than the ones you accept as a Christian.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Martin Cothran said...

Singring,

There are a lot of historical events that are unlikely and which should be viewed with scepticism; in fact, a whole lot of them. But whether or not they actually happened is not determinible by how likely they are to have happened. They are determinible on the basis of what evidence there is for them.

The old Guinness Book of World Records had a picture in it of a woman who had been hit by a meteor while sleeping in her bed in her house. What is the likelihood of that happening? Is it irrational to believe the report?

Festive Fred said...

Hello, all! First let me say how impressed I am to have found a blog full of such intelligent discourse. I hope I might have something relevant to add.

On this particular topic, it might serve us not to get stuck on the details, to step back and take a look at the bigger picture.

Singring said...
"If I see a news report about 'murder in X' today, empirical evidence suggests to me that this is reasonably credible testimony, because there is ample evidence for murders occurring all over the place, all the time. If the same news report was: 'Man's amputated arm grown back!', then I would be instantly skeptical due to the lack of empirical evidence we have of this kind of thing happening."

It's only a hop, skip and a jump that takes us from news story, to scientific journal, to folktale, to legend, to myth, to sacred text. One thing they all have in common is an indirect method of dispensing information. If our knowledge was limited only to empirical data, things we could prove or experience within our own sphere of influence, then we would know very little, indeed. We can debate the veracity of a specific claim endlessly, but nothing (excepting maybe disinterest) can erase the potency of the claim itself.

For example, a boy can cry wolf, and we may or may not believe wolves to be a realistic threat. Even if it is untrue and there is no wolf in that time or place, we know for a fact that a wolf has been announced. Is the fear of the wolf any less palpable, simply because it is only a perceived idea and not a manifest reality? What if the wolf, more cunning than any mischievous country boy, decides to appear in his own time, on his own terms? Are we any better off for having received an early, if albeit false, warning?

The prospect of a virgin birth is far more benign in its dissemination (pun fully intended!). Christians--especially at this time of year--revere the story for greater reasons than its extraordinary, if perhaps unlikely, circumstances. I imagine those reasons would be hard to grasp for one who doesn't accept the initial premise. Let me just suggest that perhaps the Immaculate Conception and the story of Jesus Christ were originally intended to instill hope rather than to frustrate and to deceive.

In regard to other accounts of miraculous phenomena, I cannot speak for Martin, but for myself, it is not a matter of refuting or affirming occurrences external to my own faith.

If you read the gospels, you'll notice that Christ's miracles are reserved strictly for those who believe. A miracle can only occur for those who are willing to receive it (see Matthew 9:18-34 for examples). To the unbeliever, such an occurrence was considered either base trickery, or demonic deceit. Either you will believe with a childlike humility and wonder, or you'll refuse to be taken as a gullible fool. Which is a heavier burden to carry?

"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us." Mt. 1:23 cf. Isa. 7:14

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Lee said...

The greatest miracle of all is how He changes the hearts of men. Bringing the dead back to life? Relative child's play. How about turning someone who has merrily sinned his entire life into someone who sees his sin for what it is and repents? There's your miracle.

As Paul wrote, we are dead in sin. Nothing short of a rebirth can save us.

Singring said...

Martin,

'There are a lot of historical events that are unlikely and which should be viewed with scepticism; in fact, a whole lot of them.'

I see we are in full agreement then. However, you are still completely dodging the specific questions I am asking you. Based on your acceptance of the virgin birth due to the non-eyewitness testimony of two people of a different culture and different time to what they are testifying to - on what basis do you reject the miraculous weeping of statues in India testified to by contemporary Hindus? Or the court-certified testimony of Mormons about Joseph Smith's golden tablets? Or the miracle claims of Muslims?

What's your rational standard here?

'But whether or not they actually happened is not determinible by how likely they are to have happened.'

Of course not - but are you now actually going to argue that we should accept claims about things that are very unlikely to have happened just as confidently as we accept claims that are very likely to have happened? Suppose you met a guy on the street - would you accept his claim that his talking dog just boarded a rocketship to Andromeda just as much as you would accept his claim that he just had a burger for lunch?

Seriously?

'They are determinible on the basis of what evidence there is for them.'

Aha. So then what is the evidence for the virgin birth?

'The old Guinness Book of World Records had a picture in it of a woman who had been hit by a meteor while sleeping in her bed in her house. What is the likelihood of that happening? Is it irrational to believe the report?'

A few points:

1.) For me personally and for most people on this planet, nothing really hinges on whether or not this woman was hit by a meteorite or not. Honestly - I couldn't care less, nothing much is at stake here.

This is quite a different situation from the Christian claim of virgin birth which - they tell us - we ned to accept to please God and gain eternal life. Claims like this better be supported by something a bit more substantial than 'a couple of guys said so'.

Quite frankly, if you want to compare the importance of the virgin birth to that of a woman being hit by a meteor in bed - be my guest.

2.) Based on what I know about meteorites, earth etc. the likelihood of that happening is still a good deal better than the likelihood of a virgin birth. I have seen meteorites, both in the sky and in museums. I have read papers describing their impact. I have read papers describing how frequently they strike earth. I have read papers (and have direct emopirical evidence of) how densely populated the earth is. It doesn't really suprise me that much that a woman somewhere in soem bed was struck by a metorite. I'm still a bit skeptical of the claim - but certainly not as skeptical as I am of a miraculous virgin birth that I have no empirical experince of whatsoever - whether direct or indirect.

JustARandomGuy said...

Singring says:

"I said that I am scpetical of claims that seem to violate the empirical evidence we have today."

I say:

You are starting with a metaphysical presupposition: that nature is and always has been uniform through time and space.

We can only know that the evidence is inadequate, if we know beforehand that miracles do not happen, for talk of miracles do not reside as hypotheses but presuppositions. If it were merely hypotheses, the two statements, “miracles sometimes happen” and “miracles never happen,” are both hypotheses; then, on the principle of the economy of hypotheses, the first is obviously superior to the second; it covers all the data.

Singring says:

I must suppose you reject all such miracle claims about Mormonism, Islam, Hinduism and so on - seeing as you are a Christian.

I say:

Which field of knowledge would alleged miracles belong - the historical or the scientific? Or is there another field of knowledge, theology, and how do its methods compare and contrast with, say, the historical?

Like Pascal, I "see no need to explain miracles in terms of mechanistic physics, since historical proof suffices to establish them. Similarly, there is no need to discern divine purpose in every natural phenomenon, since matter and motion suffice to explain them."

Consider, for example, the reports of Vespasian’s miraculous healings (Tactitus, Histories 4.81; Suetonius, Vespasian 7.2; and Cassius Dio Roman Histories LXV.8). or modern instances of apparant faith-healing. Now, I do not know and I do not much care whether Vespasian's miracles were brought about by supernatural means or not, because they stand in complete isolation. Nothing of any interest comes of them. Scriptural and ecclesiastical miracles do fit in to a much wider context, indeed, a world-view, but then it becomes a question of credibility, not possibility.

Which is why it is possible that all these faiths you mention have experienced miracles of one sort or another with their meaning and source being a separate matter.

But let us focus on your objection to Christian miracles and the Virgin Birth in particular, because it is their credibility we are talking about. You claim [paraphrasing you] that we cannot trust the primary source materials (the new testament) by citing Biblical criticism of the past two centuries. Yet there is very little reason for Christians to take such criticism seriously. The critics’ “disproofs” [and conversely those defenders of the text too] rely on circular reasoning and analytical methods that are not actually very revealing or scientific.

The biggest testament to the scriptures is the presence of a continuing and living tradition among Christians and Jews (and even Muslims in a broader sense.)

This same testament can be seen in the writing of the earliest Christians who very early on gave her the honorific as The (Blessed) Virgin. We find this title in disparate parts of the world, from Gaul to Syria; and among communities of Christians who were not always in mutual communion and had various interpretations of what constituted Christian scripture. This suggests to us, much like the presence of a nation which speaks a romance language on the plains of Gaul today, an unusual and miraculous event truly occurred around the conception of Jesus Christ and that was both credibly recorded and metaphysically possible. There is no reason, without prejudice, to question the historical veracity of the virgin birth.