THE CORE ARGUMENT FOR OBJECTION #5

As we saw in Part 14 of this series, the core argument for Objection #5 against the Swoon Theory has two premises:

E. IF the Swoon Theory is true, THEN sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to those disciples to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor.

D. It is NOT the case that sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor.

THEREFORE:

A. The Swoon Theory is FALSE.

There are sub-arguments supporting each of the two premises of this core argument.

THE ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (D)

In this post, I will begin to examine the sub-argument that supports the key premise (D). The argument for (D) has this structure:

The argument for (D) has two premises:

5a. IF sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor, THEN it would have been psychologically impossible for the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus to have been transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.

THEREFORE:

6a. IF sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor, THEN the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus would NOT have been transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.

C. The eleven remaining disciples of Jesus were transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.

THEREFORE:

D. It is NOT the case that sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor.

Premise (6a) in this argument is itself supported by premise (5a).

EVALUATION OF PREMISE (C)

One of the premises of the argument for the key premise (D) is the premise (C):

C. The eleven remaining disciples of Jesus were transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) from fearful doubting cowards into fearless and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, having been transformed as the result of experiences that took place sometime after Jesus had been crucified, experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus.

Premise (C) asserts a historical claim about eleven of Jesus’ disciples. It makes multiple claims about each one of those eleven disciples, so premise (C) actually implies many different specific historical claims, and yet Kreeft and Tacelli offer no historical evidence in support of most of those claims.  Here are seven historical claims that premise (C) implies about Philip, one of the remaining eleven disciples:

• Sometime after Jesus had been crucified, Philip had an experience that he believed was an experience of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus.
• Before Philip had that experience, Philip was a doubting coward.
• Before Philip had that experience, Philip doubted that God would raise Jesus from the dead.
• Before Philip had that experience, Philip did NOT worship Jesus fearlessly as the divine lord and conqueror of death.
• Soon after Philip had that experience, Philip became a fearless preacher of Jesus’ resurrection.
• Soon after Philip had that experience, Philip became firmly convinced that God had raised Jesus from the dead.
• Soon after Philip had that experience, Philip worshiped Jesus fearlessly as the divine lord and the conqueror of death.

These seven specific historical claims are implied by premise (C), plus a similar set of seven specific historical claims about each of the ten other disciples of Jesus.  Thus, premise (C) implies at least seventy-seven specific historical claims about the remaining eleven disciples of Jesus.  But Kreeft and Tacelli make almost no effort to provide historical evidence in support of these numerous specific historical claims.  So, premise (C) makes dozens of specific historical claims, but there is almost no evidence provided in support of these claims.   Thus, premise (C) is DUBIOUS for those reasons.

Furthermore, the Gospels and the book of Acts provide very little information about the lives, activities, and words of the twelve disciples during the ministry of Jesus, and they provide even less information about the lives, activities, and words of most of the eleven remaining disciples after the crucifixion of Jesus (Read Chapter 27 of A Marginal Jew, Volume III: Companions and Competitors, by John Meier).

Thus, not only do Kreeft and Tacelli FAIL to provide evidence in support of most of their seventy-seven specific historical claims that are implied by (C), but the New Testament does not have sufficient information about Jesus’ Twelve disciples to provide solid historical evidence to establish most of the seventy-seven historical claims. Although it is theoretically possible that premise (C) is true, we should reject this premise, because it makes dozens of historical claims for which there is little or no historical evidence.

Given how strong these claims are, and given the absence of historical evidence available to determine the truth or falsehood of most of these seventy-seven historical claims, it is nearly certain that some of those claims are FALSE, and there is a good chance that most of those claims are FALSE, so we may reasonably conclude that the premise (C) is not only DUBIOUS but is probably FALSE.

THE ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (6A)

Here is the sub-argument for (6a), the other premise of the argument for (D):

5a. IF sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor, THEN it would have been psychologically impossible for the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus to have been transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.

THEREFORE:

6a. IF sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor, THEN the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus would NOT have been transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.

Premise (5a) is FALSE because people are often very irrational, especially when it comes to religious beliefs. Although it is UNLIKELY that eleven different people would all have the same unreasonable response to such an experience, given the power and frequent influence of irrationality in relation to religious beliefs, it is clearly NOT “psychologically impossible” for the circumstance described in the antecedent of (5a) to result in the unreasonable responses/transformations described in the consequent of (5a) to occur. The claim of psychological impossibility is too strong, making claim (5a) FALSE.

Because premise (5a) makes a claim that is too strong, premise (6a) also makes a claim that is too strong, at least if we interpret the conditional statement as asserting a logical implication:

The claim that,

“Sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor.”

LOGICALLY IMPLIES the claim that,

“The eleven remaining disciples of Jesus would NOT have been transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.”

Such a strong claim is FALSE because it is psychologically possible for a group of eleven people to have such an unreasonable or irrational response to such an experience. Thus, the antecedent of (6a) could be true even if the consequent of (6a) was false.

However, if we interpret premise (6a) to assert only a probability (or improbability) claim, then we can simply toss out premise (5a), and accept (6a) as a plausible claim, as a claim that has no need for additional argument or evidence. This interpretation of (6a) could be made explicit by making a minor modification to the wording of that premise:

6b. IF sometime after Jesus had been crucified, the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus each had experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and physically embodied Jesus in which Jesus appeared to be a half-dead, staggering sick man who was badly in need of a doctor, THEN it would have been very unlikely that the eleven remaining disciples of Jesus would have been transformed (sometime after Jesus had been crucified) by experiences that they believed were experiences of seeing a living and embodied Jesus, changing them from fearful doubting cowards into brave and confident believers in Jesus as the divine lord and as the resurrected conqueror of death, and into men who boldly preached the resurrection of Jesus.

EVALUATION OF THE ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (D)

Since premise (C) in the argument for the key premise (D) is DUBIOUS and probably FALSE, we have good reason to reject the argument for (D). That means that the key premise (D) is DUBIOUS and might well be FALSE. Therefore, Objection #5 against the Swoon Theory FAILS.

The other premise in the argument for the key premise (D) is premise (6a). Premise (6a) is FALSE because it makes a claim that is too strong. However, one could interpret (6a) as making a somewhat weaker claim, an improbability claim, namely claim (6b). In that case, this other premise is plausible and acceptable.

However, in weakening this premise, the argument for (D) becomes somewhat weaker and thus falls short of being a PROOF of the truth of the key premise (D). So, at best, the argument for (D) could only show that the key premise (D) is very likely to be true. Showing that premise (D) is very likely to be true, is not sufficient for the purpose of PROVING that the Swoon Theory is FALSE. So, Objection #5 necessarily falls short of being a “refutation” of the Swoon Theory.

In any case, because premise (C) is DUBIOUS and probably FALSE, the argument for (D) should be rejected, and thus the key premise (D) is DUBIOUS and might well be FALSE. Because (D) is one of the two main premises in the core argument for Objection #5, we may reasonably conclude that Objection #5 against the Swoon Theory FAILS.