Reflectorites
On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 01:10:44 -0500, Chris Cogan wrote:
>Responses have been to remarks other than these central claims, so I'm
>still wondering if any Jones-type ID-theorists claim to be able to prove
>the existence of the supernatural, and, if so, what is the general nature
>of such a proof, and why does it work. How do you show that there is a
>known fact or set of facts that can only be attributed to a supernatural
>cause or basis?
[...]
Since it is generally regarded by philosophers as impossible to "prove"
anything, except in mathematics, I must disappoint Chris and say "no - I
can't *prove* the existence of the supernatural".
I have *evidence* of "the existence of the supernatural" (e.g. in the Bible)
but I can't *prove* it, especially to an atheist like Chris who (Christianity's
version of it at least) he rejects "outright as being logically impossible":
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On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 14:47:00 -0500, Chris Cogan wrote:
>ID is a different matter, but it depends on what variant of ID is being
>asked about. Since Jones' variant depends on his variant of Christianity,
>I'd have to reject it outright as being logically impossible. Other
>variants could be, given the evidence, possible in an abstract sense,
>though I don't believe that any of them are really "live" possibilities,
>given the lack of any need for such extreme theories to deal with the
>evidence we have so far amassed.
>
>Creationism, as a Christian doctrine, cannot be true because the God
>involved cannot exist, but non-theistic variants could in principle, be
>true, in the sense that we don't have positive evidence that flatly
>contradicts the proposition that something created the world and life via a
>process that results in the appearance of a universe that is at least some
>12 billion years old, and an Earth that has the appearance of being a few
>billion years old itself, etc.
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I can see no point in even having a discussion with someone who rejects
outright the very possibility of my position being true.
Such dogmatism is just a form of extreme fundamentalism which closes its
mind against any possibility of disproof. It is in fact the very attitude it
professes to despise!
Although this has generally been off-topic, since Chris has raised it, I will
post some of the clearest evidence of the existence of the supernatural in
the Bible involving predictive prophecy. Such prophecy is, of course, not
absolute proof, and those who deny outright the very possibility of the
supernatural no doubt have some ingenious ways of getting around it
(apart from outright `head-in-the-sand' denial).
For examples, in Micah 5:2, the prophet, living in QQ BC predicted that
the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem:
"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the
clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler
over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times."
In Daniel 9:25-27 there is a prediction that works out to the very year 27
AD when Jesus began his public ministry:
"Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to
restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler,
comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be
rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the
sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have
nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city
and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will
continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will
confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the
'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of
the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation,
until the end that is decreed is poured out on him."
Here is what theologian Robert C. Newman (who is also an astrophysicist
and a leader of the ID movement) writes about this:
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The time of the Messiah. As a final example, let us consider a passage that
appears to predict the flame of the coming of the Messiah. That some such
prophecy was thought to have expired in the first century A.D. is suggested
by remarks to this effect by the Jewish historian Josephus 27 and by the
Roman historians Tacitus 28 and Suetonius. 29 For the sake of brevity, we
quote only the first of these: But what more than all else incited them [the
Jews] to the war [revolt against Rome, A.D. 66-73] was an ambiguous
oracle, likewise found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that
time one from their country would become ruler of the world. This they
understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their own
cause men went astray in their interpretation of it. The oracle, however, in
reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed
[Roman] Emperor on Jewish soil. If we search tide Old Testament for a
passage that gives some timed prophecy of this sort) the only good
candidate is found in Daniel 9:9-4-96:
Seventy "sevens" are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish
transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in
everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the
most holy.
Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and
rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be
seven "sevens" and sixty-two "sevens." It will be rebuilt with streets and a
trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two "sevens," the Anointed
One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will
come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a
flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.
There has been considerable argument about the interpretation of this
passage. 30 A very reasonable interpretation, however, notes the
significance of a decree issued by the Persian king Artaxerxes I during his
twentieth year (445 B.C.). This edict officially approved Nehemiah's return
to Jerusalem to rebuild its walls (Neh 2:1-9) The "sevens" of Daniel 9
(open translated "weeks") most likely refer to the recurring seven-year
sabbatical cycle for land use, 31 since sixty-nine weeks of days would have
run out before Daniel's prophecy could even have been circulated, and
these weeks of years were an established institution in Israel. Using these
cycles as units of measurement, the sixty-ninth such cycle (7 + 62),
measured from the starting point of 445 B.C., spans the years A.D. 28-35.
One cannot help but note with interest that on this analysis the "Anointed
One" is "cut off" precisely when Jesus is crucified! 32
So the only Jew claiming to be Messiah who has inaugurated a world
religion of predominantly Gentile adherents was cut off precisely when
Daniel predicted! And the significance Christians ascribe to Jesus' death is
given by Daniel-"to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for
wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness." As it happens, Jesus
Christ is also one of the most significant figures in world history, as even
secular historians acknowledge.
27 Josephus, Jewish War 6.5.4.
28 Tacitus Histories 5.13.
29 Suetonius The Lives of the Caesars "The Deified Vespasian," 4.5
30 see discussions in J. Barton Payne, Encyclopedia of Biblical Prophecy
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), pp. 383-88; Gerard Van Groningen,
Messianic Revelation in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker,
1990), pp. 824-36; Paul Feinberg, "An Exegetical and Theological Study of
Daniel 9:24 27," in Tradition and Testament: Essays in Honor of Charles
Lee Feinberg, ed. Paul Feinberg and John Feinberg (Chicago: Moody
Press, 1983).
31 See, for example, Exodus 23:10-11; Leviticus 25:1-7.
32 Details are given in Robert C. Newman, "Daniel's Seventy Weeks and
the Old Testament Sabbath-Year Cycle," Journal of the Evangelical
Theological Society 16 (1973): 229-34. This has been updated in "The
Time of the Messiah," in Newman, The Evidence of Prophecy, pp. 111-18.
(Newman R.C, "Fulfilled Prophecy as Miracle," in Geivett R.D. &
Habermas G.R., eds., "In Defense of Miracles: A Comprehensive Case for
God's Action in History," Apollos: Leicester UK, 1997, pp.223-224)
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I would be happy to work through this with anyone who does not dismiss
it out of hand as "impossible" but is open-minded enough to consider it
as evidence for the supernatural in general, and Christianity in particular.
Steve
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Stephen E. (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ Email: sejones@iinet.net.au
3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Web: http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Warwick 6024 -> *_,--\_/ Phone: +61 8 9448 7439
Perth, Western Australia v "Test everything." (1 Thess. 5:21)
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