Logical connections

Should we evaluate every claim, every proposition, independently of each other? The answer is no. No in everyday situations. No in scientific questions. And no in philosophy or religion.

The main reason this doesn’t work is because there are a lot of different connections in the world, and if you try and evaluate everything independently, you are ignoring those connections. You are ignoring something that is true about the world. Think about these 2 propositions:

1) All apples are fruit.

2) That thing on the table is an apple.

Now we can evaluate the evidence for 1) by looking at the definition of fruit and then properties of apples and see if they match—and they do. We can evaluate 2) by looking at the thing on the table and seeing if it matches the properties that apples have. And we might be able to do those independently of each other. But what about 3)?

3) That thing on the table is a fruit.

Do we need to do some independent analysis to find out if 3) is true? No! If it’s true that all apples are fruit, and that the thing on the table is an apple, then it logically follows that the thing on the table must be a fruit.

This is true about all sorts of logical truths and mathematical truths as well. So if I give half a pizza to my wife, and she gives half her pizza to her son, it is necessarily true that my son has a quarter of the original pizza. I don’t have to independently evaluate whether my son has a quarter of the pizza. This is important because many times we don’t have independent access to every piece of information. What does this mean? Say, for instance, that my wife gave the pizza away while I wasn’t looking, and my son scarfed it down—there’s nothing for me to look at to verify that my son had a quarter pizza. Should I then not believe that my son didn’t have a quarter pizza even if I know what I gave her, and what she gave him? This seems patently wrong! Even worse, if we did follow such a principle, then all the math and logic and science that depends on such inferences falls by the wayside.

“But, Com’on! That’s not what was meant!” I hear ya’ll say. “Of course, we don’t mean math and logic and such! Religion is different!” Well, I kinda guessed that math and logic were supposed to be excluded, but religion is not different. Math and logic apply to it as well—and this includes the resurrection. Consider this argument:

1) If resurrections are impossible then Jesus is not resurrected

2) Resurrections are impossible

3) Jesus is not resurrected

So this is a perfectly valid argument, and so if the premises 1) and 2) are true then 3) must be true as well. Now this is the Modus Ponens form of the argument (see this link for more), what if we do the Modus Tollens version?

1) If resurrections are impossible then Jesus is not resurrected

2) Jesus is resurrected

3) Resurrections are possible

And here we see directly how the evaluation of Jesus’ resurrection can affect our evaluation of a second Christian claim—the resurrection of every person at the end time (the general resurrection). If we think resurrections are impossible full stop then we will be 0% convinced that Jesus’ resurrection is true and that the general resurrection is true. But if we are convinced that Jesus did resurrect then it must be logically possible that the general resurrection is true! Of course, then we’d have to evaluate the claims of the general resurrection.

However, this change puts us in radically different epistemological (knowing) sort of position. Think of claims as being on a scale, or a teeter-totter than leans in one way or the other. In the first case, where resurrections are impossible we are inexorably stuck on the bottom, never to rise again. Nothing can overturn our conclusion that the general resurrection is false. The second case is more like being balanced on the middle of the teeter totter, tipping one way or the other as the evidence adds up.

On Reliability

“Ok, ok, fine. But that’s not what I really meant. I was really talking about how simply because one thing a person or book (like the Bible) tells you is true, doesn’t mean something else they tell you is true. And so that means you have to evaluate each statement they have independently.”

So now we’ve moved on from logical / mathematical necessity to reliability. So, simply because one thing a person tells you is true does not necessarily make their other statements true too. Fair enough. But it is also definitely false that we ought to evaluate each statement independently. Nobody—and I mean nobody—does this. If people did the world would fall apart tomorrow. It is a poor rule for getting at the truth and consequently a poor rule for successfully getting along in this world—which is the reason why precisely nobody actually uses it.

Imagine your new roommates walking in the door—you’re meeting for the first time. It’s a bit nerve-wracking, terrible roommates can wreck your life. But they seem reasonable enough. One says “I’ve got some stuff in the truck—do you mind if I put my desk over there?” Sure enough, down they go, bringing up stuff and eventually putting the desk in the corner. When leaving they ask you want Wendy’s and when they come back they hand you a Wendy’s bag.

Each one of these interactions contains some sort of truth claim, they have stuff, they have a truck, they are going to Wendy’s etc. You start out a bit neutral about them. But so far, you’ve verified each one. But does this mean you’re going to independently weigh each statement they make, as if it was their first? If you room with them 10 years and not once have they lied to you, ought you to accept their claim, “We’re headed to the park” with near certainty? Or should you instead respond with neutrality or suspicion?

The answer is obvious, when we find people, books, sources, etc., reliable in things we have checked, we give them credence in what we haven’t checked. And the truth is we haven’t checked the vast majority of things we believe. When you pick up a textbook, do you check each fact individually? Do you check the acceleration of gravity, the movement of the earth’s crust, the formation of chemical bonds, all yourself? The answer is no. We only check a minuscule fraction of the facts we believe—we trust that the others are true based on the perceived reliability of the source. If we withheld belief until we individually proved statements, if we started from scratch with each statement, with every person, every book, every post, every article then we’d believe almost nothing.

Have you been to Alaska? No? Well, gotta withhold judgement about whether it exists. That honest person you know that says he’s been there, doesn’t matter—gotta evaluate this statement independently. That map that has always gotten you where you’re trying to go? Nope can’t trust it, gotta independently evaluate whether that weird blue shape in the top left corner actually represents the world.

Doing this would be crazy and self-defeating. Self-defeating not just because it is impossible to live, but logically too. That is because one of the judgments, one kind of propositions we are constantly evaluating is reliability, e.g., “Is this thing (book, person, article, etc.) honest and reliable?” If the answer is yes, then the propositions they assert are in fact more likely to be true than not—and it would be inconsistent to treat them otherwise. Generally speaking, if a person has been right 95% of the time in the past, then it is reasonable to hold there’s a 95% chance he’s correct now.

The starting position for the claims of Christianity is the same. If one source is verified give it more credence—if it fails, give it less. Just apply consistently the same epistemic principles we use everywhere else. No special pleading.

Now we’ll set this issue aside for a bit to look at the central claim of Christianity, Christ’s resurrection. Then we’ll come back to it and see how the resurrection would affect reliability and other theological claims.  Next is Part 3, looking at the historical data of the resurrection.