More on Hearing Voices in His Head

In this post, I pick up from my previous entry and explore Anderson’s appraisal of the objections that he considers in response to apologetic appeals to “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.”

Before doing so, it may not be necessary to point this out, but I will in case it slips anyone’s mind, namely that appeals to “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit” as Christianity informs this notion logically assume the existence of the Christian god. So if this assumption is disputed, then appeals to the “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit” are premature at best. At any rate, it is viciously circular to appeal to “the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit” in an attempt to validate the claim that a god exists in the first place, for such an appeal assumes what’s needed to be validated in the first place. And as I have pointed out numerous times in the past, we have no alternative but to imagine any god one claims to believe in.

Even when it comes to apologetic arguments, we have no alternative but to imagine the god whose existence those arguments are intended to prove when we come to their conclusions.

For example, consider the following argument:

Premise 1: If the universe was created, then God must exist in order to have created it.  

Premise 2: The universe was created.  

Conclusion: Therefore, God must exist in order to have created it.

Here it should be clear that, even if we accept the premises that the universe was created and that a god must have created it, we have no alternative but to imagine said god when we arrive at this argument’s conclusion. The same problem afflicts all apologetic arguments, thus serving as a great equalizer of sorts in leveling all apologetic arguments to useless rubble.

So if apologists cannot overcome weaknesses such as this, then I submit that there’s no hope for any defensive artifice they may attempt to erect on behalf of their religious beliefs. This does not bode well for Anderson’s defense of the notion of enjoying “internal testimony of the Holy Spirit,” for while I can in fact imagine that Anderson’s god exists and that he has in fact received revelatory transmissions from that god, I am nevertheless acutely aware of the facts that I am merely imagining these things and that I have no alternative to doing so if I am to contemplate his god-belief claims.

Fringe Outliers or Pioneering Trailblazers?

In an article titled It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas ... Mythicism's in the Air published by ABC.net.au on 24 Dec. 2014, Australian author and lecturer John Dickson takes a former student of his to the woodshed for not towing the standard Christian party line about the alleged historicity of the Jesus of the gospel narratives. Who is John Dickson? According to Wikipedia page about him, Dickson is:

an Australian writer, historian, minister and Honorary Fellow in the Department of Ancient History at Macquarie University. He is co-founder and director of the Centre for Public Christianity, a media company which seeks to "promote the public understanding of the Christian faith".

Also, in addition to his lecturing at Macquarie University, Dickson finds time to serve as the senior minister of an Anglican church in Roseville, Australia. Dickson has also published a number of books, with such titles as The Best Kept Secret of Christian Mission: Promoting the Gospel with More Than Our Lips, Promoting the Gospel: the Whole of Life for the Cause of Christ and A Spectator's Guide to Jesus: An Introduction to the Man from Nazaret to name but a few.

It seems safe to say, then, that Dickson, as a committed Christian believer and minister, has a confessional investment to protect here. Now in pointing this out, I may be accused of poisoning the well. But in fact, I’m simply pointing out the facts here. And when citing facts is considered fallacious, this tells us something about those who raise objections to citing facts.