We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Facts

“We can’t let our faith be affected by the latest scientific discoveries or archaeological whims.”
from “The Search for Whit,” Odyssey (Children’s radio program from Focus on the Family), 25 Aug 2004)

 

Is Christianity based on historical facts or not? Growing up in the ‘60s with a firm modern worldview (as opposed to pre- or post-modern), I was well-indoctrinated with the view that, unlike other religions, Christianity is solidly historical and factual. We didn’t believe because it seemed like a good idea, or because of some spiritual reasoning, but because the Bible was historical. God had created the world, started the human race with a historical Adam and Eve, redeemed Israel, worked throughout its history, and as a culmination had revealed his Messiah and Son Jesus who rose bodily from the dead.

 

As I’m reading Evangelical apologetic works, though, I’m coming across some divergent views which seem to suggest that faith does not need to be backed by observable facts.

 

My son loves listening to Odyssey, and the episode quoted above really caught my attention. What, our faith should not be affected by facts? Granted, this is hardly a serious philosophical or theological source, but it’s something that is being broadcast to children across America. The story revolves around a plot to discredit the resurrection of Jesus by proving that his bones were found and by the witness of manuscripts from his time. In the end, of course, it all turned out to be a hoax. Nevertheless, the kids are reminded that it doesn’t matter what historians and archeologists discover, because our faith is based on … well, faith? Or the Bible?

 

The first essay in the book Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith tries to provide philosophical justification for this approach, with this quote being fundamental: 

 

First, “ordinary” Christians (Christians not trained in New Testament scholarship) have grounds for believing that the gospel stories are (essentially) historical—grounds independent of the claims of historical scholarship. Secondly, New Testament scholars have established nothing that tells against the thesis that ordinary Christians have grounds independent of historical studies for believing in the essential historicity of the gospel stories. Thirdly, ordinary Christians may therefore ignore any skeptical historical claims made by New Testament scholars with a clear intellectual conscience.

 

Let’s expand this a bit, point by point.

1. “Christians … have grounds for believing that the gospel stories are (essentially) historical—grounds independent of the claims of historical scholarship.” In other words, we don’t need history or historians to inform us that the gospels are historical. This is because we can rely on presuppositions as the foundation of our knowledge. We can validly start with non-empiric assumptions, perhaps that God and Jesus are as described in the Bible, giving us a ground that is “independent of the claims of historical scholarship.”
2. “Secondly, New Testament scholars have established nothing that tells against the thesis that ordinary Christians have grounds independent of historical studies for believing in the essential historicity of the gospel stories.” That is, scholars have done nothing to disprove the thesis that people are justified in believing history without the need for historical studies. Indeed, point (1) has made it impossible by definition for scholars of facts to disturb such a thesis.
3. “Ordinary Christians may therefore ignore any skeptical historical claims made by New Testament scholars with a clear intellectual conscience,” perhaps better reworded as “ordinary Christians may therefore, with a clear intellectual conscience, ignore any skeptical historical claims made by New Testament scholars.” In other words, “we don’t need no stinkin’ facts,” at least not if they’re facts that support skeptical claims.

 

It turns out that historical and investigation can be useful when used to support the faith, but they are no cause for concern when they don’t:

 

For pragmatic and apologetic reasons, [the Christian’s critical biblical studies] work may be very valuable. But in the event that he faces a critical argument that he cannot answer, he does not feel pressure to capitulate immediately. If, after all, he has grounds for belief that are independent of CBS  [critical biblical studies] and that are not undercut by CBS, he has no reason to despair when faced with difficult arguments from CBS.

 

Lest we think we might be oversimplifying the matter, misinterpreting a more subtle argument, the authors give an example. Bill, whose “belief in the truthfulness of the Bible is warranted because it is triggered by the “internal instigation of the Holy Spirit.” “Warranted” here is a specific, technical term meaning that his belief has valid grounds, in this case the moving of the Spirit.

 

Now Bill hears about claims of critical biblical scholars that the exodus never happened as described in the Bible, being unsupported by textual criticism and archeology. Should that rock his faith in the historicity of the account in the Bible? Should careful scholarship  cause him to wonder if perhaps the stories were created for spiritual or cultural reasons but do not reflect 100% accurate history? Not at all.

 

He has a properly basic belief in the “great things of the gospel,” and he is convinced that the biblical account of the gospel is deeply intertwined with an actual Passover and exodus. Upon reflection, he realizes that CBS does nothing to undercut or overturn his “warranted Christian belief,” and he concludes therefore that it does nothing to destroy his belief that what the Bible says about the matter is warranted. He concludes with van Inwagen, therefore, that he “may therefore ignore any skeptical historical claims . . . with a clear conscience.”

 

He believes the “great things of the gospel” because he is moved by the Holy Spirit, he believes that the gospel implies a historical exodus, so he is free to ignore any evidence to the contrary.

 

Is this whole approach justified? I’m no philosopher, but it seems to me that the critical assumption here is that we can (or do, or must) base our knowledge on foundational assumptions. Obviously that’s true in some way, since even the ideas that there is true knowledge or an external world represent  assumptions. But can we start by assuming the “great things of the gospel”? If so, then what do we say to someone who starts by assuming the great things of Islam? Or radical materialism? How can we go beyond saying “well, it’s true for me”? How strong is a faith-system that is immune to contrary evidence?

 

Reference: James K. Hoffmeier and Dennis R. Magary (2012-03-04). Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith (Kindle Locations 708-712). Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. Kindle Edition. From Peter van Inwagen, “Do You Want Us to Listen to You?,” in “Behind” the Text: History and Biblical Interpretation, ed. Craig G. Bartholomew et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 101.