Richard Swinburne On the Need For Corroborated Testimony

I went to a philosophical conference two weeks ago which highlighted the work of Paul Draper at Purdue. It was really informative. I got to meet up with some important philosophers, like Paul himself, Michael Bergmann (who accepted a free copy of "The Outsider Test for Faith"), James Sterba, (pictured with me), and Graham Oppy (via Zoom), plus a bunch of cool informed younger philosophers. The highly esteemed Richard Swinburne (back of head pictured !!) was there. I got into a discussion with him which I found interesting. When I described what evidence reasonable people need to believe, he said "you can't have that!"

Afterward I initiated that same discussion via email:

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Greetings, highly esteemed sir!

I talked with you briefly at the philosophy conference this past weekend. I was stressing the need for corroborated testimony. This is what reasonable inquirers need, regardless of whether or not it could have been provided in the ancient world.

Below are a few lines from my site that argue for this. LINK

I earned a Th.M. under William Lane Craig at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1984, and have had published a dozen or so books. Currently I'm working with James Sterba on his symposium for an atheist ethics without God. 

I would like your response please.

Cheers,

John W. Loftus 

Swinburne responded:

Dear John, 

You probably believe lots of things about ancient history, for which we have only one account produced by a historian a few years later. So you are asking more in this case then you would normally ask for. In this case we do have several different streams of evidence from different sources in the New Testament for. 

In this case we do have several different streams of evidence from different sources in the New Testament – Paul (see 1 Corinthians 15), Luke and Acts, Matthew and Mark (by implication from earlier parts of the gospel, where Jesus is said to have predicted this), and the letter to the Hebrews. Also, as I said at the conference, we have reason to believe that God would raise from the dead a prophet, who was God himself, and had lived the sort of life to be expected of God incarnate. if you want to see this worked out in detail, I can only commend to you my book, "The Resurrection of God incarnate."

Best wishes

- Richard Swinburne

Loftus responds:

Dear highly esteemed Richard,

Thank you for your response! You should know that I quote you! LINK

It doesn’t surprise me you would try to reason me back into faith. Decades ago I remember Norm Geisler doing that in a number of emails, as if he could re-convert me. Given Pascal’s Wager, with God’s threat of everlasting punishment, I had to be fairly certain my former Christian faith was false before I could leave it, since hell awaited me if I got it wrong! I’m still fairly certain, so that’s not going to happen here either. 

About a decade later Norm's son David Geisler tried and failed (multiple posts). LINK

I’ve rationally examined every key doctrine of the Christian faith. I find them all to be based on borrowed myths, dreams, visions, and concoctions without any verified/corroborated cross-examined testimony, or any relevant evidence, much less objective evidence.

I have read most of your works, along with the works of Bill Craig, and many others. I wrote a magisterial book with my thoughts and conclusions in Why I Became an Atheist (which I revised in 2012 from the 2008 edition). James Sterba read it then contacted me. He says it’s “unsurpassable.” You know Eddie Tabash. He gave me a copy of a debate you had with him. He buys up copies of my book just to hand them out. If you read ebooks I’m attaching a copy.

I write about “The Poor Evidence of Historical Evidence” in chapter 7.  It addresses the first point from your email. Are there really lots of things about ancient history that I believe based only on one account produced by a historian a few years later? Well as you state it, in cases where there’s only “one account (…) a few years later” goes, we can’t really doubt it, except that we know our knowledge is only provisional until such time as another account surfaces, or others corroborate parts of the first account. Further, we still have good reasons to doubt miracles reported in any ancient account, even if it was published a few years after, as I argued in my book, The Case against Miracles.

The problem comes from you describing such an account as “produced by a historian a few years later.” How can we know he’s really a historian? He must establish himself as one. Since only historians understand how to adequately judge other historians, they must fact-check his account to say it’s a historical account. Mere readers untrained in historical tools can’t do it, or can’t do it well enough. Legitimate historians, for instance, don’t fully accept uncorroborated unverified testimony based on scant evidence as historical claims. Those who do are sometimes called quacks and kooks.

Now in our case we cannot personally cross-examine the gospel sources to corroborate them. We cannot personally interrogate the very people and the events told in the Gospels, nor can we cross-examine Paul. Nor do we have any verified/corroborated cross-examined testimony from Peter, or John, nor any relevant evidence from James, much less objective evidence that corroborates, or verifies their stories. What we know then, without a doubt, is that we lack verified testimonies, corroborated testimonies, and historical evidence that would be convincing for historians.

From biblical scholar David Madison :

“If we are expected to take the gospels seriously as authentic accounts, we would need to see the rigorous disciplines that historians follow. Take a look at any modern biography, at any modern description of an historical era: the ends of these books have dozens of pages of notes on the sources used: letters, diaries, newspaper quotes that were researched in libraries and archives. Because real historians don’t rely on their imaginations or inspiration. They base their accounts on verifiable facts.”

You have to admit you cannot cross-examine or corroborate what we read in the Bible. You have to blindly accept the borrowed myths, dreams, visions, and concoctions without any verified/corroborated cross-examined testimony, or any relevant evidence, much less objective evidence.

You can continue to believe of course.

But anyone who thinks he has good reasons to believe is fooling himself, no differently than the emperor and his subjects in Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Emperor's New Clothes", and no differently than a few billion other religious people in the world (i.e., Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus, including a few million others who don’t accept your specific Christian religion).

I have a page at the Secular Web, please check it out. LINK

Cheers, 

John

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John W. Loftus is a philosopher and counter-apologist credited with 13 critically acclaimed books, including The Case against Miracles, and Varieties of Jesus Mythicism. Please support DC by sharing our posts, or by subscribing, donating, or buying our books at Amazon. As an Amazon Associate John earns a small amount of money from any purchases made there. Buying anything through them helps fund the work here, and is greatly appreciated!