Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Does the Burden of Proof Exist? A redated post

VICTOR
'And none of the extant theories (theft theory, hallucination theory, wrong tomb theory, evil twin theory, etc.) is satisfactory enough even for all the skeptics to agree on what might have happened, much less to persuade believers.'

CARR
Now there's a glorious switching of the burden of proof.

VR: That assumes that I am claiming that the absence of a good naturalistic theory proves the resurrection. I'm claiming a good deal less here. What I am claiming is that there is a substantial body of evidence which supports the claim that Christiaintiy had a supernatural origin, and that this body of evidence is not paralleled in religions like Islam or Mormonism. It's a body of evidence that, at the end of the day, one might decide is adequate or inadequate, but it is there. On my view it all depends on the individual, subjective, prior probabilities that you bring to the investigation of the miraculous (see the infidels paper I linked to below).

But this brings up a larger question. Is there such a thing as the burden of proof. I've got my doubts. OK, in court cases we want to avoid punishing innocent people and so we put the burden of proof on the prosecution. But in matters of ordinary belief-formation, is there a proper, objective, burden of proof?

Let's take belief in an objectively existing external world. The externalworldist says there has to be one. The aexternalworldist insists that the externalworldist prove that he is not a brain in a vat whose brain is being given the experience of perceiving the external world.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't the typical response about if we are a brain in a vat or not the following: While we can't prove other minds exist or we aren't a brain in a vat, or even spirits living out a dream scape, we have to live life as we see it with our natural senses.

So if I am just a brain in a vat or not is irrelevant since I have to live with what is presented to me.

Victor Reppert said...

This response is a pragmatic response. Some people would argue that it is an argument for believing that we should act as if there is an external world, but is not a reason for thinking that there erally is an external world.

Brandon said...

I once roughed out some ideas on burden of proof here.

Clark Goble said...

I made some comments on burden of proof around the same time. Although my take was more Peircean.

Steven Carr said...

Certainly the evidence for Christianity is different for Mormonism and Islam.

For Mormonisn, we have signed witnesses attesting to the existence of the Golden Plates.

For Islam, we have the word of Muhammad (a primaru eye-witness) that he saw the Angel Gabriel.

For Christianity, we have an eyewitness report by Paul that people converted to Jesus-worship and still scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse.

Imagine what Victor would say if he found that some early converts to Mormonism later scoffed at the idea that the Golden Plates had existed.

Unknown said...

But, not believing in an external world, from whom does the aextraworldist think he is asking for a proof of the external world?

I heard a talk from Dallas Willard where he said something to the effect that he always took the burden on himself sort of as a matter of principle.

Mike Darus said...

Our legal system differentiates between "beyond a reasonable doubt" and "preponderance of the evidence." Victor may be suggesting that these issues are civil issues, not criminal. The evidence he lists for the resurrection exists. I find the alternative criticisms to be much less substantial. The evidence is too easily discounted in favor of some fantasy rewrite. Somehow someone's imagnination of how it could have happened differently is weightier than the account closest to the events. Simply imput some greedy motivation to ancient believers and you get a new version of events.

Anonymous said...

I chanced upon your blog via the via Google. (key words: resurrection burden of proof)

Anyways, if you chance upon this post I would like to ask the following question.

Background: Dialoguing with an atheist. Impetus for discussion was atheistic macro-evolution versus Intelligent Design. He asks me why I think Jesus is God. I say it’s because Christianity is based on a historical fact-narrative that’s true. He says it's not true. I then ask him to falsify the Resurrection.

Then an Anglican Christian steps up and states that the burden of proof is upon me to prove that the Resurrection occurred and *not* upon the atheist.

(Prior to this Anglican Christian intervening, I did provide resurrection-evidence arguments to the atheist based on articles from Josh McDowell and William Lane Craig. And I suggested that he read books by Lee Strobel and/or Gary Habermas.)

Question: Who has the burden of proof for demonstrating the Resurrection? Does the Christian have to “prove” that it happened? Or does the atheist have to “prove” that it didn’t happen?

I always thought the atheist had the burden of proof. But if I’m wrong about that, then I’m wrong about that.