Factual evidence for Christians to rejoice in, remember and recount, and for true seekers to ponder

Dale · May 31, 2022, 7:07pm

Evolution of a title: now we’re on the third one, the second being “Evidence that is foolish to deny”.

Originally titled “Objective evidence for the Christian God’s providential interventions into the lives of his children”, this first OP (original post) certainly qualifies for tl;dr status. (‘too long; didn’t read’ ; - ), but please read at least the four paragraphs immediately below, and maybe especially the fourth.

We have two remarkable cases with which regulars here should be familiar. There are also several other instances that have been related on the forum that add credibility and support to the contention, and we can refer to them as well, if necessary.

These are first person accounts and autobiographical, and as you read, recognize that the facts are external and objective, verifiable by others[*] and are not subjective since they are based on neither emotion nor imagination, nor personal preference and inclination.
*[ETA note: see in comment 198 (way below ; - ) about verifiability.]

Each is a series of disjunct events with no physical causal connection but both have an objective meaning infused between and among them, tying them together because of to whom they occurred, in what time frame and in what order. Think of them as constituting a forensic M.O. They are not merely astronomically improbable coincidences because the sets of events also each perform at least one function.

The first is especially notable because he did not want God’s intervention nor was he looking for it. Rich Stearns was the CEO of Lenox Corporation, maker of high-end dinnerware and other luxury merchandise, and the events led to his resigning to become the president of World Vision, a large Christian NGO serving to promote the welfare of children around the globe. He elucidates them in his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, winner of the ECPA 2010 Christian Book of the Year Award.

Rich Stearns, from his account:

After a nine-month month search, the World Vision board of directors had selected me and offered me the opportunity to become World Vision’s U.S.-based president.

…
I had prayed that God would send someone else to do it-anyone but me. Yet the board (and presumably God) had inexplicably called me…
…
I was sitting in my rather posh corner office one day in 1997 when the phone rang. My good friend Bill Bryce was calling from Massachusetts…
…
World Vision’s U.S. president, Bob Seiple had told the board of directors that he wished to leave within the next year and that they should begin the search for a successor. “Wow!” I said. “Now what is World Vision going to do? How do you replace a guy like Bob Seiple?”

Bill paused a moment, then said, “That’s the reason I called.” What he said next was somewhat stunning. He told me that since he first heard of Bob’s decision a couple of weeks earlier, he had been praying that God would lead the right person to take his place. And then he just blurted it out: “Don’t ask me to explain it, but God told me that you are going to be the next president of World Vision.” He went on to say that God didn’t make a habit of speaking to him…

I laughed out loud.
…
About six months after Bill’s “prophecy,” I was again sitting at my desk, this time going through some mail, when I found a handwritten note from one of my Lenox VPs, who worked about twenty minutes down the road, in the collectibles division. The note said:

Rich, I was reading the Wall Street Journal today and looking at the employment section. When I saw this ad, it made me think of you. I have always thought that someday you’d do something like this. So here it is. Didn’t know if you had seen it.
– Bob

P.S. This was kind of a dumb thing to do. Don’t get the wrong idea. You’re a great CEO and we wouldn’t want to lose you!

I turned the page to see a copy of a small ad that read, PRESIDENT, WORLD VISION, and went on to describe the job. I learned much later that the search firm had run the ad just once in the Wall Street, Journal, to cast a wider net and see if any “business types” might see it and apply. I will admit: reading that note sent a bit of a shiver up my spine. Bob had no idea about my conversations with my friend Bill. It was kind of eerie. But I thought I’d have a little fun with Bill, so I picked up the phone and called him.

When he heard what had happened, he was quite excited. “See, I told you so. If that isn’t a message from God, I don’t know what is. Now do you believe me?” I told him I doubted it was any message from God and that it was now in my wastebasket; it was just a crazy coincidence. God would have to speak a little more clearly than that.

It was January 1998, about seven months after Bill’s first call to me, when the next life-changing phone call came. Again, as I sat at my battleship-sized sized desk, my assistant indicated that a recruiter was on the line and asked if I wanted to speak with him.

“Sure,” I said. I always spoke with recruiters, because, well, you never know. The conversation went something like this:

“Hello, Rich. My name is Rob Stevenson, and I have been retained by World Vision’s board to help find their next president. Do you have a few minutes to talk?” The minute he said, “World Vision,” a shiver went down my spine. The series of coincidences were beginning to get a little creepy.

“How did you get my name?” I asked. “Did Bill Bryce put you up to this?”

The recruiter said he didn’t know any Bill Bryce and that he had gotten my name from a donor list.

There are a lot more details in the book about how Stearns resisted and his reflections on scripture and introspections on who he was, but finally he agreed to fly to Seattle to do some more investigation, “a series of fact-finding meetings and discussions before I made a final decision.”

…one more amazing thing that happened-the same day as our flight to Seattle. I had gone to the office early because, months earlier, I had invited an industry colleague who lived in London to visit and tour our Lenox offices. His name was Keith, and he was a wealthy investor who owned one of the prestigious British tableware companies. With so much on my mind, and the flight later that day to Seattle, I was distracted as I showed Keith around Lenox and then brought him back to my office for coffee. That’s when he got up and closed the door, telling me he had a private matter to discuss with me.

With growing amazement I listened as Keith explained that he was planning to buy another large British tableware company and combine the two companies. The new company would be the largest of its kind in the world. And then he dropped the bombshell: he wanted me to join him as CEO. He said that he didn’t want to bother hiring a recruiting firm because he knew that I was the best candidate for the job. I started to speak, but he stopped me and said that I needed to know one more thing: he would make me rich. He said he would offer me 10 percent ownership in this new enterprise, prise, a stake easily worth $25 to $50 million, if I would agree to leave Lenox and serve as his CEO.

As you might imagine, events like this didn’t happen every day in my life. I immediately remembered something Renee had said to me about two months earlier, just as I had begun talking with World Vision. She said she believed that at the moment of decision, a great temptation would be put in my path – a financial lure – that would threaten to prevent me from going to World Vision. Now, remember, just six hours later I was going to be on a plane to Seattle to make my final decision.

I told Keith that I was stunned by his offer but that there was a complication. Even though no one at Lenox was aware of my discussions with World Vision, I decided to share my dilemma with Keith. Without naming the organization, I told him that my wife and I were committed Christians and that over the past few weeks I had been in discussions with a large charitable organization about becoming their president. I said that if I accepted the offer, it would be an opportunity for my wife and me to put our faith into action in a more direct way. And I told him that later that day I was flying out for my final interviews. Then I told him that if it didn’t work out with the charity, I would be incredibly interested in his offer, but I had to finish the process with them first.

Keith seemed a bit taken aback and said that he was amazed that I would actually consider leaving my career at Lenox to work for a charity but that he admired me for considering such a move. And then he told me a story that became a direct message from God to Rich Stearns.

He confided that decades earlier, he and his wife were unable to have children, and they finally adopted a little girl from India. They raised her as their own until very suddenly, they lost her at the age of ten. He never told me how she died. The grief tore them apart, he lost interest in his businesses, nesses, and ultimately he and his wife separated. But then he told me that one day as he was going through his mail, he found an appeal from an organization called World Vision, which invited him to sponsor a child for twenty pounds a month. (I felt that shiver go up my spine again.) With excitement he wrote them a letter explaining the loss of his daughter and asking if it would be possible to sponsor a ten-year-old girl from the same region of India where his daughter had been born. Two weeks later he received a photo of his new “daughter,” and for the next few years, he wrote to her and sent her presents regularly.

“Rich,” he said, “somehow, by sponsoring that little girl, I was finally able to let go of my grief.” Then he told me that the point of his story was that over the years he had become so impressed with this World Vision organization-that it wasn’t easy to help the poor, but that he could see that they had solid experience, a thoughtful strategy, and people with the right skills to do it effectively. “So,” he said, “I can see why a big charity like that might benefit from someone like you, Rich. But selfishly I hope you decide to come work with me.”

Perhaps you can imagine my shock about what had just happened. This could be no coincidence. God was speaking to me through this amazing temptation, saying, Do you see, Rich? Through World Vision I can touch the poorest of the poor, but also the richest of the rich. Are you willing to be open to My will for your life? Somewhat hesitantly I told Keith that it was World Vision who wanted me to be their next U.S. president. The color seemed to drain from his face as we both realized what a bizarre happenstance this was. We ended our meeting, and I promised to call him in a few weeks, after my decision had been made. And then I left for the airport.

The second needs no introduction – it is self-contained as she relates it. (Note how she uses the word ‘miracle’ – no natural laws have been broken, but there is preternatural timing and placing in the circumstances.)

Maggie, her account:

In 1968-69, with a new M.S. degree in botany, I signed on with a sub-contractor for NASA on the Apollo Eleven Mission in its quest to determine whether there was life on the moon; whether lunar “soil” could support life; and how to grow food plants on the International space station. Aside from the excitement of the subject matter, the stress of 84 hour work weeks under the watchful eyes of Washington, the military and the rest of the world the job took a toll on my mind, body and soul until I needed to shut down. It ended in a search for God. This is my testimony as to how I searched for him, and the miracles through which he proved himself to me. When he did, my life’s path took an abrupt turn. I have now been a pastor-teacher, Bible scholar, Christian counselor and author for nearly 50 years.

HOW I FOUND GOD, THE BENEVOLENT CREATOR, IN JESUS CHRIST

I did not follow Christianity because it was all I knew. My family were not Believers. I had not had enough exposure to Christianity as a young person to have any idea what its doctrines were. I chose Christianity at the age of 26 (I am now 76) having asked the hypothetical God to prove to me, as a scientist, whether he existed; whether he was benevolent and chose to be active in the day-to-day lives of those who would worship him; and if so, which one of the religions, including which stream, Catholic or Protestant if Christianity represented him.

I have a Master’s degree in science. My primary areas were in biology, botany and microbiology, but chemistry, both organic and inorganic, zoology, physics, geology, paleontology and meteorology are all part of my background. My first position out of graduate school in 1968 was with NASA, working on the Apollo Eleven project in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory of the Manned Spacecraft Center near Houston. I was part of the team which developed the techniques to grow germ-free food plants on the International Space Station, and to determine whether lunar “soil” (fine, black pulverized moon rock) held life, or could sustain life without added nutrients (no, and no).

After the conclusion of my work there, I suffered a drastic health crisis and became totally incapacitated for being able to perform any gainful employment. Then 25, I had no more than minimal savings, I was making payments on a new car, I had no family and was living in a community where I knew absolutely no one. I used my sparce savings very quickly and could no longer pay rent. The U.S. had no social service programs which could have helped me. Unemployment compensation was available, but only for people who were employable, i.e. healthy. My bank account had reached a balance of zero, and I had $12 left in cash. I had read parts of the Bible and was familiar with the concept of a Creator God, who made man in his own image, who loves mankind, and to whom nothing is impossible. I decided to investigate as a scientist, whether or not there was a God - benevolent - and if so, which one.

I assumed from the outset that if he was real, benevolent and omnipotent, he could solve my problems without any input from me aside from telling him what I needed. I could speak to him in my own language, he would hear, respond and speak back to me, and I would “hear” him.

I had enough education and intelligence to eliminate some gods at the outset, as to which was the Real Creator. Of course, if he was benevolent he could not be any of the vengeful gods of superstition, nor could he be the Jihadistic god of Muhammad, who forced people to worship him for fear of being beheaded during the 7th - 12th centuries. He also could not possibly be one of the gods with the head of an elephant or other animal, or with 14 arms, nor could he be a god who shape-shifted between the forms of an eagle or bear. No True benevolent God would create his most loved being to be represented with an appearance that man could see only as bizarre compared to himself. This logic also eliminated God as being represented as a grossly obese man with immensely huge earlobes. These logical premises as a scientist eliminated all forms of Shamanisn, Islam, Buddhism and all the gods of Hinduism. It also eliminated every tiny cult endemic to isolated regions. The real God, if benevolent, would have made himself known to people all over the world in order to bestow the blessings of knowing Him on as many as he could.

There was only one more basic premise in determining which god, if any, was THE God. He had to be able to do miracles: he had to be willing and able to change the course of nature and overturn all odds against events happening. Logic alone had eliminated ALL RELIGIONS except Christianity, as rooted in Judaism. The only question to be determined if God as presented in Christianity was GOD, then would the route to Him be through some Protestant theology or some Orthodox theology? I did see the essential difference between papist and non papist doctrine. Protestants believed every single person can go directly to God. Non-Protestants believed you had to have a priest between a person and God.

Thus, in 1969, assessing my situation, I found myself destitute, unemployably ill, friendless, alone in the world with no way to pay for food or lodging. All I had was a car about to be foreclosed upon because the bank which held the lien was aware I had by then been unemployed for nearly three months, and was gravely ill. I was no longer able to make payments. This then, was the first prayer I ever uttered, in 1969:

“God, I don’t know whether or not you are real, but if you are, I need help and I am willing to listen. There are five things I must have in order to survive. If you intervene and provide them I will follow you for the rest of my life”. I said “God”, but inwardly I knew I was speaking to the God of Jesus Christ. I did not, at the time, have the slightest idea what Jesus had to do with Christianity, but I knew it revolved around Him, and that if God answered my prayer He would resolve the questions about what “following Him” meant. These are the needs I laid out as I spoke conversationally to “God”, being willing to trust that if He IS, he would take care of them.

I needed a friend, someone I could trust who cared about me so I would not be standing alone. Someone who genuinely loved me.

I needed a home base, a telephone and mailing address.

I needed instant cash. I was not only unemployed, but also not close enough to being well to apply for unemployment compensation.

I needed a roof over my head, a place to sleep and regular meals.

I need to stop the foreclosure of my auto lien. I still had two years of payments due, no credit, no co-signer and no income, but I could not possibly regain a life without transportation.

There was no human way possible to meet any of these needs. The statistical probability of any of them simply “happening”, was null, given that I knew no one. While working for NASA the immense pressure and schedule, working seven days a week 12 hours a day, I had met my neighbor only once. The only people in the county I knew well enough to call by name were doctors and nurses at the hospital where I had been a patient for six weeks. Scientifically, the probability of five unsolvable problems being resolved all at the same time would have been an imaginary number - null multiplied by an identity of five. As a scientist I was in dead-earnest. My hypothesis was simply that if in a very short time span all five of my needs were met, the causal factor would have been the divine, purposeful intervention against nature, a caring omnipotent God moving, changing people and circumstances because He loved me, and in answer to my prayer with the attached promise of following him. It would mean five miracles, as a Biblical miracle is identified. What would such a God look like? Like us, like Jesus. Humans, if intelligent, would not trust in a god represented by a being inferior to us.

I slept hard after a tearful night. In the morning I felt impressed to go to a specific supermarket to spend my last $12 on food. After so much stress and anguish, while in the checkout line I suffered an emotional meltdown. I suddenly started to sob like a child. The startled woman ahead of me turned around and looked at my face. It was the one person in the county I “knew” better than anyone else. My personal nurse. There had been many nurses, but I never knew the names of the anonymous ones changing shifts in the night. MY nurse was personal, Jan, there for me Monday through Friday for six weeks. She put her arms around me and said “Come home with me”. Miracle #1. Starting out, we talked briefly. She did not ask me what I needed, she told me. She gave me a home base, Miracle #2.

On the way, we stopped at my rented room, and I picked up mail from my bank, forwarded from my former address. I was not going to open the bank statement knowing the account balance was zero, but I did anyway. I was dumbfounded. A deposit was been made the previous week for $400. I didn’t make it. I knew it was a bank error. I knew I would have to pay it back, but it was instant cash. Miracle #3. (It lasted until I was able to collect unemployment compensation.) I met Jan’s husband, Bill, and we talked for two hours, becoming instant friends. We both had master’s degrees in biological sciences and shared the same hobby. The next day, Sunday, Jan took me to church with her. It was a Protestant church which strongly teaches that God loves humans so much, he made himself into a human person while he was still the Divine Person, so people could see and understand what he is really like, by being born human, through a virgin conception. This was prophesied by the Prophet Isaiah. They also believed as the Bible teaches , that Jesus proved who He is by continually working miracles of healing, deliverance and comfort. Finally, they also affirmed that the same Holy Spirit who worked through Jesus to work miracles, also is given to every Believer today who is faithful to Him, both to have personal access to God and even do miracles, in Jesus’ name - with spiritual authority delegated by Jesus Himself. (This was the whole premise of first century Christianity; it grew exponentially rapidly because all His Believers DID do miracles. Many Christian denominations have grown cold and many have fallen away from this truth and expectation, but it is part of the milieu of genuine faith in Jesus Christ.)

Later that day Jan and Bill talked it over, and invited me to live with them permanently, as long as I needed to get on my feet, free, part of the family. I was a few years older than their oldest child. A home, Miracle #4. The next day was Monday; banks were open. With only the abstract thought “I have to secure my car loan” I drove aimlessly. Suddenly these words were forced into my consciousness “TURN IN HERE”. It was a gravel driveway into a lot with a construction trailer. I did, and saw the sign “BANK UNDER CONSTRUCTION OPEN NOW” I parked and went in. On the left was the loan officer, who was busy at his desk with a customer. On the right was a waiting room where a man was reading a newspaper. I sat down with him, he looked up and we began to chat. The news headlines were “APOLLO ELEVEN SPLASHDOWN” and “LUNAR SCIENCE” etc. He asked my name, who was I, what did I do etc. and I pointed to the headlines. At the time, it had just been a job. I had no realization then, that Apollo Eleven symbolized the most important scientific research of the 20th century, and the eyes of the entire world were on the Lunar Receiving Laboratory. On the opposite side of the wall of my research station has been the Astronaut Reception Area, the dormitory of bedrooms where they were kept in germ-free isolation. From my perspective, I was an unemployed, disabled random person who might not be well enough to work for months, with a totally unstable life and future. The man with whom I was speaking saw me as a brilliant celebrity scientist! (LOL). When I took leave of the conversation to speak to the loan officer, this man went ahead of me and told him to give me anything I wanted. He was president of the bank. He gave me the loan. From his perspective I was a trustworthy person, holding a position of responsibility important to national security, in one of the most prestigious jobs I could have entered out of graduate school. Miracle #5.

God answered all five prayers in the order I asked, over the space of 48 hours. I had made an agreement with “God”, as to what would happen if he engineered five miracles for me. God proved he is real, loving, compassionate, absolutely able to rule over every force in life to do good for those who will trust, obey, and love him. I set aside my career. Over the past 50 years I have become as earnest a scholar of the Bible, the customs and writings styles of the times and personal student under Christ, as I was a scientist. I eventually learned only a small fraction of people read the Bible from the perspective it was written, God’s perspective. Most miss nuances, and gloss over thousands of details to take literally much that was written symbolically. The Bible says plainly, GOD’S TIME IS NOT MAN’S TIME, yet many people insist he created all things in six 24-hour periods. This is nonsense in the correct context, using GOD’s time, he has used scientists to reveal that HIS six days, when he created the lights of the heavens, and all that exists lasted not six, 24 human-hour periods, but at least 14 billion human years. The second “day” in God’s time, when he created Earth, and the seas and dry land appeared,we know lasted more than two billion of our years. This confirms what the Bible says about time as far as God is concerned. “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8).

When I found God, and realized he is a loving, caring, miracle working God who is the Great Scientist, I had no qualms about following him. There have been trials of every imaginable kind, but because his miracles never ceased and he sustained me in all tribulations, he has made my faith unshakeble.

[*] ETA footnote and repeated from the top: See in comment 198 (way below ; - ) about verifiability.

Another ‘ETA’ way later (10/4/22) are a couple of instances mentioned by BioLogos’ own Jim @jstump, the latter one being especially delightful:

Yet another ETA about another of God’s M.O.s, still factual but not externally and impersonally observable, how he intervened in the life of Phil Yancey, a prolific and well-appreciated Christian author, that Phil relates in his book, Where the Light Fell, A Memoir:

A few days later the university team gathers for a prayer meeting, as we do every Wednesday. We follow a consistent pattern: Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, then all three pause politely, waiting for me. I never pray, and after a brief silence we open our eyes and return to our dorm rooms.

With the essay deadline looming, I join the team grudgingly for the requisite meeting. Joe prays, Craig prays, Chris prays, and they wait the usual few seconds. To everyone’s surprise—most of all my own—I begin to pray aloud.

“God…” I say, and the room crackles with tension. A door slams down the hall, interrupting me.

I start again. “God, here we are, supposed to be concerned about those ten thousand students at the university who are going to Hell. Well, you know that I don’t care if they all go to Hell, if there is one. I don’t care if I go to Hell.”

I might as well be invoking witchcraft or offering child sacrifices. Even so, these are my friends, and no one moves. My mouth goes dry. I swallow hard and continue. For some reason I start talking about the parable of the Good Samaritan, which one of my classes has just been studying. “We’re supposed to feel the same concern for university students as the Samaritan felt for the bloodied Jew lying in the ditch,” I pray. “I feel no such concern. I feel nothing.”

And then it happens. In the middle of my prayer, as I am admitting my lack of care for our designated targets of compassion, the parable comes to me in a new light. I have been visualizing the scene as I speak: a swarthy Middle Eastern man, dressed in robes and a turban, bending over a dirty, blood-stained form in a ditch. Without warning, those two figures now morph on the internal screen of my mind. The Samaritan takes on the face of Jesus. The Jew, pitiable victim of a highway robbery, also takes on another face—one I recognize with a start as my own.

In slow motion, I watch Jesus reach down with a moistened rag to clean my wounds and stanch the flow of blood. As he bends toward me, I see myself, the wounded victim of a crime, open my eyes and spit on him, full in the face. Just that. The image unnerves me—the apostate who doesn’t believe in visions or in biblical parables. I am rendered speechless. Abruptly, I stop praying, rise, and leave the room.

All that evening I brood over what took place. It wasn’t exactly a vision—more like a vivid daydream or an epiphany. Regardless, I can’t put the scene out of mind. In a single stroke my cockiness has been shattered. I have always found security in my outsider status, which at a Bible college means an outsider to belief. Now I have caught a new and humbling glimpse of myself. In my arrogance and mocking condescension, maybe I’m the neediest one of all.

mitchellmckain · June 1, 2022, 5:01am

Testimonies of personal experience are by definition subjective evidence. It is great evidence for the person having those personal experience but does not provide a reasonable expectation that others should believe what is claimed. Testimonies of personal experiences can also be found for things like radium patent medicines, UFOs, psychics, fairies, healing with crystals, and more.

How is scientific evidence different? These are written procedures anyone can follow to get the same results regardless of what they want or believe. For this reason they do provide a reasonable expectation that others should believe what is claimed. That is what makes the evidence objective – it is the same for everyone.

But what about the large numbers of people who have similar experiences to those in the OP. Did they not follow a similar procedure and get the same result? Not independent of what they want or believe. And the plain fact is that others have followed those procedures and have not had the same results. These are not quite the same for everyone.

This doesn’t mean these things supported by subjective evidence are not true – particularly when we have no objective evidence that they are not true. It is demonstrable that we can know something is true even when we have no objective evidence for it. We don’t even have objective evidence to establish the claim that reality only consists of things which are the same for everyone. Thus we have no reasonable basis to accept the claim of anyone that they are not true just because the knowledge of it is based upon personal experience alone.

Dale · June 1, 2022, 5:10am

Not so and we seriously disagree. The facts in the evidentiary testimonies are objective. Just like in a court of law, the witness in these cases is relating ‘forensic evidence’ that is verifiable. That does not make the evidence subjective. If they were relating how they felt, now that would be subjective. There were other people involved who knew the facts as well.

Dale · June 1, 2022, 5:19am

You are misrepresenting without any foundation or citation. We are not talking about a one-off ‘coincidence’ – these are whole sets of disjunct events. And Rich Stearns’ account is nothing like your fictional “large numbers of people” following some “similar procedure”!

Klax · June 1, 2022, 7:51am

The deconstructed natural experience will be true, but the unnatural interpretation of it beyond that is entirely subjective. Which is deconstructably natural too of course.

T_aquaticus · June 1, 2022, 2:59pm

Testimonies are not considered forensic evidence. Also, the definition of objective evidence is not “whatever evidence they allow in court”.

You are turned around so far backwards that it makes conversations impossible.

mitchellmckain · June 1, 2022, 4:37pm

Well… I can certainly give personal testimony that arguing with Dale about this doesn’t accomplish anything. My post was not to start an argument with him but simply to present the other way of thinking about this that many other people are likely to agree with. I think the best we can do in cases like this is simply explain it as clearly as we can.

The point is that testimonies of other witnesses do add some greater objectivity than the testimony of one individual alone. After all, this does demonstrate that what they testify is the same for a number of people. But we can also demonstrate that even things testified by many people can be and have been terribly wrong and so this just isn’t close to the order of objectivity found in scientific evidence which provides the assurance of demonstration that these are things which are very much the same for everyone.

heymike3 · June 1, 2022, 4:53pm

I know there are other philosophers better versed at this than I am - this standard of rigorous scientific objectivity only works under a certain set of circumstances and settings. I vaguely remember Keener discussing this alleged requirement for knowledge in relation to even basic tools for researching historical events.

If you are searching for absolute deductive certainty, then I have good and bad news for you.

T_aquaticus · June 1, 2022, 5:01pm

I think we all agree with that assessment. Therefore, when someone claims to have verifiable objective facts we expect those requirements to be met. If the evidence is subjective and unverifiable, then just say so. In certain settings, subjective and unverifiable evidence can be compelling.

I think we are all satisfied with inference from objective facts.

heymike3 · June 1, 2022, 5:07pm

So miracles do or don’t happen?

T_aquaticus · June 1, 2022, 5:10pm

I don’t know. I have yet to see compelling evidence for a miracle, so I currently don’t believe they exist. However, I don’t expect reality to conform to what I believe or don’t believe.

Dale · June 1, 2022, 5:10pm

I said the facts related could be thought of as, meaning analogously, not that testimonies are.

The definition of objective includes “factual”, as in real and true.

You are so far in denial that it makes conversations impossible.

T_aquaticus · June 1, 2022, 5:11pm

Evidence doesn’t become objective because you claim it to be factual.

Dale · June 1, 2022, 5:13pm

Sure, you can deny that the facts are not true all you want. That does not mean that they are not. And as I said, they are third party verifiable, especially in Rich Stearns’ case which is considerably more recent and with names.

T_aquaticus · June 1, 2022, 5:18pm

Claiming something to be a fact does not make it into a fact.

What is verifiable?

How do we verify that God told him anything?

beaglelady · June 1, 2022, 5:18pm

Other faith traditions have eyewitnesses to miracles that we are skeptical of. Thousands were said to witness the Catholic miracle of the sun supposedly done by the Virgin Mary.

Dale · June 1, 2022, 5:18pm

Of course not. The meanings infused in both cases are self-evident and not subjective. And each set performs an objective function.

heymike3 · June 1, 2022, 5:20pm

There is a very well documented miracle internet skeptics have had to explain away by saying the person faked being a paraplegic for 20 years. 20 years which can be documented. Her healing happened on video. It can also be confirmed by eyewitness testimony of people who knew her before and after she regained her ability to walk. It’s rare, extraordinary, and not repeatable under laboratory conditions.

Dale · June 1, 2022, 5:26pm

Nor does that make it not a fact.

The personal and ‘coincidental’ interactions.

We can’t. That is a weak point of the argument, the only one. (Even he was reluctant give specifics because it was so unusual and probably ‘otherworldly’ somehow.)

T_aquaticus · June 1, 2022, 5:27pm

Vague descriptions aren’t very compelling.