I mean I feel like virtue ethics can be argued for rationally which necessarily leads to theism and Christianity. That’s what happened with MacIntyre

Do you have a transcript or powerpoint of this presentation?

You seem to have idea that God's sovereign of sinners to salvation is not in the Book of Acts. However, if you read Acts 15:14 and 18:10 you will see that it is in Acts. Plus, if you read 18:27 you will find that those who believe do so by the grace of God.

So the various times where God basically says His reasoning for what He does is "I'm God" like in Isaiah or Job at least seems to hint at some kind of circularity, isn't really circular?

It's unclear to me why "epistemic circularity" _per se_ is necessarily malignant rather than benign. Different philosophers give different definitions of what epistemic circularity is, one definition from Baron Reed ("Epistemic Circularity Squared? Skepticism about Common Sense" in _Phenomenology and Phenomenological Research_ Vol. 63, No. 1, July 2006) says "Epistemic Circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F." But then, one's cognitive faculties taken as a whole would fit that description, as would God using his own mind in believing that he is omniscient and has reliable cognitive faculties. This type of epistemic circularity is how I understood e.g., Liz Jackson was referring to ("God has to use God's own mind in order to believe 'I am omniscient') when saying God has to use epistemic circularity. But given the quote from the video (0:11), perhaps the claim is not that epistemic circularity as defined above is objectionable, but only believing something on the basis of a epistemically circular _argument_ is objectionable, where an "epistemically circular argument" requires believing an argument's conclusion that some faculty or belief source is reliable requires presupposing that conclusion is true. I would agree that this sort of reasoning is objectionable. I would also agree that the basis for God's belief that he is omniscient etc. is not through an epistemically circular argument, but Plantinga (as far as I can tell) doesn't claim otherwise. Instead he seems to be claiming that not even God himself can construct a noncircular argument for his belief in his cognitive reliability, e.g., when he says "Not even God himself, necessarily omniscient as he is, can give a noncircular argument for the reliability of his ways of forming beliefs" in p. 125 of _Warranted Christian Belief._

If people are predestined for eternal life why would Christ need to die for them? Makes no sense..

Premise one falls on what you touched upon while arguing against Vilenkin's argument. That we have no evidence the laws of physics existed prior to the universe. The same logic can be used on causation. We only know that what begins to exist has a cause in our universe. We do not have any evidence that this is a requirement outside the universe.

Man Richard carrier has got to be the worst NT scholar in history . I’m gonna believe the opposite of whatever he says from now on , I think should be doing fine then .

Excellent video; I appreciate the amount of research you have put into this subject. I have conceived of a potential objection to classical foundationalism that has been on my mind lately. Under classical foundationalism, the basic beliefs only consist of beliefs we can be certain about which have been characterized as being infallible, indubitable, or incorrigible. These beliefs are non-inferentially justified while the rest of our beliefs must be inferentially justified from these foundational beliefs. Inference involves a reliance upon memory to supply premises to infer beliefs from. In order to utilize inference, one must believe that one’s memory is generally reliable. But how is the belief the one’s memory is generally reliable justified? Under classical foundationalism, such a belief cannot be basic since it is not incorrigible or certain so it must be inferential. But it also cannot be inferential because for the inference to be successful, the truth of the belief must be assumed from the start. Thus, under classical foundationalism, there can be no inferentially justified beliefs, only non-inferentially justified ones. Since belief in classical foundationalism is itself inferentially justified, it would follow that under classical foundationalism, one would not be justified in believing in classical foundationalism itself. The argument could be summarized as follows: 1. Belief in the general reliability of memory can only be justified inferentially under classical foundationalism. 2. To be justified in believing an inferential belief, one must be justified in believing in the general reliability of memory. 3. One cannot be justified in believing in the general reliability of memory solely from an inference that requires one to be justified in believing in the general reliability of memory to be successful. 4. Therefore, under classical foundationalism, no inferential belief can be justified (1-3) 5. Belief in classical foundationalism is itself an inferential belief. 6. Therefore, under classical foundationalism, belief in classical foundationalism is unjustified (4,5) I’m interested in hearing your thoughts on this objection.

When we analyze the 3rd category you created it should be obvious that deliberate acts also will be either determined or truly random. The question is what causes a Freewill agent to choose A instead of B. The agent could have choosen A or B but He chooses A. The agent is a mere vessel for the choice to actualize. What goes inside the Agent is important.

There's still no reason to take any of this folklore seriously. A highly gullible person asserting something a few hundred years after the fact does not a good source make.

No one knows who wrote the gospels. They're anonymous. There's no debate about that.

There is no good Christology! Why? Because what Jesus told the disciples in John 16:12. That means the information about the Plan of Salvation is incomplete! And pastors think that they know all about the subject because they read the bible!? And the bible (Jesus) say they are wrong!

Very interesting. The background music is annoying as hell.

If, If, If doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

The very fact that Eusebius, Papias, et al, felt they had to tell us who wrote the gospels means that people were asking who wrote them. They did not originally have their titles "The gospel according to X". If you *really believe* the gospels are telling the truth, let take another look at the intro to Luke. It looks like a cover letter, but it does *not* name who sent it. Cf with the letters, say, of Paul--they always start out saying who sent them, like all letters did in ancient Rome and all (even email) do today. The Author of Luke talks about other gospels written before his, but he doesn't mention any titles or authors of them either. If we just read what the gospel of Luke actually says, we have to conclude that both the gospel he is writing, and all previous gospels, were anonymous. Again, if you think that the gospels are true, well, just believe what the text right there in the gospel says. Same goes for the ending of John--whoever wrote that didn't give us his name---and he didn't even give us the name of the earlier author--he called him "the beloved disciple" specifically *not* to tell us the author's name. The canonical gospels are real standouts here--*every* *single* noncannonical gospel--the Gospel of Thomas, or the Gospel of Peter, *always* explicitly says who it was written by. Its one of the ways you can tell that the early church did not take the noncannonical gospels as seriously as they did the canonical gospels--because anybody else who wrote a gospel felt like they had to aedd their name (or pretend they were an apostle adding his name).

Nothing teaches Calvinism. It must be tead into the text.

Saying Mark doesn’t have appearances imo is an unfair argument because Mark ‘s ending seems to be lost .

Carrier got to be worst NT scholar there is .

Its been like 3 months, when is a new video coming?

Great video bro! Remember also that the Early Church did not speak openly of the so-called mysteries, including not only Eucharist but also the Trinitarian Creed, in our Orthodox Church in Russia the priest still exclamates "The doors, the doors!" Before we sing the Creed of Nicea, that implying that the doors of the church are to be closed, and the catecumeni (those not yet baptized are instructed to leave (the deacon shouts "Catecumeni go out, catecumeni go out, all the faithful, let's pray to God again... And soon the Creed follows). This may be the case with the story of Birth of our Lord. Keep in mind that pharisees and their followers spread gossip that Jesus was son of Pandira a Roman soldier. No hight doctrines were preached openly, only the basics of the Good News.

How then do you escape subjectivism if one can immediately justify his own concepts?

I think Polycarp knew John.

here is the biggest problem with your attempt. you 1. simply presented determinism and indeterminism in such a way that you can claim determinism is a more complex idea and then 2. stated that this shifts the burden of proof away from yourself. this isn't entirely laughable but i don't think it's strong enough to convince anyone that doesn't already agree with you.

There are all manner of reasons the text we now call Matthew would have been attributed to him - most plausibly, given the spread of second-century pseudepigraphia like the Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas etc. it makes sense why the proto-orthodox sect would want to assign apostolic authorship to the four Gospels that conformed with their theology. This certainly makes more sense than the laughably absurd idea that a text which features its supposed author as a minor character, yet contains no qualifications that describe this character as its source or author (or uses their eyewitness as a basis for scenes, instead being a text that cribs entirely from another one) was authored by that person. If you’re going to make the argument that the text Papias is referring to is related to our Matthew, you’re better off arguing that he was referring to the hypothetical Q source, since the text he’s describing sounds like it. Ultimately though, there is not any reason to take Mr. Exploding Giant Judas particularly seriously in the first place, given what little we know about him indicates he was a highly gullible person who fell hook line and sinker for fanciful legends.

There is a reason we don't have Hebrew NTs...it's because the NT was written in Greek obviously.

Your apologetic motivation in doing this is relevant because it skews your approach from square one. You are doing things opposite to a proper scholarly approach, you are starting with your conclusion and working backwards to justify it. No scholar would engage in the reaches and brain-pretzel harmonizations you’re employing to support this McGrewian eyewitness crap and authorship folklore. The age of the texts you cite is relevant because you're not keeping up-to-date with the scholarship. The healing in front of the crowd in Matthew is relevant even with your harmonization because Matthew totally lacks the Messianic Secret motif present in Mark outside of this incident. It’s clearly a relic left in from Mark irrelevant to the story Matthew is trying to tell.

As a fun challenge, I recommend inputting Hume's Of Miracles (chapter 10 of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding) and chapter 4 of the same volume into your preferred large language model. Ask the chatbot if these chapters are consistent and ask how Hume used the phrase "law of nature" and if it's consistent with his view on induction. Then, input Larmer's interpretation of "laws of nature" and see if the chatbot thinks Larmer is reading Hume correctly. As a side note, I can respect how much work it took to make a video of this length. From that perspective I can see why my criticisms might not be well received. But they are coming from a place of good faith and trying to represent the arguments accurately.

I think I might be shouting into an echo chamber, but here I go: Larmer imputing metaphysical propositions to Hume within the definition of "laws of nature" is antithetical to a preceding chapter of the Enquiry from which Of Miracles is a part. Chapter 4 lays out the case that induction and thereby causality are not justified assumptions, but rather customs adopted by human imagination E 4.18-4.20. These are necessary for the foundations of natural sciences to be justified and so, laws of nature conceived of as "necessary truths" makes no sense because Hume didn't believe in necessary truths outside of things like mathematics. This objection maps to each of the accounts of "laws of nature" that Larmer provides. Norman Geisler presents a disjunction and most of your video seems to be focusing on the wrong part of that disjunction. At 19:55, Larmer denies that the term "law of nature" is being used the way I suggest, not by pointing to the text, but rather by analogy to a contemporary medical procedure. There, our mechanisms of ensuring credibility are all clear so the analogy seems to be a poor one. Hume is having a discussion about testimonial evidence, about historicity, not about metaphysical possibility as is made evident by sections 10.4-10.10. In the IVF for the virgin scenario, this is surely a repeatable event (albeit a first occurrence) and we can interrogate the science involved. This is not the kind of thing Hume is casting doubt on, nor do miracles function like the IVF for a virgin. By divorcing parts 1 and 2 from each other and seeing the former as attempting to establish a solitary, apriori argument is peculiar. In part one, Hume gives us the probability analysis we ought to apply: confidence=evidence-competing evidence; and in part two Hume tells us that he believes the competing evidence to miracles outweighs the evidence for miracles as an empirical case. This a much more plausible, holistic reading An Enquiry that I think has escaped many in the analytic tradition. It's no surprise that apologists, largely following in that tradition with specific ends in mind, fall into the same trap.

As a believing christian, I think the marcian priority is much more convincing and strong with few exceptions left for further exploration than the mathian priority especially when one takes into consideration the motivations of the respective author why he would want to alter the original text. The motivation for mark to alter the mathian text is almost absent and not convincing. On the other hand the motivation for methew to alter the marcian text is strong and convincing. Just looking at the baptism of jesus where mathew adds how john the baptist tried to prevent jesus from being baptized displays the strong motivation for mathew to add and alter the macian text. Dropping this crucial text from mark just doesn’t make sense as there’s no plausible motivation for mark to drop such important texts. I think it’s futile to try and argue for mathian priority and I really don’t know why people want have that?

"A deliberate turning away": What would consist in the performance (or lack of) of that act (non-act)? What would a believer do/not do to be fulfilling the act of "turning away," and what would it result in? Thanks!

Lmao can you please expand on the idea that Mark was developed as Kerygma for the church? It seems so inane to think that Mark, which shares so many word-for-word copying/copied passages, would simultaneously be created to be SHORTER and EASIER to remember for Jesus’ story while FORGETTING the virgin birth and resurrection appearances (which, any gentile who’s heard whispers of Jesus would ask about AND any doubting gentiles or Jews would’ve been served by stories like the Doubting Thomas story etc.) and ADDING what I still see as complete irrelevancies like spit and dirt used to heal (physical method that could produce some doubts about the authenticity of the healing meanwhile Matthew shortens and spiritualizes it so that to Jesus heals with just his words) or even his parents calling him crazy - stuff like this only makes it HARDER to evangelize. Hope my comment doesn’t come off as rude or aggressive. I’m genuinely interested in having (and want to have ONLY) intellectually honest exchanges on this topic. I only highlighted certain words to show how I fail to see the Kerygma explanation as adequate to resolve the points brought up for Markan Priority. I really appreciate your videos and you have demolished a lot of the dumb arguments for Markan priority, but to my mind (I’m new to the Synoptic Problem) you still haven’t convincingly solved some points brought up by the hypothesis’ proponents. Thank you.

Bible is just some crappy old stories.

Richard Carrier just pulls it out of his backside. I dont believe him at all

The argument that Matthew could not have been written in Hebrew, because he depends on the LXX is probably one of the more problematic claims. Matthew probably has one of the highest concentrations of non-LXX readings of any of the books. He consistently quotes the minor prophets from something that isn't the LXX. I think Cousland's critique might be self-destructive if those things are considered.

52:50 also reveals Bart Ehrman to be a charlatan. His argument is basically as if someone had addressed Ehrman after he published his first book and told him: "Well, all these years of studying and learning and all you know fits unto 300 or so pages. You must be very ignorant." Given that Ehrman has written books aimed at being read, his argument is totally dishonest.

48:04 is typical of Carrier's MO. He starts out with a true or at least defensible statement, then jumps to an extreme conclusion way off the mark and going beyond the actual issue. So if Papias was wrong on particular book (and even that isn't clear), Carrier concludes that he had "NO idea what he was talking about", "NO reliable sources of information about the first century of Christianity", all that despite the fact that Papias actually lived in the first century of Christianity. All that doesn't follow and is extremist hogwash. Carrier uses scholarly sounding arguments to attain not knowledge but non-knowledge in order not to critique or reflect but to simply dismiss.

Great video. I wouldn't however say that the past tense in "what Peter said, or ...." denotes that the speakers were all dead (some were, but John wasn't) but rather that Papias enquired of the followers of the Elders what the Elders had said. That necessarily referred to things they said in the past, before their followers related it to Papias. But then he relates what John (Elder and disciple) and Ariston (only disciple), being alive, told him themselves.

If you are determined by God to see that the wall you are looking at is blue, or if you freely see that the wall you are looking at is blue, does either case change the fact that the wall being looked at is blue? In either case a false belief can also obtain. If you are determined by God to see water on the road which in fact is a mirage, or if you freely see water on the road which in fact is a mirage, does either case change the fact that the water on the road is a mirage? As you think about that keep these scriptures in mind... 19 Then Micaiah continued, “Listen to what the Lord says! I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the armies of heaven around him, on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who can entice Ahab to go into battle against Ramoth-gilead so he can be killed?’ “There were many suggestions, 21 and finally a spirit approached the Lord and said, ‘I can do it!’ 22 “‘How will you do this?’ the Lord asked. “And the spirit replied, ‘I will go out and inspire all of Ahab’s prophets to speak lies.’ “‘You will succeed,’ said the Lord. ‘Go ahead and do it.’ 23 “So you see, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all your prophets. For the Lord has pronounced your doom.” - 1 Kings 22:19-23 New Living Translation And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. - Ezekiel 14:9 King James Version 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. - 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 King James Version

If you are determined by God to see that the wall you are looking at is blue, or if you freely see that the wall you are looking at is blue, does either case change the fact that the wall being looked at is blue? In either case a false belief can also obtain. If you are determined by God to see water on the road which in fact is a mirage, or if you freely see water on the road which in fact is a mirage, does either case change the fact that the water on the road is a mirage? As you think about that keep these scriptures in mind... 19 Then Micaiah continued, “Listen to what the Lord says! I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the armies of heaven around him, on his right and on his left. 20 And the Lord said, ‘Who can entice Ahab to go into battle against Ramoth-gilead so he can be killed?’ “There were many suggestions, 21 and finally a spirit approached the Lord and said, ‘I can do it!’ 22 “‘How will you do this?’ the Lord asked. “And the spirit replied, ‘I will go out and inspire all of Ahab’s prophets to speak lies.’ “‘You will succeed,’ said the Lord. ‘Go ahead and do it.’ 23 “So you see, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all your prophets. For the Lord has pronounced your doom.” - 1 Kings 22:19-23 New Living Translation And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. - Ezekiel 14:9 King James Version 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. - 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 King James Version

Thank you for looking at these matters from a fair and unbiased perspective.

This was excellent!

I'm a new Christian, can I ask something ?

The middle way in my opinion is: Calvinism, Arminianism, and Provisionism are all okay and tools for our limited minds to discern on how best to comport ourselves to the Glory of God in any or every situation. The best thing we can do with concerns over these perspectives and the proponents of each, is to love and sharpen one another.

With all due respect, I still find morality to be persuasive in arguing against atheism and naturalism. If you are a naturalist, I don't understand how you can believe that there are immaterial truths that govern our universe such as love, justice, and generosity. Once you grant this premise, you've undermined the foundations of naturalism. Once you've undermined the foundations of naturalism, you have opened the door for non-scientific truths and reality. Once you've done this, then we seem to be on to a discussion of non-scientific obligations that are binding. If these truths have demands about personal relations between humans such as "love" and "generosity", it seems absurd to conclude there is no personal force behind the creation the universe. How can personal truths exist as non-personal? I realize there are steps in between, but all-in-all this seems to undercut naturalistic atheism, and if so, that seems worth arguing even if it doesn't prove the Christian faith. What am I missing?

Your video is a joke. WLC has answer all of your fallacious claims and he has debated and soundly defeated most modern prominent atheist philosopher. He made Sam Harris look like a school boy to put it mildly. You’re so incredibly weak a professional philosopher like Craig wouldn’t stoop to your level.

I hope this doesn't still reflect your views. This is really poor stuff.

Outstanding video, mate. Keep up the good work!

Presupp literally undercuts all of this because its whole point is that none of these complaints are sensible unless you believe in an undergirding substrate that justifies them. Meta-logic is what this stuff is, and its impossible without A) god B) circularity.