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[Doug's Village]

What is your evidence for the deity of Jesus? As a brief criteria: You must be able to demonstrate that Jesus Christ is God explicitly. I will not accept probability, plausibility or amorphous arguments, such as fine tuning or Prime Mover. You must be able to demonstrate, in both directions, that Jesus Christ cannot be anything less than the creator of the universe. Please demonstrate your chosen deity.

[jimwalton]

The arguments for the logic of theism and those for the deity of Christ are different discussions. The cosmological, analogical, fine-tuning, teleological, etc. etc. (there are about 10 of them) are arguments for God that are far stronger than anything any atheist has ever posited (that I have come across, in any case, but I am reading a book by Kai Nielsen at present. Didn't come to the meat yet.) I've listened to Christopher Hitchens on youtube and am quite disappointed that he doesn't seem to have anything. Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Richard Carrier—have yet to hear the substance that competes with theism.

The arguments regarding Jesus' deity are based in the arguments for theism and, of course, have roots in the reliability of the Gospel accounts, since that's the only place the story of Jesus is recorded. Assuming that we have established the reasonable possibility of theism (which we, of course, have not discussed yet) and the reliability and authority of the biblical account (ditto), the demonstration for the deity of Jesus is as follows:

1. His life follows the fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies, which is not only statistically improbable, but impossible, as so many elements were outside of his control.

2. No one less than the creator of the universe could walk on water, heal the blind with a spoken word, reproduce bread from a few loaves, or rise from the earth into heaven.

3. No one less than the creator of the universe could rise from the dead by his own indwelling power.

4. No one less than the creator of the universe has the authority or capability to forgive sins.

That should get us started.

[Doug's Village]

As for your Jesus claims:

> His life follows the fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies, which is not only statistically improbable, but impossible, as so many elements were outside of his control.

Which prophesies? How many can be verified outside the Bible? How many were recorded in advance, so that we can be certain that it is a true prophesy, and not simply a shoehorn attempt to fit prophesy?

Are you aware of any Biblical prophesy that has failed?

> No one less than the creator of the universe could walk on water, heal the blind with a spoken word, reproduce bread from a few loaves, or rise from the earth into heaven.

For the first 3, why not? I could likely perform these with sufficient nanotechnoogy, or through slight of hand.

The latter is completely ungrounded.

> No one less than the creator of the universe could rise from the dead by his own indwelling power.

Are there any secondary sources for his resurrection, or is this just another a claim in your text?

> No one less than the creator of the universe has the authority or capability to forgive sins.

Alternatively, there is no sin and nothing to be forgiven.

[jimwalton]

> How many prophecies were recorded in advance?

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmed the OT canon before the birth of Christ. That allows at least these to be confirmed.

> Are you aware of any Biblical prophesy that has failed?

The burden of proof on you for this one.

> For the first 3, why not? I could likely perform these with sufficient nanotechnoogy, or through sleight of hand

Well, my first response would be to challenge you to put your money with your mouth is. Let's see you do it. But if you think Jesus had intimate knowledge and use of nanotechnology to pull off his deceit, we have more to discuss. Sleight of hand? Jesus was quite remarkable, then, to pull of magic trick after magic trick, from city to city, sometimes all day long, with no preparation work. We have more to discuss if you actually think this makes sense to you.

> The resurrection is completely ungrounded.

The resurrection actually has reasonable evidence in its favor. We know the tomb was empty. Therefore we know the stone was rolled away. Therefore we know they looked inside. Therefore we know there was evidence to evaluate. And we know what happened as a result.

> Are there any secondary sources for his resurrection, or is this just another a claim in your text?

It is a known historical fact that the tomb was empty and that no body was ever produced. No single ancient writer, Christian or secular, refutes that fact. There is never any record to claim to the contrary.

Who do you expect to report his resurrection? The Romans who had killed him for treason, thereby admitting that their execution was ultimately ineffective, their guards had failed, and their authority was effectively undermined? They would only report it if they wanted to start an empire-wide uprising.

Would the Jewish leaders report his resurrection? Not on your life. They considered him a danger to society. To report on a resurrection would start a political uprising, and each one of them would probably have been killed.

We would expect a report from those people who could objectively evaluate the evidence and would report on it fairly, which is exactly what we have. We have four historical accounts.

> Alternatively, there is no sin and nothing to be forgiven.

Actually, there is quite a bit of evidence that none of us is perfect and we all have need to be forgiven for something