Minimal Facts Argument & Preconditions of Argumentation 

 

The Resurrection Argument That Changed a Generation of Scholars - Gary Habermas at UCSB - YouTube

Gary Habermas - Minimal Facts Argument - 2016 NCCA Part 1 - YouTube

The term ‘minimal facts’ is used to refer to the bare minimum of historical data that even atheist sceptics and scholars of antiquity in the field know such as the high degree of probability that Jesus existed and was crucified by the Romans. If you believe Historical evidence is a legitimate field of inquiry leading to varying degrees of probable knowledge, then you should agree that the evidence points to the life and crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth. Gary Habermas has extensive writings regarding the historical evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead after his crucifixion by Roman soldiers. He offers a list of these evidences in the videos above, which I will summarize here:

(Minimal Facts)

1. That Jesus died by crucifixion is possibly the most well attested fact in ancient history. He makes reference to atheist Bart Ehrman sourcing 15 evidence within the 1st 100 years after Christ died.

2. The disciples believed that they saw him post resurrection.

3. The world was literally changed by the rise of the Christian faith and its martyrs.

4. The resurrection was preached very early, almost immediately among Christians. Early creeds existed when Paul was converted.

5. James the brother of Jesus and Paul both became Christians after believing that they saw the risen Jesus. Paul mentioned the eyewitnesses that he personally knew.

6. The empty tomb. The historical account of Joseph of Arimathea. How else do you explain the empty tomb if not the bodily resurrection of Jesus?

Another leading proponent of the historical evidences of Jesus resurrection working from the minimal facts approach is William Lane Craig.

Evidence for the Resurrection (Dr. William Lane Craig) - YouTube

In the video linked above he offers objective evidences of the resurrection treating the bible as ancient Greek documents like scholars in the field would do. Here is what he offers:

1. After Jesus was crucified, he was buried by Joseph of Arimathea in his tomb, thus the location of the tomb was known and eyewitnesses were available. The burial of Christ was creedal (1 Cor.15:1-3).

2. The tomb was found empty. This was easily disputable in Jerusalem at the time for they knew where the tomb was. Joseph of Arimathea was a leader among the Jews so his burial of Jesus in his own tomb is one of the earliest and best attested facts about Christ’s death. Plus, there were no competing legends about the burial of Jesus. And the earliest accounts lack signs of embellishment, like that the women were first to the tomb when women's testimony was discounted in that era. Josephus recounts that their testimony was not to be admitted into Jewish courts of law. Also, claims of the stolen body proves that the tomb was empty and his body was missing.

3. Under multiple circumstances by various people and groups of people claim eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ. James, Jesus' brother was a skeptic during Christ’s life and likewise Paul until they had an experience that they saw Jesus, post crucifixion.

4. The disciples had post crucifixion experiences of the risen Christ, despite every disposition to the contrary. (Nobody then believed in a crucified Messiah. Nor a resurrection other than the general one at the end.) The curse of one dying on a tree appeared contrary to their Messianic doctrines. And persecution for those naming the name of Christ was a deterrent.

Given these historical facts it is concluded that the resurrection hypothesis is the most reasonable account combining these lines of evidence coherently; i.e. Jesus rose again most likely. This provides the greatest explanatory power of the historical facts surrounding the beginning of the Christian faith (Occam's razor).

This is basically what is classified as an evidential apologetic approach. This is fine if it is used in subjection to a presuppositional apologetic approach. By itself however, evidential apologetics can only provide probabilities of knowledge (or utter skepticism given the right philosopher) where presuppositionalism provides full assurance of faith and the certainty of the words of truth. The difference is in realizing that evaluating evidence of any sort presupposes or assumes a worldview or a network of necessary pre-commitments to logic and uniformity in the natural order to begin with. Further commitments would be the ability to and obligation of people to be rational, consistent, scientific and ethical. The application of laws of thought and physics to history. We must justify our epistemology, or how is knowledge possible and why should we not lie or use bad argumentation? Why should one expect that there to be rational coherence across various fields of study or disciplines? These are precommitments or pre-conditions of intelligibility. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. (Prv.1:7, 9:10, Ps.111:10) They must be assumed to evaluate and justify belief in everything else. In other words, the existence of evidence is evidence of God’s existence.

As such they must be self-verifying and self-authenticating. The bible is the philosophy of Christianity and thus proves itself to be necessary in order that thought can be possible. The bible is true by virtue of the fact that if it were not true, truth could not be possible. That is, it is the impossibility of it not being true proves it. This is called transcendental proof in philosophy. (Kant -presupposed and necessary to experience.) It is like proving the law of contradiction in logic by denying it. The denial would be true and the law false. But then this demonstrates the law, that ‘nothing can both be and not be’. It is necessarily and self-evidently true and proven to anyone by thinking. Given the nature of the Christian God, one would expect this form of transcendentally necessary, self-evident and universally accessible proof.

It isn’t the proof that fools demand, as they decry the lack of a physical, visible, repeatable proof of a god of some sort. They want to open the pantry and see the crackers. But God transcends the material universe and it depends upon him and so the evidence for him is likewise transcendental and above the universe. The universe could all change in an instant were it not the word of God’s power upholding it for his purpose. Our ability to recognize truths at all is because of universal invariant laws of thought or logic/math that depend upon the nature of that God who made us in his image with the capacity to think and exercise ourselves in laws of thought.

 

Interesting discussion here:

William Lane Craig RESPONDS to Bart Ehrman's Wild Comments on @CosmicSkeptic​ - YouTube

This is a variation on that theme:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0MrbNFMbFdA