Answer on Acts (to Dick Harfield)

Factuality of the Bible: answering Earnest Farr · Guestpost · answering Dick Harfield · Answer on Acts (to Dick Harfield)

On Quora, I posed a question, which was answered by Dick Harfield. This answer is quote on the previous post. However, here I will requote parts in answer. Why here, why not commenting on quora below his answer? Because he stopped further comments, after I had already given answers on the Pentateuch, the books of Ruth, Esther and Daniel. Separately, instead of making just one reply to the answer by Harfield. So, he stopped me, who had posed the question, to comment under his answer to it. Hence, I was unable to add the answer on Acts there, and I add it here instead.

Acts

Acts of the Apostles used to be regarded as an accurate and reliable history of the early church, At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sir William Ramsay stated:

Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.

Which would not preclude that he was a historian after the ideal of historians in his day.

New Testament scholars have reviewed the evidence and no longer hold that to be the case, generally regarding the book as propaganda rather than actual history.

For such, he cites Bart D. Ehrman and Richard Carrier, known (to others as to me) to be biassed against Christianity.
He also cites Uta Ranke-Heinemann and Thomas Kazen, whom I did not know prior to this and cannot pretend to know how they are perceived by others.

Acts contains some errors that can be demonstrated to be inaccurate.

O ... K ... this is a very far cry from non-historic, fictional.

As my claims is not just historicity, but inerrancy, I still need to adress the allegations, but not in order to defend the verdict of Sir William Ramsay.

A well known historical error has Gamaliel speak of the rebel Theudas, whom the first-century Jewish historian Josephus assigns to the time of the procurator Cuspius Fadus (44-46 CE) several years after the death of Gamaliel. Acts of the Apostles also places Theudas before Judas the Galilean, who “arose in the days of the census” which had occurred decades earlier.

A minimalist could answer, Gamaliel actually named Judas the Galilaean, but the awareness of the more recent and prominent Theudas prompted St. Luke to misquote Gamaliel. Not that exact wording of quotes was not held as a part of historical accuracy, the actual words (as long as the gist was not twisted) were fashioned by the rhetoric art of the historian to the taste or presumed such of his audience. This is why Caesar asks "you too, Brutus?" or "you too, son?" and asks it in Latin or in Greek depending on what historian reports. However, even so, it would on this minimalist view have been a blunder.

But I am not a minimalist. I consider it quite possible that one devious move against Christianity by the Jews (and completing it in Josephus' time) was historic revisionism to "prove" Christianity historically wrong.

For instance, St. Paul had spoken of Melchisedec as "a king of gentiles", some text versions may have had (I think this is how I recall it) "a gentile" even.

Subverted if Melchisedec was Shem, right? But according to the chronology for Genesis 11 that Josephus had learned as a child, close to LXX chronology, he couldn't be.

However, with the new chronology he learned as an adult, Shem could be that and Jews could claim that Melchisedec was Shem and St. Paul was wrong.

the father of Abraham, who accordingly was the tenth from Noah, and was born in the two hundred and ninety-second year after the deluge;

Josephus is giving LXX chronology in the sum. 292 years from Deluge to birth of Abraham. But look at his motivation:

for Terah begat Abram in his seventieth year. (70)
Nahor begat Haran when he was one hundred and twenty years old; (120)
Nahor was born to Serug in his hundred and thirty-second year; (132)
Ragau had Serug at one hundred and thirty; (130)
at the same age also Phaleg had Ragau; (130)
Heber begat Phaleg in his hundred and thirty-fourth year; (134)
he himself being begotten by Sala when he was a hundred and thirty years old, (130)
whom Arphaxad had for his son at the hundred and thirty-fifth year of his age. (135)
Arphaxad was the son of Shem, and born twelve years after the deluge. (12)

Now, does this actually add up to 292?

70 + 120 + 132 + 130 + 130 + 134 + 130 + 135 + 12 = 993

Now, 993 years is very different from 292 - couldn't Josephus count?

Probably forgot to check - or deliberately made a gaffe to give a hint about the earlier text tradition.

His detailed genealogy is given with the ages he recalled from childhood, when he had learned the Scriptures. His sum is the one Jews had agreed on.

So, it is possible that Josephus was also giving a wrong chronology on this issue, for similar reasons - someone (not necessarily himself, could well be a synagogue he felt he had to obey) wanted to prove St. Luke wrong. But hear me out, it is also possible that ... something else totally than fraud involving Josephus ... exonerates St. Luke from even minor error.

Internal evidence demonstrates that the author of Acts relied on Josephus’ account in Antiquities of the Jews, but misreported the chronology because of the roundabout prose in Antiquities.

St. Luke was a Greek and a physician. No one ever dreamed of disputing this claim by pretending his mastery of Greek was faulty. So, was the prose of Antiquities too roundabout even for St. Luke? Perhaps it's rather the modern commenter who bungles Josephus. Some late 20th / early 21st C. opponents of mine bungle my prose.

Acts can also be checked for accuracy by comparing its account with Paul’s epistles. Bart D. Ehrman writes, in The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings:

In virtually every instance in which the book of Acts can be compared with Paul's letters in terms of biographical detail, differences emerge.

I am given no concrete instance, but in case others would give you such, I turn with confidence to Testify for sorting that kind of "contradiction claims" out. That team may bungle ecclesiology, bungle some parts of Christian morality (notably the ban on all contraceptive practises), but they (including the youtuber behind Testify) are fairly used to dealing with the type of claim Bart Ehrman makes in better detail than I could.

https://www.youtube.com/@TestifyApologetics

Richard Carrier says, in On the Historicity of Jesus, that the author of Acts

rewrites Homer several other times.

I am breaking off the quote, because I intend to actually take each item on, to the best of my understanding of what they mean.

Paul's resurrection of the fallen Eutychus is based on the fallen Elpenor.5

Since to the best of my memory of Homer, Elpenor was not resurrected, I fail to see the connection.

A quick look at wiki tells me Elpenor just fell to his death.

Tell a mortician all about how every death attestation involving a broken neck after a fall is fake, because it plagiarises Elpenor!

The visions of Cornelius and Peter are constructed frorn a similar narrative about Agamemnon.6

A quick look at wiki tells me:

Agamemnon then received a dream from Zeus telling him to rally his forces and attack the Trojans in book 2.

Book (or Song) two:

Stanley Lombardo's preview doesn't involve book II ... Alexander Pope, then. Even the summary at the top of book II, before translated verses, would explain why this didn't come to my mind as a comparison:

Jupiter, in pursuance of the request of Thetis, sends a deceitful vision to Agamemnon, persuading him to lead the army to battle, in order to make the Greeks sensible of their want of Achilles.

Neither Peter nor Cornelius was deceived by his vision. But is there a detail that can give some kind of understanding to what Carrier is claiming?

“Canst thou, with all a monarch’s cares oppress’d,
O Atreus’ son! canst thou indulge thy rest?[78]
Ill fits a chief who mighty nations guides,
Directs in council, and in war presides,
To whom its safety a whole people owes,
To waste long nights in indolent repose.[79]
Monarch, awake! ’tis Jove’s command I bear;
Thou, and thy glory, claim his heavenly care.
In just array draw forth the embattled train,
Lead all thy Grecians to the dusty plain;
E’en now, O king! ’tis given thee to destroy
The lofty towers of wide-extended Troy.
For now no more the gods with fate contend,
At Juno’s suit the heavenly factions end.
Destruction hangs o’er yon devoted wall,
And nodding Ilion waits the impending fall.
Awake, but waking this advice approve,
And trust the vision that descends from Jove.”

I think even I have had dreams which prompted me to act quickly or to wake up. Is this claim also a plagiarism of the Iliad?

Paul's farewell at Miletus is constructed from Hector's farewell to Andromache.7

The farewell at Miletus is in Acts 20:18 - 38.
The farewell of Hector is in Book VI.

The common theme is, "I will die, take care when I'm gone" so, I suppose no soldier who went to war ever and first took farewell of a loved one or a group of loved friends was ever real, since all of them are plagiarising Homer, according to Carrier.

Are there commonalities beyond the theme? I couldn't actually look that far, right now. Possible. And if St. Luke actually did make St. Paul's words a bit closer to Hector's than they actually were, see above, about "tu quoque fili?" vs "kai su Broute?" - historiography regarded speeches as a somewhat freely decorable art.

The lottery of Matthias is constructed from the lottery of Ajax.8

The lottery of Matthias goes back to the Urim and Thummim that God provided Aaron with, back in the Bronze Age.

And the lottery of Ajax is also took place (at least according to Homer, but why doubt it?) in the ... tada! ... Bronze Age.

A story of a lottery being a plagiarism of a story about a lottery when there is a Bronze Age connection to both, that's like a story of a phone call is a plagiarism of a story of a phone call. Carrier carries a certain lack of common sense with panache.

Peter's escape from prison is constructed from Priam's escape from Achilles. 9 And so on.

Priam excaped from Achilles by pleading. Peter doesn't.

Uta Ranke-Heinemann, in Putting Away Childish Things, also finds parallels to Greek mythology:

In the third of the legendary accounts in Acts, Jesus is supposed to have remarked to Paul as he lay on the ground, “It hurts you to kick against the goad” (25:14).

This is a quotation from the Bacchae by Euripides (d. 406 BCE). The only peculiar thing is that Jesus should quote a Greek proverb to Paul while speaking Aramaic ("in the Hebrew language").

St. Luke was arguably familiar with Bacchae.

The Aramaic proverb Our Lord actually used being exchanged (if so) for a Greek proverb is not even a problem for inerrancy, as long as they both mean the same thing. Then, there is a question whether it was really back then a proverb, or if it was back then just a quote.

However, let's see a bit more of lady Uta's astonishment.

The really strange thing is that with both Jesus and Euripides we have the same “familiar quotation” and the same situation. In both cases we have a conversation between a persecuted god and his persecutor. In The Bacchae the persecuted god is Dionysus and his persecutor is Pentheus, king of Thebes. Just like Jesus, Dionysus calls his persecutor to account, “You disregard my words of warning . . . and kick against necessity [literally 'against the goads'] a man defying god.” Jesus even uses the same plural form of the noun (kentra) that Euripides needs for the metre of his line.

The plural form kentra can obviously be put down to St. Luke being familiar with Bacchae.

But the closer parallel can also have been willed by God, as a further proof, that unlike other deities in Greek tragedies, Dionysus does not represent demonic activity.

Moses was demonised by Egyptians, they had to cease that and divinised him, then removed the story to another country, where Pentheus replaces Pharao.

Let's now take farewell (somewhat less drastically than Hector and St. Paul), from Uta.

Thomas Kazen says, in ‘The Christology of Early Christian Practice’, originally published in Journal of Biblical Literature, 2008:

When dealing with Luke’s descriptions of practice in the early Jesus movement in the first chapters of Acts, we find ourselves both earlier and later in time than with Paul. Earlier, because the narrative concerns the earliest post-Easter followers of Jesus in Jerusalem; later, because the narrative is shaped [written] toward the end of the first century.

St. Luke was obviously able to access narratives from early post-Ascension events from sources that had given him Gospel events.

While it would be naïve to take Acts as a historical report of early Christ-believers in Jerusalem, it would be equally simplistic to read Luke’s narratives as representing general Christian practice and belief in his own time and environment.

Yeah, right ... taking a thing at face value is not the default, to be argued against in case one disagrees, but "naïve" - Candace Owens had a remark about people with PhD's "believing their own magic" ...

Rather, we should regard these descriptions as revealing what some late-first-century Christians, such as the author of Acts, thought about practice and belief in the earliest Jerusalem community of Christ-believers during the thirties.

Thomas Kazen does not try to argue why St. Luke is supposed to write this "late first century" - except that he thinks his own guess of what went on in the thirties is better than St. Luke's account, which must therefore also be a guess, and obviously, as St. Luke didn't have his degrees, a worse one!

When I taunt people like Dick Harfield with having "Science" as their religion, I mean, among other things, that as I treat Catholicism and the Bible as a whole, where I can't cherrypick away things I doubt, Dick Harfield (and similar minded men) are treating "Science" - hence they will put Thomas Kazen's pretty obvious guesswork and Richard Carrier's obvious nonsense on par with the Periodic Table of Mendeleyev.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Vigil of St. Andrew
29.XI.2022

Vigilia sancti Andreae Apostoli.

Marshall Adresses an Important Misunderstanding

C. S. Lewis and lots of others have argued, the fact of objective morality requires that there is a God - more specifically an eternal mind that is eternally moral before the finite minds are intermittently moral.

However, in debates, it so often happens "I don't need a God to tell me what's moral".

Here is the argument as repeated by Wallace Marshall, PhD.:

• If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
• Objective moral values and duties exist.
• Therefore, God exists.

And here is the self same adressing the misunderstanding and related ones:

To head off some common misunderstandings, note that the argument doesn’t claim that God needs to inform us, say in a revelation of some kind, about what’s right and wrong. Nor is it claiming that people need to believe in God in order to behave ethically. Rather, it’s about moral ontology: what morality is, and what seems necessary to ground it. Finally, note that each of the premises finds support among atheists.

The Carrier-Marshall Debate: Marshall’s Ninth Response
by Richard Carrier on July 4, 2019
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/15591

Note, we can here adress a misunderstanding from the opposite side too : some Puritans think, we most certainly do need God to reveal what is right and what is wrong, because we are so totally corrupt after Adam's sin in our nature that we have nothing to trust at all in our own moral experience.

This is however against the Bible:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. Romans 1:18, 19

If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask him? Matthew 7:11 (closely paralleled by Luke 11:13)

In other words, people not justified are inexcusable for evil acts (in Romans 1 primarily idolatry) because they know of themselves what is right, and they are able to give good gifts to their children, even if they are evil, that is not justified. So, while they have a somewhat darkened moral sense, which needs correction from revelation, they do have a moral sense. Objective moral values and duties are accessible even to the non-Christians and even to those who having the faith are not justified.

Hence, this line of apologetics is perfectly licit.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Fontenay les Roses
St. Anthony Maria Zaccaria
5.VII.2019

Carrier on a Moral World

The Real Basis of a Moral World
by Richard Carrier on November 12, 2018
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14879

If you frame the question as “Which worldview will better get people to behave,” of course, one might then say it doesn’t even matter if the worldview is true. This was Plato’s idea, spelled out and argued in his treatise on The Republic: sell the public on a false worldview that will get them to behave. The perfect enactment of the entire blueprint he then laid out for how to do this was the Vatican. And for thousands of years now, we’ve all seen how that worked out.

You mean you are buying the Protestant Historiography on Catholicism?

Do take a double check with Tim O'Neill, will you!

He's one peculiar Atheist who is not sharing the Anti-Catholic accusations as sacred narrative with Protestants.

History for Atheists
New Atheists Getting History Wrong
https://historyforatheists.com/

In reality—as in, out here, where real things happen and don’t conform to our fantasies of how we wish or just “in our hearts” know things will happen—Plato’s project is self-defeating. It leads to misery and tyranny. You cannot compel people to believe false things; and you can’t trick them into doing it, without eventually resorting to compelling them to do it. Because you must suppress—which means, terrorize or kill—anyone who starts noticing what’s up. Which eventually becomes nearly everyone. The resulting system is a nightmare, one that will totally fail to “get people to behave.” Because it inevitably compels all in power…to stop behaving. Simply to try and force everyone else to behave.

Well, that is not what happened with Catholicism.

However, that is what risks happening if some guys figure out they can't sell Atheism, to the masses, but still want a narrative to back up their Atheist morality.

That’s the Catch-22 that guarantees any such plan will always fail. The last thing it will ever accomplish is getting everyone to behave. Or producing any society conducive to human satisfaction and fulfillment, either, which is the only end that “getting people to behave” served any purpose for in the first place.

Well, on a strictly atheist view, who decides that is a desirable end for everyone?

But Commies at least pretended this was what they wanted, also as Atheists.

Worse, any system of false beliefs is doomed also to have many side effects that are damaging or even ruinous of human satisfaction, bringing about unexamined or unexpected harms and failures. Because it is impossible to design any epistemology that only conveniently ever discovers harmless or helpful false beliefs. Which means, while you are deploying the epistemology you need to get people to believe what you suppose to be harmless or helpful false beliefs, you and they will also be accumulating with that same epistemology many other false beliefs, which won’t just conveniently be harmless or helpful. “Ideological pollution,” as it were. You need a cleaner source of ideas. Otherwise you just make things worse and worse. Whereas any epistemology that will protect you from harmful false beliefs, will inevitably expose even the helpful and harmless ones as false (a fact I more thoroughly explore in What’s the Harm).

Indeed, my observation about Communism, Liberalism (Classic European sense in which Cavour was a Liberal), Kantian Conservatism of Prussian type, and the Epistemologies of Kant, Popper, Galileo (before he repented), Newton, Laplace and Herschel, Lyell, Darwin et al.

And all that is on top of an even more fundamental problem: what do you even mean by “getting people to behave” in the first place? Deciding what behaviors are actually better for human happiness, rather than ruinous of it, is a doomed project if you don’t do it based on evidence and reason. Because otherwise, you won’t end up with the best behavioral program, but one that sucks to some degree. Because you won’t be choosing based on what truly does conduce to that end, but based on some other, uninformed misconception of it. Which won’t by random chance just happen to be right. You will thus be defending a bad system.

Well, but you see, evidence of modern scientific type cannot decide what is good or bad per se.

It can decide what factors are better or worse for goal such and such, but on a "scientific method" epistemology, that can't settle how we prioritise goals.

But here’s a Catch-22 again: any process you engage that will reliably discover the behavioral system that actually does maximize everyone’s personal fulfillment and satisfaction with life, will get that same result for anyone else. You thus no longer need any false belief system. You can just promote the true one. And give everyone the skills needed to verify for themselves that it’s true. No oppression. No bad epistemologies. No damaging side effects.

Catch (for the application Carrier has in mind): reliably. Science belief is not reliable even in credenda, let alone in agenda.

Thus, the answer to “which worldview is best?” is always “the one that’s true.” So you can’t bypass the question of which worldview is true, with a misplaced hope in thinking you can find and promote a better worldview that’s false. The latter can never actually be better in practice. In the real world, it will always make things worse.

Yes, if you insist on the priority that a worldview shall promote the good - of everyone.

Which, of course, an Atheist need not as per his credenda. Atheists who do priorise like that have a hangover from Christianity.

But, your credibility as historian sinks from that glib reference to the Vatican.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Didacus OFM
13.XI.2018

Sancti Didaci, ex Ordine Minorum, Confessoris; cujus dies natalis recolitur pridie hujus diei.

Is God THE Necessary Being? Part III

Is God THE Necessary Being?
Part I · Part II · Part III

We can compare ...

We can compare the whole endeavour to the easier exercise of proving what is indeed in some sense true, that there is a unique thing, immutable, timeless, simple, immune to evil and necessarily existing, between zero and two.

TLS : Enlightened thinking?
SIMON BLACKBURN | September 5, 2018
https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/enlightened-thinking-atheism-god/

This is probably what Feser meant here:

Blackburn’s playful comparison of a divine first cause to a number ignores the rather crucial difference that numbers are (notoriously) causally inert. This is a little like saying that a living man is like a dead man, except for being living.

This misses a point about FIRST mover, FIRST cause, FIRST necessary being.

It seems, Blackburn has even (at least verbally) admitted their existence.* He has just refused to identify them with the Christian God:

Light a candle and kneel in silent contemplation by all means – it is after all good, in the sense that there is nothing deficient about it (you cannot imagine a better number one). But then adding that this number is something you might one day see face to face, or something that sends messengers to earth occasionally, or has a chosen people, or something that prefers humanity to the ebola virus, or that underwrites the kinds of edicts that Feser’s Church typically makes, commanding that we ban assisted suicide and birth control, and avoid gay sex, strongly suggests exactly the confusions besetting Hobbes’s rustic.

Now, perhaps it is not only in causation, but also in explanation or proof or definition that Feser misses a point about "first".

Certainly there is no coherent way to draw it, as many atheists attempt to do, at the fundamental laws of nature. Higher-level laws are explained by lower-level laws in something like the way the book on the top of a stack is held up by the ones below it. Take away the floor, and there is nothing that gives the bottom book any power to hold up the top book. Similarly, make the fundamental laws into unintelligible brute facts, and they have no intelligibility to pass upward to higher-level laws – which in turn will have no intelligibility to pass along to the phenomena they are supposed to be explaining. The world’s being just a little bit unintelligible is like its being just a little bit pregnant. Or it is like having a cancer that metastasizes unto the remotest extremity.

False. All explanation involves some level of precisely brute fact, intelligible as to what, but not as to why, which confers an added intelligibility on what is explained, so that it is intelligible both as to what and also as to at least one why.

If you pretend that even the first fundamental law needs to in its turn be explained by an even more fundamental one - you have given up the Thomistic sense of "first".

Indeed, many Neo-Thomists have come to do so. I claim, as a Geocentric, God is moving the aether, which is moving the Sun, the Moon and the Planets and Stars Westward at an angular speed of 360 ° every stellar day, every 23^h 56^m 4.098 903 691^s and that an Angel is moving Eastward any heavenly body that takes longer than that time, notably the Sun which takes a full 24^h for 360° AND that this is what the Prima Via, First Mover, is most basically about. Answers a Neo-Thomist "no, God moves through secondary causes".

Well, the aether moving westward at 360° every 23^h 56^m 4.098 903 691^s IS a secondary cause and one directly moved by the First cause. But the Neo-Thomist would require that secondary cause to also be moved by a secondary cause, not directly by God, and then, from physics giving famously the rules for secondary causes, he would scrap Geocentrism, as there is probably no secondary cause able to move the aether of all the universe around earth 360° westward every 23^h 56^m 4.098 903 691^s. When Sungenis suggests that inertia and conservation of momentum would apply as such a secondary cause, he is in fact scrapping the Thomistic sense of First mover (in contemporary causation) and reducing God to a Newtonian style earliest mover (in temporal succession of causes).

The problem with this is, if EVERY secondary cause according to the dictum "God moves through secondary causes" needed to be caused by another precisely secondary cause, then that would constitute a glaring denial of St Thomas' need for secondary causes to depend on a first cause.

Now, Carrier has a better grasp on this, at least in the domain of explanation:

Carrier

But it’s possible for things to exist that no language can describe, so merely being meaningless is not a sufficient conclusion.

[on why contradictum in adiecto cannot exist]

Simon

Has the idea [entities can exist that are linguistically indescribable] been logically demonstrated?

Carrier

Describe the color green.

(Not what things are green. Or what causes us to experience the color green. But what being green consists of. Describe the thing itself, without referencing any green thing or any causes of it.)

In other words, in the domain of explanation, Carrier knows that there is a FIRST, sth which can explain or enter into explanations, but which itself cannot be explained or defined.

While green can in given instances be causally explained, it cannot be explained further in the direction of definition, at least according to Carrier.

A painter might counter "it's a colour, it's a cold colour and it's a passive colour".

Warm : Red and Yellow, Cold : Green and Blue.
Active : Red and Blue, Passive : Yellow and Green.

And here you must admit, there is a level on which we see that this is fitting as a description of these colours, but we cannot explain this to a colour blind person. And we cannot either even by this description make someone imagine correctly "green", it only works as identifying its relation to other colours.

So, yes, in description there is a first. There is a fact which is brute fact with which other things are described.

Therefore, there is also (contra Feser) a fact which is brute fact, with which other things are explained causally.

Now, the thing is, with only the first three ways and with no Geocentrism allowed "any more" in the first way, we cannot prove that the "ultimate first" is personal. First mover? Could be energy. First necessary existent? Could be matter. First cause? Could be the couple matter/energy.

Other version, since according to Einstein matter is a form of energy, energy in the physical sense could be all that were needed. Especially if we skip all the questiones after Q 2 A 3.

Now, look at Fourth and Fifth ways.

The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are some more and some less good, true, noble and the like. But "more" and "less" are predicated of different things, according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest; so that there is something which is truest, something best, something noblest and, consequently, something which is uttermost being; for those things that are greatest in truth are greatest in being, as it is written in Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus; as fire, which is the maximum heat, is the cause of all hot things. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that not fortuitously, but designedly, do they achieve their end. Now whatever lacks intelligence cannot move towards an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the arrow is shot to its mark by the archer. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Persons are nobler than stones and more existent than stones, therefore the noblest thing in this gradation also needs to be personal.

The extra criterium of that ultra thing which confers the quality on things having it in lesser degree could even be brushed off as Platonic pseudo-science.

Except for ... presuppositional, see previous part.

And governance, fifth way. With no centre of the Universe and no extraordinary complexity of movements around it (like in denying Geocentrism), and with all local centres being so by simple gravity and with Eco-Systems actually being by-products of Evolution, no Fifth way either. Not for a personal God.

Therefore, the need for Geocentrism and Creationism. These are however available.

Now, the fact is, Heliocentrism is built on a kind of radical scepticism which St Thomas Aquinas was NOT counting.

I'll have to deal with it, so I reformulate.

You can accept Empirical evidence as it is, and you can from there conclude God exists.

Or, you can accept Atheism as a postulate for explanations, and you can from there build an anti-Empiric science, like Heliocentrism.

So, if we accept Empirical evidence, Sun and Moon and Venus and Jupiter are each day turning around Earth and if we abstract from that, Venus and Jupiter are doing such marvellous dances that they need a choreographer, apart from the question how a biggy like Sol would dance around our small Earth without one ... and that argues the choreographer is also first mover - His moving things is the prime law of any movement - and the necessary being - how could He be First mover all over the cosmos without also being that?

Either, the necessary being is God, or, empiry is wildly misleading. Which, in a way parallel to presuppositional apologetics, argues that you can know nothing much if there is no God.

Hans Georg Lundahl
ut in priori et secunda parte

* Probably the wording "between zero and two" means he is accepting the "number line" ideology of arithmetic. That would mean, "one" is to him not the first principle of number. This would then constitute a disagreement with St Thomas even on the Five Ways.

Is God THE Necessary Being? Part II

Is God THE Necessary Being?
Part I · Part II · Part III

If I have been lazy, my excuse is Carrier has been even lazier in relation to me. I was just reminded of my negligence a few moments ago (or ok, a quarter of on hour or half hour or whatever).

Since Feser just replied to another Humean, Blackford, on the Five Proofs, I'll link to Feser's reply:

Edward Feser : Reply to Blackburn on Five Proofs
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2018/09/reply-to-blackburn-on-five-proofs.html

I actually intended to take my Presuppositional observation in part III and something else (upcoming in part III now) in part II.

However, one quote from Feser will quickly bring me to C. S. Lewis' Miracles, and its version of Presuppositional Apologetics.

The broadly Humean epistemology he deploys against the Scholastic theism I defend in Five Proofs of the Existence of God requires a careful balancing act. On the one hand, Blackburn must limit the powers of human reason sufficiently to prevent them from being able to penetrate, in any substantive way, into the ultimate “springs and principles” of nature. For that is the only way to block ascent to a divine first cause – the existence and nature of which, the Scholastic says, follows precisely from an analysis of what it would be to be an ultimate explanation.

Now, this reminds me of precisely a weakness in 8 Propositions. By the way, they seem to be now extended to 9 and 10, unless I simply missed the last ones previously.

These are propositions about a non-universe, a nothing in the sense of an absence of anything except what is necessary.

Now, in a comment under that article Carrier stated:

Logical contradictions reference nothing, and thus have no actual meaning in any language (each part of a contradiction has meaning; but their conjunction is meaningless). But it’s possible for things to exist that no language can describe, so merely being meaningless is not a sufficient conclusion. It’s enough for most things, since usually all we need know is what a sentence references, and when the answer is “nothing,” we can move on. But there is a deeper question as to why contradictory states of affairs can’t materialize. It’s not enough to say language couldn’t describe it. As arguing from that would be a non sequitur.

This is a question in the ontology of logic: what exactly is it, that makes logical laws describe all actual things too, not just languages. Why, in other words, does the universe obey the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC). It’s easy to show why language always must. But that by itself doesn’t explain why not just language, but even universes, must obey.

I do answer this in SAG but I get more specific and detailed in my response to Reppert (also linked in the article above), under the heading Ontology of Logic. The short of it is this: the only state of being that would be correctly described as not obeying the LNC, is a state of being that contained no distinctions; but distinctions are always possible; even the attempt to assert they are impossible asserts they exist and thus are possible. For there to be something that existed that prevented distinctions from existing, entails distinctions exist: a distinction between the presence and the absence of that something; and if there is nothing preventing distinctions from existing, distinctions always exist: e.g. a distinction exists between distinctions being possible and distinctions being impossible.

Is this a logical or a physical fact?

The LNC is thus just a restatement of a physical fact: distinctions exist. Which is always true, because the moment any state of being obtains, it comes with distinctions.

OK, with things existing, there are distinctions. So, it is a physical fact.

I'll go down this alley, Carrier.

If it is a physical fact, it does not apply to your propositions about "nothing". Also, if it is about "distinctions", it cannot apply to a nothing which lacks distinctions.

So, the only way in which you can reason at all about the logical consequences of nothing and count on your "language logic" to apply to "the logic of things" is, if you have an access to a logic which rules the logic of all and any things under any circumstances whatsoever - but in order for this to be so, this logic needs to be a mind, ruling physical things and distinctions like your mind rules your body. Or sth like that.

If your mind only had access to the logic that physically shaped you, you would be able to reason about your surroundings, not about this kind of ultimate problem.

This is even more clear, if the words about LNC and distinctions are supposed to be a logical fact, while this would allow it to apply to "nothing" (except what is logically necessary) it is only possible if there is a logic above physics.

That is why Sherlock Holmes refuses to philosophise. He is basically an atheist, but a weak atheist : he knows that if [evolutionary] atheism is true, then its truth is a matter beyond what his mind was evolved to know.

If your position is the truth, it is a truth which can never be known. The fact that you treat it as sth which can be known shows you are wrong.

So, for logic to apply without exceptions, even to "nothing", it is necessary that God is. This makes God a known, not just candidate, but actual claimant to the title "nothing except what is logically necessary". So much for your "as far as we know".

I'll be saying a thing or two on Feser next time, in part III.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Matthew Apostle
21.IX.2018

Is God THE Necessary Being - part 1

Is God THE Necessary Being?
Part I · Part II · Part III

Between Thomists and Carrier, no one is pretending that God is "a" necessary being, among several.

The claim of St Thomas Aquinas is fairly clear : God is THE necessary being, all being outside God being contingent.

The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to corrupt, and consequently, they are possible to be and not to be.

Dr. Who and any rabbit howsoever magical would fit in this category, Mr. Carrier (referring to our debate).

But it is impossible for these always to exist, for that which is possible not to be at some time is not.

Note, it would seem that he is only saying it is impossible for each to always exist, and obviously we are here dealing with "given infinite time" - since with time having a beginning, God starting it is easy to prove.

Actually, for each, given less than actually infinite time (if any needed infinite time back to have a beginning or infinite time forward to have an end, it would NOT have a beginning or an end and therefore be a necessary being).

Therefore, if everything is possible not to be, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence.

At first glance, he would seem to be overreaching. When a body falls apart by corruption and dissolution in water, its constituent parts become parts of other bodies, right, Demokritos?

Well, the solution that there are always particles and that no visible body begins or ceases except by taking particles from or giving particles to other bodies ... is not a refutation, but is a pretense that "atoms" as Demokritos would have it (we use the name somewhat differently) are the necessary being. Along with space coordinates for the non-being surrounding each on each side, of course.

What St Thomas is envisaging is of course nothing to do with atoms so far, since he is speaking from empirical evidence, and atoms would be one theoretical solution. He is so far not concerned with what theoretical solution, he is concerned with establishing the concept of necessary being.

Now if this were true, even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist only begins to exist by something already existing.

Famously, Mr. Carrier has actually tried to refute by the 8 propositions.

Here is his proposition number 2:

Proposition 2: The most nothingly state of nothing that can ever obtain, is a state of affairs of zero size lacking all properties and contents, except that which is logically necessary.

My emphasis. Now, the problem is, "excapt that which is logically necessary" sounds suspiciously like the term St Thomas is establishing : the necessary being.

Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus even now nothing would be in existence — which is absurd.

Will Mr. Carrier say "we only have Thomas Aquinas' word for it being absurd"?

I think he has dealt so with fairly self evident things in relation to Feser ...

No, seriously, I think that Mr. Carrier will admit that things actually exist.

Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary.

Will Demokritan atoms do?

But every necessary thing either has its necessity caused by another, or not.

What if Demokritan atoms have their necessity caused by some other being?

If they were the really necessary being, how is spacetime derived from them?

If they are a necessary being, along with spacetime, how is the relation arranged?

If they are arranged in spacetime, because spacetime is more necessary than they, how can spacetime actually cause particles?

Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes.

Recapitulation of this point in prima and secunda via:

Therefore, whatever is in motion must be put in motion by another. If that by which it is put in motion be itself put in motion, then this also must needs be put in motion by another, and that by another again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

Everyone except Mr. Carrier and his fellow materialists, I presume ... these preferring forces acting on particles in spacetime ...

Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate cause. But if in efficient causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

Except Mr. Carrier, I presume, who think it is sth like matter or energy, I presume. With his fellow materialists, of course.

Therefore we cannot but postulate the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.

And since Mr. Carrier's fellow materialists, the ancient Epicureans, were out of fashion several centuries before St Thomas, he is using the phrase "all men" ... meaning all men except the materialists he was not thinking of, since they did not socially exist.

Now, could Carrier be right that the necessary being is particles acted on by forces, these residing in the particles and all residing in spacetime?

I have already given a hint on why this is actually not very likely: if the Demokritan atoms were the really necessary being, how is spacetime derived from them?

If they are a necessary being, along with spacetime, how is the relation arranged?

If they are arranged in spacetime, because spacetime is more necessary than they, how can spacetime actually cause particles?

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XVIth Lord's Day after Pentecost
9.IX.2018

A Fault in Carrier's Logic Perception

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Richard Carrier · Carrier carries on the obtusity on a key point ... · somewhere else : Two Observations, Carrier! What if logically necessary means God? · Various Responses to Carrier · A Fault in Carrier's Logic Perception

As you may have perhaps gathered from previous two posts on this blog, I think the 8 propositions do not conclude, as Carrier thinks, in "nothing would give rise to anything, including everything we know, even without God", but in "nothing would give rise to anything, including everything we know, even without God unless God is the necessary being".

He thinks that even though he has all along admitted that whatever it is necessary to exist must exist, both because it must and for this to result, this still excludes God ... from being that necessary being.

Now, I was a bit sloppy in responding a few days ago, and missed a nuance or two in one of his responses.

Here it is:

Wow. I can't believe you are this dense. "Gravity explains the motion of the planets." "Maybe it doesn't, because angels do it. It's possible! Therefore you cannot conclude gravity causes it." "We have logically demonstrated that 1+1=2." "Maybe some hypothetical future logical demonstration will prove 1+1 doesn't = 2. It's possible! Therefore you cannot conclude it has been logically demonstrated or even that it's true that 1+1=2!" "Fermat's Last Theorem has been formally proven." "Maybe there is an error in the proof, some logically necessary fact we don't yet know about that entails the theorem is false. It's possible! Therefore Fermat's Last Theorem has not been formally proven and we shouldn't believe it's true." And on and on. This is how you are arguing. It's the stupidest argument on the planet. Because it entails you should deny all knowledge, because "maybe" some unknown fact refutes it. It displays total ignorance of how logic works, how probability works, how knowledge works, and how sanity works.

As with God being the necessary being, so also angels moving planets is one of the historically available options on the palette.

As long as you don't exclude it, positively, like by saying explicitly "angels don't exist" (which atheists can and Christians can't) you cannot exclude that gravity is a non-explanation OR incomplete explanation of planetary movements.

Obviously, this is sth quite other than appealing to a very tenuous potentiality of a future demonstration 1+1 NOT = 2 or Fermats Last Theorem to be disproven.

As to Fermat's Last Theorem, I am for the moment agnostic, but may be more positive once I have reviewed the apt video on Numberphile or some other math channel on youtube.

But as to 1+1=2, it is the very definition of 2. Precisely as 1+2 is the very definition of 3. And so on.

You cannot disprove a basic definition.

You also cannot disprove a conclusion which follows syllogistically from such, like 2 + 2 = 4.

2 = 1 + 1 (definition)
Therefore + 2 = + 1 + 1 (transitivity of + function)
Therefore 2 + 2 = 2 + 1 + 1
But 2 + 1 = 3 (definition)
Therefore 2 + 1 + 1 = 3 + 1
Therefore 2 + 2 = 3 + 1
But 3 + 1 = 4 (definition)
Therefore 2 + 2 = 4. QED

Here each step has been explicitly argued. I have not counted on omitting sth which could be there.

I have not said "we have 2 + 2" (before my eyes) when I could be wrong and there could be 2 or 4 more hidden (under a table or behind my back). I have not counted on omitting any proposed solutions to a problem.

But if you argue that gravity and inertia explain (exclusive of alternative or complementing explanations) planetary motions from the masses of themselves and of the star they orbit and from initial conditions, and from that, that geocentrism must be wrong, you have omitted that angels could explain planetary and solar motions around the Zodiac (itself in daily motion around earth, a motion explainable by God), and you have omitted that they could explain part of the motions (like a bikers nudges explains part of the bike's motions, while inertia and gravity explain and weight of biker and surface under bike explain a lot of them). Such an omission means you have not demonstrated what you claim to have demonstrated, that "gravitation [and inertia] adequately and correctly explains planetary motions, which means we have to ditch geocentrism, despite its being prima facie empiric".

The best you have is, "if we ditch geocentrism, we can explain daily and periodical motions without God or angels", to which I counter, "if we accept God and angels, we can accept geocentrism, which is good since it is prima facie empiric".

And if you omit to show that God is not involved as the necessary being in your premises, you have also not shown that nothing would give rise to anything without God, you have only shown that nothing would give rise to anything under the circumstances of being only relatively nothing and involving existence of logically necessary existance. Which, as long as you have not excluded that, could be God.

If you like, it could be Dr. Who, as long as you have not excluded that. So, let's exclude Dr. Who from being so.

Dr. Who according to the televised series is actually suffering a few death threats (I have gathered). But the necessary being as such cannot cease to exist nor start to exist. Therefore, Dr. Who cannot be the necessary being as such. If you were claiming he could be an incarnation of the necessary being, I think you know there is a better candidate for that. You have spent books on arguing against that, right?

Done. Dr. Who is not the necessary being.

YOUR TURN, for excluding God, if you can!

Hans Georg Lundahl
Torcy
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin
8.IX.2018

Various Responses to Carrier

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Richard Carrier · Carrier carries on the obtusity on a key point ... · somewhere else : Two Observations, Carrier! What if logically necessary means God? · Various Responses to Carrier · A Fault in Carrier's Logic Perception

1) An excuse.

In my correspondence with you, I missed that you had given a response to me in a comment.

When mirroring this correspondence, on my correspondence blog, I saw it. I caught up.

2) On presuppositionalism.

"But the bulk of this Christian’s argument is presuppositionalism"

Wrong, the bulk of my previous post here is a theistic interpretation of the 8 propositions. However, I did mention presuppositionalism, since I thought it worthwhile to get a red herring out of the way.

Me: “whenever we deal with logical reasoning, we presuppose (hence the name) that there is such a thing as objective logic and that it is accessible to us.”

Carrier: "I didn’t just assert Premise 1, I gave arguments for Premise 1, and linked to even further arguments directly discussing the ontology of logic and why logically impossible things can never exist."

Premise 1 = Proposition 1.

And you actually did it by ... reasoning. Why is this significant? By dancing, you presuppose that dancing is meaningful, by reasoning you presuppose reasoning is so (on whatever level you are reasoning, and you were not limiting yourself to a detective story about agencies similar to yourself, as Sherlock Holmes usually is). You can reason that dancing is meaningful without presupposing it, since you can reason without dancing. But you cannot reason to reasoning being meaningful without presupposing it, since you cannot reason without reasoning. So, you were reasoning ... about ultimate reality.

Thereby showing you already presupposed reasoning a valid approach about the reality not just before your eyes but any number of lightyears away, any number of millions of years ago, and as for sth I actually think will exist, any number of billions of years hence. This is a fairly staggering claim if your reasoning is just a byproduct of chemical processess in your brain.

I most definitely agree that logically impossible things can't exist. One of them being a reasoner which is a by-product of matter doing purely material processes. These following laws which are not the laws of logic.

But you don't agree this is logically impossible, so, I am asking how you can possibly make such vast claims for reason. Not meaning you shouldn't - but meaning how you account for them.

My point is not that Proposition 1 is in any way shape or form wrong, indeed, the bulk of my reply means the very opposite.

My point is, its being true and accessible as certain truth to us presupposes certain things. You could of course say you had been careful to talk only of logical contradictions not occurring, not of our knowing anything about them, but the rest means you are trying to validly deduce sth from it, which involves a claim of knowing sth about them, which involves a claim of being a mind (only minds can know anything, and no, AI machines do not know, speaking of computers "knowing" is a pathetic fallacy, a description of how their behaviour seems - to a mind that knows) - and involves a claim of knowing about both mind and matter that logical necessity cannot fail and logical contradiction cannot prevail.

This was however not my main point, I'll actually get back to this at last.

3) On Boltzmann Gods

What you pretend to respond to is:

Supposing there had been a nothing and any universe could pop out of it, how do you exclude a universe popping out of it by first a god doing so and than that god creating?

What you actually respond involves an affirmative response to universes like ours is on the atheistic view producing sth like gods.

"But inevitably. And in fact, it would happen again and again, forever. So when all is said and done, there will be infinitely many more Boltzmann brains created in this universe than evolved brains like ours. The downside, of course, is that by far nearly all these brains will immediately die in the icy vacuum of space (don’t worry, by far most of these won’t survive long enough to experience even one moment of consciousness). And they would almost never have any company.

Which is how we know we aren’t Boltzmann brains"

[and]

"What is a Boltzmann god? Think of a mind that is as near to perfection and power as could ever be physically made, a supermind, with a superbody, maybe even a body spanning and permeating a whole vast region of spacetime. The improbability of this is staggering. But remember, everything with a nonzero probability is going to happen, eventually. In fact, it’s going to happen infinitely many times."

From The God Impossible
by Richard Carrier on March 8, 2012
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/510

That was not the proposition. The proposition was rather, what if the singularity producing OUR universe was - a god. In other words, how do you exclude propositions like Enuma Elish or even better Theogony?

Also, if you are logical about "infinite time" you will need to accept the Boltzmann God already was produced in some universe - so, how can you exclude such a Bolzmann God from having produced ours?

Note, that would very much NOT be the Christian proposal. You very rightly distinguish this from a monotheism which posits one single God as the source not just of our universe, but of any possible one.

4) On the main issue.

It is a contradiction for that which cannot not exist to not exist. This is true whatever this logically necessary entity is. And it is also true whether we have identified it rightly, or wrongly, or not at all.

If the necessary being is space-time and particles, then it is a contradiction for space-time and particles not to exist, whether it be thought the necessary existence is space-time and particles, or the monotheistic God or the matter not be decided.

If the necessary being is the monotheistic God, then it is a contradiction for the monotheistic God not to exist, whether it be thought the necessary existence is the monotheistic God, or space-time and matter or the matter not be decided.

You have given an excellent argument on why there is such a thing as a necessary being. Suppose all beings were non-necessary.

"But remember, everything with a nonzero probability is going to happen, eventually."

Then sooner or later all beings would not exist. And with an infinity of time past, it would already have happened.

But if at a point nothing existed - nothing could come from it.

This is of course what you contest with your 8 propositions, but then you are not really granting "nothing existed" as part of the scenario. You are only granting "nothing except what is logically necessary existed". And that would imply the existence of a logically necessary existence.

Now, I was, and I am, giving "the monotheistic God" as at least one of the alternatives for "necessary existence". I am then inserting that into the 8 propositions and showing how very Theistic they become with that insertion.

Now, I was not setting out to prove that the monotheistic God is that necessary existence. I was merely showing that if He was, the consequences of all your 8 propositions are perfectly orthodox. And also challenging you to - if you could - deny that identification.

Now, if you were only Agnostic, the burden of proof would be on me, but as you are a strong Atheist, we have about an equal one.

And I thought, as you actually seemed unconscious of how Theistic your 8 propositions are with such an identification of necessary existence, maybe you should tell us you were conscious of it and show why they could not possibly tolerate such a Theistic interpretation.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Moses
4.IX.2018

Two Observations, Carrier! What if logically necessary means God?

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : With Richard Carrier · Carrier carries on the obtusity on a key point ... · somewhere else : Two Observations, Carrier! What if logically necessary means God? · Various Responses to Carrier · A Fault in Carrier's Logic Perception

In answer to:

The Problem with Nothing: Why The Indefensibility of Ex Nihilo Nihil Goes Wrong for Theists
by Richard Carrier on August 29, 2018
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14486

First your eight propositions:

• Proposition 1: That which is logically impossible can never exist or happen.
  
  
• Proposition 2: The most nothingly state of nothing that can ever obtain, is a state of affairs of zero size lacking all properties and contents, except that which is logically necessary.
  
  
• Proposition 3: If there was ever Nothing, then nothing governs or dictates what will become of that Nothing, other than what is logically necessary.
  
  
• Proposition 4: If nothing governs or dictates what will become of Nothing (other than what is logically necessary), then nothing (other than what is logically necessary) prevents anything from happening to that Nothing.
  
  
• Proposition 5: Every separate thing that can logically possibly happen when there is Nothing (other than Nothing remaining nothing) entails the appearance of a universe.
  
  
• Proposition 6: If there is Nothing, then there is nothing to limit the number of universes that can logically possibly appear.
  
  
• Proposition 7: If nothing (except logical necessity) prevents anything from happening to Nothing, then every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring.
  
  
• Proposition 8: If every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring, then every logically possible number of universes that can appear has an equal probability of occurring.

Now, two observations:

• Supposing there had been a nothing and any universe could pop out of it, how do you exclude a universe popping out of it by first a god doing so and than that god creating?
  
  
• But this is not the Christian line. The Christian line is rather : existence as such is necessary and the logically necessary existence as such is called God.

Here is how it would apply:

• Proposition 1': God not existing can never exist or happen.
  
  
• Proposition 2': The most nothingly state of nothing that can ever obtain, is a state of affairs of zero size lacking all properties and contents, except that God exists.
  
  
• Proposition 3': If there was ever Nothing, then nothing governs or dictates what will become of that Nothing, other than God.
  
  
• Proposition 4': If nothing governs or dictates what will become of Nothing (other than God), then nothing (other than God) prevents anything from happening to that Nothing.
  
  
• Proposition 5': Every separate thing that can logically possibly happen when there is Nothing (other than Nothing remaining nothing) entails the appearance of a universe.
  
  
• Proposition 6': If there were Nothing, then there were nothing to limit the number of universes that can logically possibly appear.
  
  If there is Nothing except God, then there is nothing except God to limit the number of universes that can logically possibly appear.
  
  
• Proposition 7': If nothing (except God) prevents anything from happening to Nothing, then every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring (to God).
  
  
• Proposition 8': If every logically possible thing that can happen to Nothing has an equal probability of occurring, then every logically possible number of universes that can appear has an equal probability of occurring (to God).

Note, a universe other than The Blessed Trinity (which is God) does not just occur. It has no inherent necessity of existence, and it needs to come into existence by sth necessarily existing contributing to its contingent existence. So God can create exactly any universe He likes to create, between Father, Son and Holy Ghost all agreeing.

And this is exactly what Catholic scholastics have claimed.

A) If you go to Index in stephani tempier condempnationes*
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/index-in-stephani-tempier.html

and go on to:

Capitulum VI : errores de Deo
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/collectio-errorum-in-anglia-et-parisius.html

you will find one proposition, numbered by Englishmen as error 9 of the VI chapter, in original Paris document as error 34:

Quod causa prima non posset plures mundos facere.

As a CSL fan, for obvious reasons I call this "the Narnia clause". In my fan fic on Susan Pevensie, King Tirian by Aslan is shown the bishop who "allowed Him to create Narnia" - a bishop in rose garments, as Tempier wore them on Laetare Sunday.**

B) a certain cardinal who became Pope Urban VIII had told one Galileo Galilei several times over, it would seem:

God could create the universe any way He liked it, and God could make the universe appear to us any way He liked it.

The proto-Krauss who was less philosophical than the future Pope like Krauss is less philosophical than Carrier, put this argument into the mouth of one Simplicio or Simplicius in the work called Dialogus - sorry, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo. It seems that Simplicio was nevertheless based on someone else, but he included an argument based on the future Pope. Or, in 1632, when the book came out, Barberini was already Pope.***

Now, a minor quibble on Presuppositionalism.

I suppose weirdos like presuppositionalists might try to deny this and assert that logically contradictory states of affairs can exist or happen, but for God stopping it with his magical mind rays. But that’s honesty just tinfoil hat.

That is not at all what presuppositionalists think. The real argument is rather: whenever we deal with logical reasoning, we presuppose (hence the name) that there is such a thing as objective logic and that it is accessible to us. An Atheist might argue that "objective logic" = physical necessity (actually, this equation could be behind Atheists claiming miracles are illogical or miraculous explanations are illogical), but the problem is how an Atheist explains that such a thing as objective logic can have an accurate reflection at least on some level as universally valid objective logic° - of a mind emerging from organic urges using a language evolved around mating behaviours analogous to bird songs. And consisting ultimately of intricately arranged particles of matter.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St. Rose of Lima
30.VIII.2018

* Short URL now https://tinyurl.com/tempier - since Carrier reads Tacitus, reading either Tempier or St Thomas will be "child's play".

** Susan's dreams become a book
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2011/12/susans-dreams-become-book.html

The Chronicle of Susan Pevensie chapters are, unlike most blog posts, not signed, not just because they are chapters in a book, but also because I modify them - and the Tempier passage was added after its original composition.

*** I have not checked original sources on this one, am going by secondary sources that seemed credible enough. I'd be somewhat surprised, but not totally shocked if what I said was spurious. If it was, it was at least credible as allegation about Catholic Scholasticism of the XVII C.

° See the discussion by C. S. Lewis in Miracles. I think the relevant chapter is 3 The Cardinal Difficulty of Naturalism, starting in this edition on page 17.

Carrier's Entire List

Blooper, Carrier! · Carrier's Entire List

Here is the list of evidence Carrier gives for Caligula, restricted to contemporary:

• We have busts and statues of Caligula carved from life. Indeed, Wikipedia correctly says “Based on scientific reconstructions of his official painted busts, Caligula had brown hair, brown eyes, and fair skin” (source: The Smithsonian). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have a huge number of coins minted by and naming and depicting Caligula as the extant emperor (numerous examples are also depicted and discussed at Wikipedia; here’s another; and another). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have a huge number of papyri, actually written during Caligula’s life, mentioning him as the reigning emperor (e.g. as Gaius Caesar Germanicus Augustus). Because that was how documents were dated (example; example; example). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have a huge number of contemporary inscriptions, erected by Caligula himself and eyewitnesses to his reign. Examples. Examples. Examples. Examples. Examples. Examples. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have excavated several of Caligula’s most peculiar ships. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have actual wine barrels from Caligula’s private vineyard, with his name on them. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have his mother’s tombstone, declaring him her child. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• Pliny the Elder, an eyewitness to Caligula, supplies us a great deal of information directly from his own observations, and from government records and other eyewitness and contemporary sources. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• Other eyewitnesses and contemporaries who report on Caligula include Philo of Alexandria and Seneca, who both met with him personally, and record several things about him (e.g. Philo’s Flaccus and On [My] Embassy to Gaius [Caligula]; Seneca’s On Consolation to My Mother Helvia and On Rage and On the Constancy of the Wise).
  
  
• We have extensive accounts of Caligula in Josephus (a historian born when Caligula reigned, discussing Caligula within only 35 years of his death, and more extensively only 52 years after his death), an account that is exactly in Josephan style and rich with realistic detail (Antiquities of the Jews 18-19, written c. 93 A.D.; and Jewish War 2.184-203, written c. 76 A.D.). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No. Not even the alleged Josephan mentions of Jesus qualify on any relevant point.
  
  
• We know eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Caligula wrote works about him that are lost but that are discussed and used by later writers. These include Seneca’s own friend Fabius Rusticus; Cluvius Rufus, a senator actually involved in the assassination of Caligula (very likely these were the sources employed by Josephus, who even mentions and quotes Cluvius); the memoirs of Claudius (Caligula’s successor); the published correspondence of Augustus; and various poets (e.g. Gaetulicus). Even Caligula’s sister, Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, wrote up her own memoirs that were cited and used as a source for Caligula by several later historians. Do we have anything like any of this for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We have several later critical historians writing about Caligula who name, cite and quote eyewitness, documentary, and contemporary sources for Caligula: e.g. besides Suetonius (whose example of this I already discussed), also Tacitus, Life of Agricola 10 (written c. 98 A.D.), and Annals 13.20 (written c. 116 A.D.), and even Dio Cassius (not even two hundred years after the fact). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We even have government documents that do this: for example, we have unearthed a bronze tablet copy (dating c. 168 A.D.) of a letter personally written by Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Journal of Roman Studies 1973.63) that mentions him consulting the extant register of those granted citizenship by Caligula (in a list of such registers from other emperors as well). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• Oh…and we have Caligula him-fracking-self! An inscription recording his own letter, in his own words, to the Achaean League, dated 19 August 37 A.D. (Inscriptiones Graecae 7.2711, ll. 21-43). Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.
  
  
• We also have declarations of alliance and celebration from many localities at the accession to power of Caligila. For example, the Oath declared by the Aritensians, inscribed on stone shortly after 11 May 37 A.D., elaborately asserting they shall ally with Caligula and declare his enemies their enemies; similarly the Cyzicans as well; and the Oath and Decree of Celebration of the Assians of the same year, which says they are sending an embassy “to seek an audience with and congratulate him, and beg him to remember” their city “as he personally promised when together with his father Germanicus he first set foot in our city’s province” (see Lewis & Reinhold, Vol. 2, § 3 and 9). So here we have the eyewitness, original autograph testimony, of an entire city of people. Caligula was with his father at the age of six when he visited their region (so they are trucking rather hard on the utterance of a toddler). But you don’t say this of, or send embassies to, a guy who doesn’t exist. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? Hell to the no.

Now, the main point on each item, since neither the pastor nor I are in fact trying to pretend Caligula is a myth, is Carrier's refrain : Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.

This is therefore what I intend to answer. For each item. On some, "we would not expect to". On most, yes, we do have sth like that for Jesus.

• We have busts and statues of Caligula carved from life. - And we have the miraculous likenesses sent to King Abgar, the Sudarium of Oviedo and the shroud of Turin.
  
  
• We have a huge number of coins minted by and naming and depicting Caligula as the extant emperor ... - and since Jesus was living as a subject under Herod and Augustus, and under Pilate and Tiberius, we do not at all exspect any coins to have His image in His lifetime.
  
  
• We have a huge number of papyri, actually written during Caligula’s life, mentioning him as the reigning emperor (e.g. as Gaius Caesar Germanicus Augustus). Because that was how documents were dated - and as AD dating was not yet a thing, we do not exspect to have sth like that for Jesus.
  
  
• We have a huge number of contemporary inscriptions, erected by Caligula himself and eyewitnesses to his reign. - Jesus was probably not building too many houses that still stand, since Romans swept off many in the Jewish war, back when He was serving His fosterfather as a carpenter.
  
  
• We have excavated several of Caligula’s most peculiar ships. - I'm not sure anyone claims to have timbers of St Peter's or St John's bark as relics, otherwise we do not exspect such a thing.
  
  
• We have actual wine barrels from Caligula’s private vineyard, with his name on them. - The miracle of Cana was a wine which was drunk up very quickly.
  
  
• We have his mother’s tombstone, declaring him her child. - We have the belt and the veil of the Blessed Virgin. We also have His own glorious sepulchre.
  
  
• Pliny the Elder ... - dealt with, previous post. Pliny is not so convincing as proof as Carrier would pretend, and is certainly inferior to Gospels in giving details.
  
  
• Other eyewitnesses and contemporaries who report on Caligula include Philo of Alexandria and Seneca, who both met with him personally, and record several things about him (e.g. Philo’s Flaccus and On [My] Embassy to Gaius [Caligula]; Seneca’s On Consolation to My Mother Helvia and On Rage and On the Constancy of the Wise). - Pliny, Philo and Seneca all give less information in* Caligula than Gospels do about Our Lord Jesus Christ. Citing them would be like having no Gospels and only citing Epistles and perhaps Apocalypse.
  
  
• We have extensive accounts of Caligula in Josephus (a historian born when Caligula reigned, discussing Caligula within only 35 years of his death, and more extensively only 52 years after his death), an account that is exactly in Josephan style and rich with realistic detail (Antiquities of the Jews 18-19, written c. 93 A.D.; and Jewish War 2.184-203, written c. 76 A.D.). - If I got this correctly, 22 chapters in Josephus deal with Caligula. Matthew 28, Mark 16 (44), Luke 24 (68), John 21 (89), Acts 1:st chapter (90).
  
  
• We know eyewitnesses and contemporaries of Caligula wrote works about him that are lost but that are discussed and used by later writers. These include Seneca’s own friend Fabius Rusticus; Cluvius Rufus, a senator actually involved in the assassination of Caligula (very likely these were the sources employed by Josephus, who even mentions and quotes Cluvius); the memoirs of Claudius (Caligula’s successor); the published correspondence of Augustus; and various poets (e.g. Gaetulicus). Even Caligula’s sister, Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, wrote up her own memoirs that were cited and used as a source for Caligula by several later historians. - Indeed. Indeed. No, we do not have a plethora of named lost writers, since the plethora mentioned collectively by St Luke is not named and the 50 odd non-canonical Gospels cannot all be assigned to pre-Gospel tries. This is the point I was making : contemporary writers (who as adults saw events) are there for Jesus, namely four of them in continuous narrative (not mentioning all event related scraps in Epistles and Apocalypse which would arguably more than just rival Pliny), while the contemporary writers for continuous narrative about Tiberius (unless you count Velleius Paterculus as giving continuous narrative about him too!), Caligula, Claudius, Nero, even up to Domitian are gone, excepting perhaps what Josephus had to say on some Flavians, which I had overlooked when earlier stating this. They are gone, and their witness survives only second hand, in authors quoting lost authors after Domitian died (again, excepting Josephus, OK).
  
  
• We have several later critical historians writing about Caligula who name, cite and quote eyewitness, documentary, and contemporary sources for Caligula: e.g. besides Suetonius (whose example of this I already discussed), also Tacitus, Life of Agricola 10 (written c. 98 A.D.), and Annals 13.20 (written c. 116 A.D.), and even Dio Cassius (not even two hundred years after the fact). - You are omitting Early Church Fathers quoting Gospels, presumably because the Gospels are not lost.
  
  Also, calling Suetonius, Tacitus and Dio Cassius (guys who wrote after Domitian died, as I mentioned) "critical historians" is somewhat equivocal. If by "critical" you mean they are not uncritical of the Caesars in question, granted (easy to criticise a dead Caesar, except Julius and Augustus, right?). If you mean they are not uncritical of their sources, well, they do not show the modern kind of criticism to them - they are not as critical to Agrippina's life of her son as Carrier is of the Gospels.
  
  
• We even have government documents that do this: for example, we have unearthed a bronze tablet copy (dating c. 168 A.D.) of a letter personally written by Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Journal of Roman Studies 1973.63) that mentions him consulting the extant register of those granted citizenship by Caligula (in a list of such registers from other emperors as well). - Again, this is a type of proof you cannot get for someone not engaged in administration.
  
  
• Oh…and we have Caligula him-fracking-self! An inscription recording his own letter, in his own words, to the Achaean League, dated 19 August 37 A.D. (Inscriptiones Graecae 7.2711, ll. 21-43). - There was also a Letter, not just a miraculous image, to King Abgar.
  
  Oh, Carrier thinks that could be a fake? Well, why not that inscription, if we are tin foilish?
  
  
• We also have declarations of alliance and celebration from many localities at the accession to power of Caligila. For example, the Oath declared by the Aritensians, inscribed on stone shortly after 11 May 37 A.D., elaborately asserting they shall ally with Caligula and declare his enemies their enemies; similarly the Cyzicans as well; and the Oath and Decree of Celebration of the Assians of the same year, which says they are sending an embassy “to seek an audience with and congratulate him, and beg him to remember” their city “as he personally promised when together with his father Germanicus he first set foot in our city’s province” (see Lewis & Reinhold, Vol. 2, § 3 and 9). So here we have the eyewitness, original autograph testimony, of an entire city of people. Caligula was with his father at the age of six when he visited their region (so they are trucking rather hard on the utterance of a toddler). But you don’t say this of, or send embassies to, a guy who doesn’t exist. - Our Lord was probably younger than six when He received an Embassy of a sort which went by Herod to Him, but avoided Herod when returning.

Note, one key point not adressed here is Gospels being genuine, or not adressed in detail.

The point is, Carrier perfectly knew he was not counting them when repeating his refrain, and he was not doing so because he counted them as fakes.

That is another argument, to be answered on more specific grounds pretending that they are such.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris, Porte Dorée
IV Sunday after Pentecost
17.VI.2018

* on (spellcheck or vicinity of touches)

Blooper, Carrier!

Blooper, Carrier! · Carrier's Entire List

So What About Caligula? How Do You Know HE Existed!?
by Richard Carrier /on May 31, 2018/
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/14117

Pliny the Elder, an eyewitness to Caligula, supplies us a great deal of information directly from his own observations, and from government records and other eyewitness and contemporary sources. Do we have anything like that for Jesus? No.

Did Carrier say "a great deal"? Richard Carrier links to a Perseus Tuft's search on the word Caligula in author Pliny.

Here are the hits to Naturalis Historia:

• book 4, chapter 5: ... Asia. , Cæsar the Dictator, the prince Caius Caius Caligula, the Emperor. , and Domitius Nero The Emperor Nero
  
  
• book 5, chapter 1: ... which, until the time of Caius Cæsar The Emperor Caligula, who, in the year 41 A.D., reduced the ... to Rome in the year A.D. 40 , by Caligula, and shortly after put to death by him, his
  
  
• book 5, chapter 44: ... , Domitius Corbulo Brother of Cæsonia, the wife of Caligula, and father of Domitia Longina, the wife of Domitian.
  
  
• book 7, chapter 4: ... , who became the wife of the Emperor Caius. Caius Caligula. The name of this woman, who was first his ... was Milonia Cesonia. She was neither handsome nor young when Caligula first admired her: but was noted for her extreme ... and at the time when she first became intimate with Caligula, had already had three children. She and her daughter,
  
  
• book 7, chapter 6: ... of Agrippa and Julia, was the mother of the Emperor Caligula; and of a second Agrippina, who became the mother
  
  
• book 7, chapter 11: ... in the Life of Augustus, c. 63; and that of Caligula, c. 7.—B. Certain individuals, again, both men
  
  
• book 7, chapter 18: ... of Germanicus Cæsar, and the grandmother of the emperor Caligula, whom she lived to see on the throne, and
  
  
• book 7, chapter 44: ... same meaning as our expression, "from the ranks." The Emperor Caligula received that surname when a boy, in consequence of
  
  
• book 8, chapter 64: ... The nephew of Tiberius and the father of the Emperor Caligula.—B. wrote a poem, which still exists. There
  
  
• book 8, chapter 84: ... known. He probably flourished in the reign of Tiberius or Caligula. Cato the Censor, See end of B. iii
  
  
• book 9, chapter 31: ... the reign of Caius, The reign of the Emperor Caligula. at the price of eight thousand sesterces. Juvenal
  
  
• book 9, chapter 33: ... centurions, were distinguished by the name of "caligati." The Emperor Caligula received that cognomen when a boy, in consequence of
  
  
• book 9, chapter 56: ... ii. c. 12, and Pliny, B. xxxvii. c. 6, that Caligula wore gold and pearls upon his socculi. it
  
  
• book 9, chapter 58: ... but was divorced from him, and married to the Emperor Caligula, who, however, soon divorced her. At the instigation of ... the Emperor Nero. the wife of the Emperor Caius Caligula. —it was not at any public festival, or
  
  
• book 9, chapter 81: ... vii. c. 18, and B. xxxv. c. 36. Her grandson, Caligula, is supposed to have hastened her death. the
  
  
• book 12, chapter 5: ... that afforded in the reign of the Emperor Caius. Caligula. That prince was so struck with admiration on ... that he here alludes sarcastically to the extreme corpulence of Caligula. very materially to the shade it threw-the
  
  
• book 16, chapter 76: ... brought from Egypt, by order of the Emperor Caius, Caligula. the obelisk B. xxxvi. c. 14. that
  
  
• book 16, chapter 95: ... but is conjectured to have lived in the reign of Caligula or Tiberius. Cremutius, See end of B. vii
  
  
• book 26, chapter 3: ... say whether Tiberius, the predecessor, or Claudius, the successor of Caligula, is meant; most probably the latter, as the former
  
  
• book 32, chapter 1: ... one of these fish arrested the ship of the Emperor Caligula. Caius in its course, when he was returning ... a trick was played for the purpose of imposing upon Caligula's superstitious credulity, and that the rowers as well
  
  
• book 33, chapter 6: ... and demanded his signet-ring, which his son-in-law, Caligula, had removed from his finger, under the supposition that
  
  
• book 33, chapter 16: ... storeys, which were raised or depressed, to all appearance, spontaneously. Caligula is the emperor meant. introduced into the Circus,
  
  
• book 33, chapter 22: ... substance greatly excited the hopes of the Emperor Caius, Caligula. a prince who was most greedy for gold.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 27: ... 5. From Suetonius, c. 18, we learn that the Emperor Caligula, also, had the Circus sanded with minium and chrysocolla.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 47: ... 63 . Callistus, C. Julius Callistus, the freedman of Caligula, in whose assassination he was an accomplice. The physician
  
  
• book 34, chapter 9: ... is employed by Suetonius, in speaking of a statue of Caligula, c. 22.—B. I do not know whether
  
  
• book 35, chapter 6: ... , though the temple is in ruins. The Emperor Caius, Caligula. inflamed with lustfulness, attempted to have them removed,
  
  
• book 35, chapter 59: ... works were at first proscribed, but were afterwards permitted by Caligula to be read. Fabius Vestalis, See end of
  
  
• book 36, chapter 14: ... one in which, by order of the Emperor Caius, Caligula. the other obelisk had been transported to Rome,
  
  
• book 36, chapter 15: ... is mentioned above as having been removed from Alexandria by Caligula. obelisk This obelisk was transferred by Pope Sextus ... Vaticanus. Circus, which was constructed by the Emperors Caius Caligula. and Nero; this being the only one of
  
  
• book 36, chapter 24: ... City environed by the palaces of the Emperors Caius Caligula. The Palace of Caligula was situate on the Palatine Hill: that of Nero ... which was more recently commenced by the Emperor Caius, Caligula. and completed by Claudius. Under these princes, the
  
  
• book 37, chapter 6: ... . He has rendered, however, comparatively excusable the Emperor Caius, Caligula. who, in addition to other femmine luxuries, used

It looks a bit as if some of theme were from footnotes. Second hit mentions AD dating - not one known to Pliny. Third hit mentions Domitian who started ruling in AD 81 - two years after Pliny died.

The search engine took in hits not only to text by Pliny himself in English translation, but also to annotations made much more recently - by people who have read historians writing after Domitian died, inter alia.

Let's see, I'm checking hit after hit, showing in each case the words of Pliny (or editor other than in footnotes for 5:44?) and saying which of the hits showed words in a footnote:

• book 4, chapter 5: The Peloponnesus, which was formerly called Apia1 and Pelasgia, is a peninsula, inferior in fame to no land upon the face of the earth. ... For this reason it is that both King Demetrius6, Cæsar the Dictator, the prince Caius7, and Domitius Nero8, have at different times made the attempt to cut through this neck by forming a navigable canal; a profane design, as may be clearly seen by the result9 in every one of these instances. - the hit was to footnote 7.
  
  
• book 5, chapter 1: On our entrance into Africa, we find the two Mauritanias, which, until the time of Caius Cæsar3, the son of Germanicus, were kingdoms; but, suffering under his cruelty, they were divided into two provinces. - The hit was to footnote 3. It explained Caligula is our name for Caius Caesar.
  
  
• book 5, chapter 44: Domitius Corbulo - cited as one cited author. Caligula is mentioned in a footnote to his name.
  
  
• book 7, chapter 4: There are great variations in this respect, which occur in numerous ways. Vestilia, for instance, who was the wife of C. Herdicius, and was afterwards married, first, to Pomponius,4 and then to Orfitus, very eminent citizens, after having brought forth four children, always at the seventh month, had Suillius Rufus at the eleventh month, and then Corbulo at the seventh, both of whom became consuls; after which, at the eighth month, she had Cæsonia, who became the wife of the Emperor Caius.5 As for children who are born at the eighth month, the greatest difficulty with them is to get them over the first forty days. - We learn this emperor Caius was Caligula in footnote 5.
  
  
• book 7, chapter 6: It is contrary to nature for children to come into the world with the feet first, for which reason such children are called Agrippæ, meaning that they are born with difficulty.1 In this manner, M. Agrippa2 is said to have been born; the only instance, almost, of good fortune, out of the number of all those who have come into the world under these circumstances. And yet, even he may be considered to have paid the penalty of the unfavourable omen produced by the unnatural mode of his birth, in the unfortunate weakness of his legs, the misfortunes of his youth, a life spent in the very midst of arms and slaughter, and ever exposed to the approaches of death; in his children, too, who have all proved a very curse to the earth, and more especially, the two Agrippinas, who were the mothers respectively of Caius and of Domitius Nero,3 so many firebrands hurled among the human race. - Obviously book 7 is on pregnancy and childbirth, and that Agrippa was born feet first totally explains how the children of his two daughters tunned out as first class monsters, like Caligula and Nero. Note in passing that Pliny was superstitious, since he believed this, and yet Carrier is willing to cite him as a source on history ...
  
  
• book 7, chapter 11: There exists a kind of peculiar antipathy between the bodies of certain persons, which, though barren with respect to each other, are not so when united to others;1 such, for instance, was the case with Augustus and Livia.2 - the footnote 2 tells us from Suetonius that Caligula is alluded to.
  
  
• book 7, chapter 18: Less important peculiarities of nature, again, are to be observed in many persons; Antonia,6 for instance, the wife of Drusus, was never known to expectorate; and Pomponius, the poet, a man of consular rank, was never troubled with eructation. - Footnote 6 tells us, Antonia was granny to Caligula.
  
  
• book 7, chapter 44: Fortune has determined that P. Ventidius alone should enjoy the honour of a triumph over the Parthians, and yet the same individual, when he was a child, she led in the triumphal procession of Cneius Pompeius, the conqueror of Asculum.1 Indeed, Masurius says, that he had been twice led in triumph; and according to Cicero, he used to let out mules for the bakers of the camp.2 Most writers, indeed, admit that his younger days were passed in the greatest poverty, and that he wore the hob-nailed shoes3 of the common soldier. - Pliny is providing info on Ventidius and mentions caligae, and footnote 2 says those gave Caligula his nickname.
  
  
• book 8, chapter 64: The late Emperor Augustus also erected a tomb to his horse; on which occasion Germanicus Cæsar5 wrote a poem, which still exists. - footnote 5 says who Germanicus Caesar was, but Pliny himself doesn't tell us he was father to Caligula
  
  
• book 8, chapter 84: Cornelius Valerianus cited as author, and footnote guesses he flourished under Tiberius or Caligula.
  
  
• book 9, chapter 31: ENORMOUS PRICES OF SOME FISH. Asinius Celer,1 a man of consular rank, and remarkable for his prodigal expenditure on this fish, bought one at Rome, during the reign of Caius,2 at the price of eight thousand sesterces.3 - while footnote 2 explains Caius as Caligula, the actual text of Pliny says more of fish market or of Asinius Celer (perhaps wellnamed) than of Caligula.
  
  
• book 9, chapter 33: Some fishes have numerous gills, others again single1 ones, others double; it is by means of these that they discharge the water that has entered the mouth. A sign of old age2 is the hardness of the scales, which are not alike in all. There are two lakes3 of Italy at the foot of the Alps, called Larius and Verbanus, in which there are to be seen every year, at the rising of the Vergiliæ,4 fish remarkable for the number of their scales, and the exceeding sharpness5 of them, strongly resembling hob-nails6 in appearance; these fish, however, are only to be seen during that month,7 and no longer. - Pliny tells us of fish scales, the annotator explains hob-nails as translation of Clavorum caligarium"—"nails for the caliga." and then goes off a tangent on the etymology of Caligula.
  
  
• book 9, chapter 56: Long pearls also have their peculiar value; those are called "elenchi," which are of a long tapering shape, resembling our alabaster6 boxes in form, and ending in a full bulb.7 Our ladies quite glory in having these suspended from their fingers, or two or three of them dangling from their ears. For the purpose of ministering to these luxurious tastes, there are various names and wearisome refinements which have been devised by profuseness and prodigality; for after inventing these ear-rings, they have given them the name of "crotalia,"8 or castanet pendants, as though quite delighted even with the rattling of the pearls as they knock against each other; and now, at the present day, the poorer classes are even affecting them, as people are in the habit of saying, that "a pearl worn by a woman in public, is as good as a lictor9 walking before her." Nay, even more than this, they put them on their feet, and that, not only on the laces of their sandals, but all over the shoes;10 it is not enough to wear pearls, but they must tread upon them, and walk with them under foot as well. - Annotator at note 10 tells of Caligula. Of his doing much like these ladies. Sources are given as We find from Seneca, De Ben. B. ii. c. 12, and Pliny, B. xxxvii. c. 6. Well, at book 37 we may indeed find sth on Caligula by Pliny ...
  
  
• book 9, chapter 58: I once saw Lollia Paulina,1 the wife of the Emperor Caius2 —it was not at any public festival, or any solemn ceremonial, but only at an ordinary wedding entertainment3—covered with emeralds and pearls, which shone in alternate layers upon her head, in her hair, in her wreaths, in her ears, upon her neck, in her bracelets, and on her fingers, and the value of which amounted in all to forty millions 4 of sesterces; indeed5 she was prepared at once to prove the fact, by showing the receipts and acquittances. - Footnotes 1 and 2 explain the relation between Lollia and her husband Caligula. The rest of the chapter explains a bit on why Lollia had that apparel.
  
  
• book 9, chapter 81: It was at the same villa that Antonia,5 the wife of Drusus, placed earrings upon a murena which she had become fond of; the report of which singular circumstance attracted many visitors to the place. - Footnote 5 explains Antonia was granny of Caligula.
  
  
• book 12, chapter 5: Another curious instance, again, was that afforded in the reign of the Emperor Caius.2 That prince was so struck with admiration on seeing a plane in the territory of Veliternum, which presented floor after floor, like those of the several stories of a house, by means of broad benches loosely laid from branch to branch, that he held a banquet in it-himself adding3 very materially to the shade it threw-the triclinium being formed for the reception of fifteen guests and the necessary attendants: to this singular dining-room he gave the name of his "nest." - Footnote 2 explains Caius was Caligula and 3 that "adding to the shadow substantially" means he was fat. But yes, Pliny does say that Caligula held a banquet in a plane tree (which is what the chapter is about). Carrier, if you think miraculous reports arise quickly after non-miraculous facts, do you think Caligula was, at the time, lean, and not holding a banquet? Excess reports on people not too excessive arise even quicker.
  
  
• book 16, chapter 76: There was a fir, too, that was particularly admired, when it formed the mast of the ship, which brought from Egypt, by order of the Emperor Caius,17 the obelisk18 that was erected in the Vaticanian Circus, with the four blocks of stone intended for its base. It is beyond all doubt that there has been seen nothing on the sea more wonderful than this ship: one hundred and twenty thousand modii of lentils formed its ballast; and the length of it took up the greater part of the left side of the harbour at Ostia. It was sunk at that spot by order of the Emperor Claudius, three moles, each as high as a tower, being built upon it; they were constructed with cement19 which the same vessel had conveyed from Puteoli. It took the arms of four men to span the girth of this tree, and we not unfrequently hear of the price of masts for such purposes, as being eighty thousand sesterces or more: rafts, too, of this wood are sometimes put together, the value of which is forty thousand. - Pliny say Caligula imported sth ... you obviously think all imports by King Solomon prove he existed too? Footnote, as so often, explains Caius means the guy we call Caligula.
  
  
• book 16, chapter 95: Calpurnius Bassus - cited as an author, and note : 17 He is wholly unknown: but is conjectured to have lived in the reign of Caligula or Tiberius.
  
  
• book 26, chapter 3: CHAP. 3.—AT WHAT PERIOD LICHEN FIRST MADE ITS APPEARANCE IN ITALY. This curse was unknown to the ancients,1 and in the times of our fathers even, having first entered Italy in the middle of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius2 Claudius Cæsar; where it was introduced from Asia,3 in which country it had lately made4 its appearance, by a member of the equestrian order at Rome, a native of Perusiun, secretary to the quæstor. The disease, however, did not attack either females or slaves,5 nor yet the lower orders, or, indeed, the middle classes, but only the nobles, being communicated even by the momentary contact requisite for the act of salutation.6 Many of those who persevered in undergoing a course of remedial treatment, though cured of the disease, retained scars upon the body more hideous even than the malady itself; it being treated with cauteries, as it was certain to break out afresh, unless means were adopted for burning it out of the body by cauterizing to the very bone. - Footnote 2 hesitates whether Tiberius Claudius Cæsar means Tiberius or Caligula. See above for probable resolution it being Tiberius. (Footnote 6 is not likely to be taken in a friendly manner in Balkan or Italy ...or France)
  
  
• book 32, chapter 1: In our own time, too, one of these fish [an echenëis] arrested the ship of the Emperor5 Caius in its course, when he was returning from Astura to Antium:6 and thus, as the result proved, did an insignificant fish give presage of great events; for no sooner had the emperor returned to Rome than he was pierced by the weapons of his own soldiers. Nor did this sudden stoppage of the ship long remain a mystery, the cause being perceived upon finding that, out of the whole fleet, the emperor's five-banked galley was the only one that was making no way. The moment this was discovered, some of the sailors plunged into the sea, and, on making search about the ship's sides, they found an echeneïs adhering to the rudder. Upon its being shown to the emperor, he strongly expressed his indignation that such an obstacle as this should have impeded his progress, and have rendered powerless the hearty endeavours of some four hundred men. One thing, too, it is well known, more particularly surprised7 him, how it was possible that the fish, while adhering to the ship, should arrest its progress, and yet should have no such power when brought on board. - Footnote 5 explains it is Caligula who is called Caius and 7 adds a note of scepticism:
  
  

  And well it might surprise him. If there was any foundation at all for the story, there can be little doubt that a trick was played for the purpose of imposing upon Caligula's superstitious credulity, and that the rowers as well as the diving sailors were privy to it.

  
  
  But that is not Pliny's words and yet Pliny did mention Caligula here.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 6: But at the present day, we not only procure dainties which are sure to be pilfered, but hands to pilfer them as well; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet-ring is often taken from off the owner's finger while he is overpowered with sleep or lying on his death-bed. - Footnote 39 presumes, by adding a reference to Suetonius, that Pliny alluded to Caligula's and Tiberius' relations.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 16: deserves to be quoted in full:
  
  

  CHAP. 16.—AT WHAT PERIOD SILVER FIRST MADE ITS APPEARANCE UPON THE ARENA AND UPON THE STAGE.
  
  We, too, have done things that posterity may probably look upon as fabulous. Cæsar, who was afterwards dictator, but at that time ædile, was the first person, on the occasion of the funeral games in honour of his father, to employ all the apparatus of the arena1 in silver; and it was on the same occasion that for the first time criminals encountered wild beasts with implements of silver, a practice imitated at the present day in our municipal towns even.
  
  At the games celebrated by C. Antonius the stage was made of2 silver; and the same was the case at those celebrated by L. Muræna. The Emperor Caius had a scaffold3 introduced into the Circus, upon which there were one hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds' weight of silver. His successor Claudius, on the occasion of his triumph over Britain, announced by the inscriptions that among the coronets of gold, there was one weighing seven thousand4 pounds' weight, contributed by Nearer Spain, and another of nine thousand pounds, presented by Gallia Comata.5 Nero, who succeeded him, covered the Theatre of Pompeius with gold for one day,6 the occasion on which he displayed it to Tiridates, king of Armenia. And yet how small was this theatre in comparison with that Golden Palace7 of his, with which he environed our city.

  
  
  Pliny actually gives us Caius being succeeded by Claudius who was succeeded by Nero. And Caius vaguely being preceded (there were two emperors between) by Julius Caesar who had a more modest taste. The context is worthy of the Yellow Press, but I did not think we could get this much history on Caligula from Pliny! Who, by the way, is exspecting the scepticism of the future, not on the list of emperors Caligula, Claudius and Nero, or on Nero being contemporary with Tiridates, but simply on the luxury he was reporting.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 22: Orpiment: There is also one other method of procuring gold; by making it from orpiment,1 a mineral dug from the surface of the earth in Syria, and much used by painters. It is just the colour of gold, but brittle, like mirror-stone,2 in fact. This substance greatly excited the hopes of the Emperor Caius,3 a prince who was most greedy for gold. He accordingly had a large quantity of it melted, and really did obtain some excellent gold;4 but then the proportion was so extremely small, that he found himself a loser thereby. Such was the result of an experiment prompted solely by avarice: and this too, although the price of the orpiment itself was no more than four denarii per pound. Since his time, the experiment has never been repeated.
  
  And a chemist today, knowing from note one that orpiment is Yellow sulphuret of arsenic, will conclude that being greedy for gold is not the same as being wise on detecting it. My greatgrandfather who was journeyman to a goldsmith would not have been such a sucker, nor was he that greedy.
  
  Caligula as alchemist, as Nicolas Flamel "avant le mot" ... is this info or intox? Fact or urban rumour? Well, to get a more overall picture on Caligula we go to Sueton and Tacitus, and so we find it is at least believable. B u t these authors come later than Pliny.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 27: Before now, we have seen, at the spectacles exhibited by the Emperor Nero, the arena of the Circus entirely sanded with chrysocolla, when the prince himself, clad in a dress of the same colour, was about to exhibit as a charioteer.7 - Footnote 7 tells us Caligula had done a similar thing, and we know this from Sueton. In other words, Pliny was not writing on Caligula but on Nero.
  
  
• book 33, chapter 47: And yet, although he was the first to become memorable for his opulence—so pleasant is the task of stigmatizing this insatiate cupidity—we have known of many manumitted slaves, since his time, much more wealthy than he ever was; three for example, all at the same time, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, Pallas,8 Callistus,9 and Narcissus.10 - In footnote 9, we get to know Callistus was both freedman of Caius and implicated in his assassination. But we do not get this from Pliny.
  
  
• book 34, chapter 9: It was not the custom in former times to give the likeness of individuals, except of such as deserved to be held in lasting remembrance on account of some illustrious deed; in the first instance, for a victory at the sacred games, and more particularly the Olympic Games, where it was the usage for the victors always to have their statues consecrated. And if any one was so fortunate as to obtain the prize there three times, his statue was made with the exact resemblance of every individual limb; from which circumstance they were called "iconicæ."2 I do not know whether the first public statues were not erected by the Athenians, and in honour of Harmodius and Aristogiton, who slew the tyrant;3 an event which took place in the same year in which the kings were expelled from Rome.
  
  Since Harmodius and Aristogeiton and the prize winners at Olympic games were not given honours as in and of themselves gods or demigods, we can safely conclude that icons of saints are not idolatry. However, the footnoter also tells us Sueton tells is that Caligula had an icon made of him self. Selfie-maniacs, take note!
  
  
• book 35, chapter 6: At Lanuvium, too, it is the same, where we see an Atalanta and a Helena, without drapery, close together, and painted by the same artist. They are both of the greatest beauty, the former being evidently the figure of a virgin, and they still remain uninjured, though the temple is in ruins. The Emperor Caius,3 inflamed with lustfulness, attempted to have them removed, but the nature of the plaster would not admit of it.
  
  While the context is an immodest painting, the outcome shows why flat murals may have been preferred over statues in icons of saints at times : less risk for removal and sacrilege - or even destruction, barring that of the whole building. And yes, Pliny says Caligula was a porn junkie and a clumsy one ...
  
  
• book 35, chapter 59: Severus Longulanus - cited author, footnote 13 says he used to be "on the index" (proscribed) but Caligula allowed his works to be read. Same footnote also says a man he accused of poisoning is found in chapter 46 of same book, but I didn't find him.
  
  I did however find this:
  
  

  It has been already12 stated by us, when on the subject of birds, that a single dish cost the tragic actor Æsopus one hundred thousand sesterces; much to the reader's indignation, no doubt; but, by Hercules! Vitellius, when emperor, ordered a dish to be made, which was to cost a million of sesterces, and for the preparation of which a furnace had to be erected out in the fields! luxury having thus arrived at such a pitch of excess as to make earthenware even sell at higher prices than murrhine13 vessels.

  
  
  And then I did find Asprenas, whom Longulanus had apparently accused:
  
  

  It was in reference to this circumstance, that Mucianus, in his second consulship, when pronouncing one of his perorations, reproached the memory of Vitellius with his dishes as broad as the Pomptine Marsh; not less deserving to be execrated than the poisoned dish of Asprenas, which, according to the accusation brought against him by Cassius Severus, caused the death of one hundred and thirty guests.14

  
  
  OK, did you catch the phrase "Vitellius, when emperor,"? Whatever Pliny says of Caligula is at a safe distance, several subsequent emperors have agreed that Caligula is a baddy. But do we know this from Pliny? No, we know it from authors after Domitian died (and possibly from Josephus too a bit earlier).
  
  
• book 36, chapter 14: There are two other obelisks, which were in Cæsar's Temple at Alexandria, near the harbour there, forty-two cubits in height, and originally hewn by order of King Mesphres. But the most difficult enterprise of all, was the carriage of these obelisks by sea to Rome, in vessels which excited the greatest admiration. Indeed, the late Emperor Augustus consecrated the one which brought over the first obelisk, as a lasting memorial of this marvellous undertaking, in the docks at Puteoli; but it was destroyed by fire. As to the one in which, by order of the Emperor Caius,17 the other obelisk had been transported to Rome, after having been preserved for some years and looked upon as the most wonderful construction ever beheld upon the seas, it was brought to Ostia, by order of the late Emperor Claudius; and towers of Puteolan18 earth being first erected upon it, it was sunk for the construction of the harbour which he was making there. And then, besides, there was the necessity of constructing other vessels to carry these obelisks up the Tiber; by which it became practically ascer- tained, that the depth of water in that river is not less than that of the river Nilus.
  
  Obelisk and big tree, here it is told again under obelisk, see above under big tree.
  
  
• book 36, chapter 15: The third4 obelisk5 at Rome is in the Vaticanian6 Circus, which was constructed by the Emperors Caius7 and Nero; this being the only one of them all that has been broken in the carriage.
  
  Same story, now on how the obelisk was used.
  
  
• book 36, chapter 24: But there are still two other mansions by which all these edifices have been eclipsed. Twice have we seen the whole City environed by the palaces of the Emperors Caius9 and Nero; that of the last, that nothing might be wanting to its magnificence, being coated with gold.10 Surely such palaces as these must have been intended for the abode of those who created this mighty empire, and who left the plough or their native hearth to go forth to conquer nations, and to return laden with triumphs! men, in fact, whose very fields even occupied less space than the audience-chambers11 of these palaces.
  
  OK, Pliny says Caligula had a great palace, as had Nero (presumably after him).
  
  
• book 37, chapter 6: But it was this conquest by Pompeius Magnus that first introduced so general a taste for pearls and precious stones; just as the victories, gained by L. Scipio1 and Cneius Manlius,2 had first turned the public attention to chased silver, Attalic tissues, and banquetting-couches decorated with bronze; and the conquests of L. Mummius had brought Corinthian bronzes and pictures into notice. ... But in other respects, how truly befitting the hero was this triumph! To the state, he presented two thousand millions of sesterces; to the legati and quæstors who had exerted themselves in defence of the sea coast, he gave one thousand millions of sesterces; and to each individual soldier, six thousand sesterces. He has rendered, however, comparatively excusable the Emperor Caius,13 who, in addition to other femmine luxuries, used to wear shoes adorned with pearls; as also the Emperor Nero, who used to adorn his sceptres with masks worked in pearls, and had the couches, destined for his pleasures, made of the same costly materials. Nay, we have no longer any right, it would seem, to censure the employment of drinking-cups adorned with precious stones, of various other articles in daily use that are similarly enriched, and of rings that sparkle with gems: for what species of luxury can there be thought of, that was not more innocent in its results than this on the part of Pompeius?
  
  Story of Caligula's shoes adorned in pearls ... again.

I spotted so many "references to" Narnia and Lord of the Rings, I am much convinced of one thing, both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis had read Pliny the Elder while reading Latin. Gollum grasping for a ring (and taking it from the hand of a dying relative) - and finding fish preciousssssssss. Bilbo throwing the shade of a somewhat fat person. Caspian being a seafarer and amazed at some phenomenon. Tarkheenas and Tisrocs in Tashbaan. Elves holding feasts in trees (perhaps also Digory and Polly holding some on the attic), as well as the party tree. Jadis grand father killed his guests, if by burning, we deal with a reference to Ingjald (an Yngling, see Snorre), but if by poison, the inspiration could as well be Pliny. Since C. S. Lewis did not quite show which it was, he could have thought of both. And Tirian grieving for a horselike friend. And Miraz murdering a competent official ... (or two or three) ...

As to education, this again leaves me jealous of that enjoyed by C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien : as they had it not just before World War II, but even before World War I, in which they fought, they had so much more Classics and so much more time to learn languages (for young Jack Lewis : at least after he was given private tutoring as opposed to boarding school), while myself having grown up some decades after World War II have had to deal with so much more Political Correctness about World War II, Italian Fascism, Spanish Fascism, French Revolution in history, less Latin and more conversation skills in modern languages (the latter is a boon, though), several other lessons impregnated by Politically Correct attitudes, precisely as I have also had less time to learn music and composition than had Haydn and Mozart (they learned more on composition and an instrument or two, while I only learned some on composition).

But when it comes to literary references for the existence of Caligula by a contemporary, unless we pick and chose the non-traditional Gospel dates, this is inferior to what Gospels say of Jesus, in substance. Much inferior. If I had the scepticism of Carrier, I could pretend that Pliny is really too late to be a contemporary of Caligula and his wife and incorporated a myth on Caligula, a parody of how an emperor is not supposed to be. (Coins could have some other source and so. Or, just ignore the coins when dealing with Pliny, he is supposed to be an independent witness beside the coins, right?)

This brings us to the references outside Pliny which Carrier enumerates, and I will deal with them next time. Meanwhile, Pliny the Elder, as I have said, is not an historian writing on contemporary current history. Just as I said earlier there was a gap between Velleius Paterculus writing in AD 30 and Tacitus writing again in c. 98 AD.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
First Friday of June
1.VI.2018