Someone asks whether “evangelical apologists” are “hopelessly biased,” in part due to their appeal to God’s internal witness. Here’s the submitted question:
Dear Evangelical Apologists:
1. You believe the ghost of the man whose resurrection is in question lives inside you, communicating with you in a still, small voice.
2. You appeal to consensus expert opinion only when it supports your worldview (e.g., the historicity of Jesus) and reject it when it doesn’t (e.g., Darwinian evolution).
How can you expect us to believe that you are capable of objectively evaluating the historical evidence for the Resurrection when the perceived ghost inside of you is given more credence than consensus expert opinion? Don’t these two facts strongly indicate that you are hopelessly biased?
Thanks, Gary, for your submission. Here are some responses.
First, I do believe that, as a Christian believer (and apologist), I have an indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit who has classically and correctly been viewed as a third person of God’s nature. Among other things, He provides an internal witness of our identity as God’s children (Rom. 8:16), and He empowers us to live with new life, conviction, and hope in this life and the next (Rom. 8:11-16; 15:13; 1 Thess. 1:5). So, I do not believe in “the ghost of the man” who was raised from the dead. Neither do I spiritually knee-jerk at every “still small voice” within me, because I know that I can be deceived by such purely subjective inclinations. The leading of the Holy Spirit within me must comport with the objective realities of God’s special revelation and his revelation in nature.
Second, I don’t claim to be totally unbiased. And neither should you. But I do not grant “more credence” to some perceived internal ghost who supersedes more comprehensive and external considerations. And while consensus should be a notable factor for acceptability, I’m fully aware that, even within science, the “consensus” has often been rejected as wrong. The paradigmatic conflicts within science attenuate my concern about being in the minority, especially when I believe that multiple and rational considerations justify that minority view. I’m affected more by actual evidence; and I, along with thousands of reputable scientists, do not believe that a purely naturalistic mechanism can adequately explain the diversity of all kinds of life, much less the initial appearance of life itself. (For what it’s worth, I do believe that natural selection does, in fact, explain much of life’s diversity.)
Third, I don’t follow your intended point about appealing to “consensus expert opinion.” You apparently claim that there’s some kind of inconsistency in following it in one case (the historicity of Jesus) but rejecting it in another case (Darwinism). But there’s no inconsistency in that. Judgments of acceptability are rightly made on case-by-case bases. Even so, I don’t accept the historicity of Jesus because of some expert consensus, though I’m glad that the “expert consensus” acknowledges in this case what I believe is true.
In sum, nothing you’ve said moves me to think that I am—along with other evangelical apologists—“hopelessly biased.” Though I hope I’m wrong, perhaps nothing said or shown will ever alter your disbelief. But if that’s true, then I’m wondering how you escape your own implicit accusation about being “hopelessly biased.”
My appeal is for all of us to continue our search for truth and be open to modification and even possible conversion.
~ Dr. Rich Knopp
P.S. Also see a different article that addresses bias by Dr. Breitenbach.