Has the Minimal Facts Approach Created a Monster?

Paulogia grinds the gears of resurrection apologists with his trademark "For the Bible tells me so" jingle. He has created several response videos to apologetic superstars like William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Mike Licona. Many people ask me why I don't respond to more of his videos.

I am afraid the popularity of the minimalist approach has helped create this monster called Paulogia and other counter apologists like him. Let me explain.

Join this channel to get access to perks:

[TestifyApologetics]

Hope you all will be patient and keep coming back! My heart is to give people the best reasons to believe. I'm not just trying to tear down for the sake of tearing down. I actually think the world of Dr. Craig and love all these guys as brothers. This video shares my biggest pastoral type of concern regarding the minimal facts approach, or any kind of minimizing approach. I will be doing 3 more vides on this topic, Lord willing.

1. The evidential value of Paul's conversion.
2. How to make the Paley kind of argument, and what books I recommend (many are free)
3. Why arguing what the disciples *believed* isn't enough. (already done. will be out in a few days)

[DanielApologetics]

I was preaching at 3 events in Norway last month. Started with the Minimal Facts (Appetizer) - continued with case for the Reliability of the New Testament (MEAT) ... N E V E R end with just the appetizer!

[__.Sara.__]

I appreciate the way you think! There is so much truly rich and interlocking evidence with which to make the cumulative case and it's such a good approach to take.

[cormac]

For me, I remember being being discouraged by criticisms of the minimal fact argument. It want until I put things together like the empty tomb, the conversion of James and Paul and the reliability of the gospel story orally before it was written down. I think a larger case really is needed.

[vinnygiggidy]

I will always appreciate intellectual honesty. And this is what it looks like. There are lots of Christians that believe that every argument for God is good and every argument against is bad. This tells me that you care more about the argument being good than if it agrees with you.

[studentbg]

The early creeds in Paul's Epistles contain the information that Jesus is the Lord, they contain death-deity-ressurection, they contain the salvation by grace.

[Pseudo-Jonathan]

I used to rely almost exclusively on the minimal facts argument for the resurrection. Simply put, it’s now just one part of much larger comprehensive case from history, philosophy, science, and personal experience why I believe Christianity is true.

If a Christian puts all of his or her stock in one historical argument, or one rational argument, some day, a really smart critic might completely destroy that argument and thus your faith.

[ralphjosephrjm]

Man, I could only imagine what would happen if you and IP would collab.

I just love how you guys deliver your thoughts.

[Pseudo-Jonathan]

I find it interesting however, that most of the skeptics response to the minimal facts argument is to either:

A. Deny one of the minimal facts that is accepted by the vast majority of scholars, putting them at odds with the academic consensus
Or
B. Accept them, but come up with a very very improbable hypothesis of what really happened.

The catch is this. They will usually admit that such a scenario explaining away the appearances of Paul, James and the disciples, or explaining away the empty tomb are VERY implausible.

But the reason they feel warranted to accept such scenarios is because they will always believe that a resurrection is more implausible.

Simply put, the reason the minimal facts argument doesn’t work for skeptics is not because of the data itself. It’s because of worldview issues.

If you already believe in God, the minimal facts argument will work well. If you don’t, and you’re a committed naturalist, it won’t do anything.

[lileveyc]

At least his Jingle allows us to critique his fan base by saying ''for Paulogia tells me so''

[calebjore]

Loving the series! I started reading The Eye of the Beholder yesterday. As I read it, it continues to amaze me how strong the case for the resurrection is if we can establish that the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, are historically reliable, rather than just making an inference to the best explanation from a sampling of historical facts.

In the future, do you intend to make any videos refuting the literary device theory defended by Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others?

[samuelhunter]

Gotta agree with you here. I always found the minimalism approach tends to work against me when defending the Gospels.
It feels like we're trying to distance ourselves from whatever "stigma" the Gospels carry.

But isn't that the point of evangelism? That we carry, with full confidence, the assurance of the Gospel truth? What do we have, if we simply go on mere affordance rather than raw fact and details?

[petarvasiljevic]

I must admit; you've changed my way of thinking. I always thought that the minimalism was a good approach, but now... I always thought it was wrong to blindly follow the majority, and now my concerns turn out to be true.

There are way better arguments to show that the New Testament is historical narrative of Jesus. And when we prove that, we can then come to the very important question: why did the Apostles die for something they supposedly invented? Nobody dies for a lie.

Thanks for the video!

[reetgoodministries]

Go have a chat with Gary or Will or Mike! I’d love to hear it.

[pietervanleeuwen]

I appreciate this video and the previous one. I do think you seem to overlook a specific detail. The minimal facts proponents argue that when the disciples/Paul talk about resurrection, they are talking about physical resurrection. This word is never used for a ghost appearance anywhere in the ancient world. So to Paul, the appearances link to physical resurrection, but there was no predisposition to belief in a physical resurrection, so it can’t be just that they had a hallucination and then jumped to conclusion if the conclusion is totally against their cultural and religious expectations. I did not hear you respond to this, but this is pivotal to their approach I think. Because if this is true, then sceptics can’t just throw any kind of dream or hallucination at it and dismiss the argument. Would love to hear your analysis 😀

[SimpleAmadeus]

I think it's slightly off to say that the minimal facts approach throws away inerrancy. Rather, it proposes that these few facts should be enough, and everything else is just bonus. In practice, though, I don't see it working. But that's mostly an issue on the side of skeptics, and that applies to all apologetics. Skeptics don't care about the reliability of any fact. They will respond to anything with a fallacy of incredulity. I've had plenty of skeptics tell me that there is no such thing as consciousness. If they can't even believe the existence of their own mind, they will certainly not believe a historian. If you present single facts, no matter how obviously true, they will simply deny it, in order to reach their desired atheist conclusion. If you present many facts, they will simply derail the conversation in as many directions as possible. My own path out of atheism started with realizing how disingenuous I was.

[qbpfjol]

Faith does mean you have good reason and evidence to trust what you believe. not to blindly trust something you dont know.

[DSW-imcj]

I think we should focus most on teaching peps the historical method in schools, learning to be proper skeptics and seekers of truth first before anything. A lover of truth will eventually find truth even if by great pain, but somebody just waiting to be convinced won’t grow in character or intellect.

[garyboulton]

Absolutely Love what you do. I pray that God gives you the grace to keep going and expands your channel at the right times. Although, I believe using the minimal facts argument, the best explanation for the data is that Jesus rose from the dead. I absolutely agree with everything you said, especially that, we do not need to appeal to liberal or non-Christian scholars or scholarly consensus as if scholars, liberal or non-Christian, are not biased as well. Can't wait to hear your Paley style argument on this issue. Thanks

[charles]

You should interview licona about this.