Between God and Mammon

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Minimal Facts Case for the Resurrection

August 2, 2024 /

Introduction

Catholic apologists Peter J. Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli write: “We believe Christ’s Resurrection can be proved with at least as much certainty as any universally believed and well-documented event in ancient history.”[1] This paper will introduce Habermas’ and Licona’s Minimal Facts Approach to the resurrection of Jesus. It will briefly address the core naturalist objection, that the Resurrection would be a miracle and miracles cannot occur, and will examine naturalist objections to Jesus’ appearances, the hallucination or vision theory. The paper shows that this theory fails to adequately account for the historical facts. Finally, it concludes from the Minimal Facts Approach that Jesus’ Resurrection was likely a historical fact.

Miracles

The Resurrection was a miracle. If one is an atheist or a deist, as most skeptics are, then a God who performs miracles is not possible. But the argument for God’s existence is very strong: the creation of the universe (see William L. Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument), its fine-tuning, the origin of life on earth, and the inadequacy of the neo-Darwinian model to fully explain the information content of living creatures, as well as many other arguments. If there is a God who is active in his creation, miracles are possible. Even today, there are credible, documented accounts of miracles.[2]

Historical Principles for Determining Credibility

 The arguments for the historicity of the Resurrection rely on the credibility of the accounts of this event, which took place about 2000 years ago. Theologians Gary Habermas and Mike Licona lay out five widely accepted historical principles that are relevant to the case for the Resurrection:

  1. Multiple, independent sources support historical claims.
  2. Attestation by an enemy supports historical claims.
  3. Embarrassing situations support historical claims.
  4. Eyewitness testimony supports historical claims.
  5. Early testimony supports historical claims.

If one or more of these principles can be applied to the evidence for an event, one can conclude that the event likely happened. On the other hand, the absence of these principles does not disprove the historicity of an event, but simply makes it less certain.

Minimal Facts Approach

Gary Habermas and Michael Licona have developed a Minimal Facts Approach to argue for the historicity of Jesus’ bodily resurrection. The first four facts are almost universally accepted by New Testament scholars, even by those who deny the resurrection. Scholars also widely, but not universally, accept the fifth fact. These facts are:[3]

  • Fact 1: Jesus died by crucifixion.
  • Fact 2: Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.
  • Fact 3: The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed.
  • Fact 4: The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed.
  • Fact 5: The tomb was empty.

Some scholars reject Fact 5, that the tomb was empty, but this is a minority view. Gary Habermas has estimated that “75 percent of scholars on the subject accept the empty tomb as historical fact.”[4]

Fact 1: Jesus Died by Crucifixion

John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, a skeptical scholar, writes: “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”[5] It is attested to by multiple independent sources, including some who were hostile to Christianity.[6] It also satisfies the principle of embarrassment. Crucifixion in the Roman Empire was a shameful as well as painful way to die. If early Christians had decided to make up a story, they would have chosen a more dignified mode of execution. That Jesus died on the cross is attested to in all four Gospels, which were either written by an eyewitness or relied on eyewitness testimony.[7]

The Swoon Theory

The main argument skeptics provide here is not that the crucifixion did not happen, but that Jesus did not die. This is called the apparent death theory or, more frequently, the swoon theory. According to this argument, Jesus did not really die, but revived in the cold tomb. Keeft and Tacelli provide nine arguments to refute this theory.[8] Basically, Jesus could not have survived crucifixion at the hands of the Romans, who were experts at it. But if He had somehow survived it, in His very weakened state, He could not have unwrapped Himself, rolled away the stone, overpowered the guards, walked to the disciples, and convinced them that He had risen from the dead.

Fact 2: The Disciples Believed that He Appeared to Them

            Almost all scholars agree that “something happened” to cause the disciples to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The disciples claimed that they had seen him resurrected and were transformed from “fearful, cowering individuals who denied and abandoned him at his arrest and execution into bold proclaimers of the risen Lord.”[9] They began preaching the resurrection on Pentecost, fifty days after it occurred. All of them faced persecution for their beliefs, and many of them were martyred. People are not willing to die for what they know is a lie. If the disciples had not sincerely believed that Jesus rose from the dead, they would not have paid the very heavy price for their proclamation. Moreover, multiple eyewitness attested to seeing Him alive after the crucifixion, including all of the original Eleven (Judas was dead) and both James and Paul (Facts 3 and 4). The three main objections are the fraud or conspiracy, legend or myth, and hallucination or vision theories.

 Fraud or Conspiracy Theory

One theory is that, after the crucifixion, the disciples conspired to lie that they had seen Jesus appear to them in bodily form. This would also require them to steal His body from the tomb, as otherwise their opponents could have brought it out and paraded it in the streets. Kreeft and Tacelli list seven arguments against this theory.[10] What advantage would the disciples have had from spreading this lie? Most of them were martyred for their faith. As Keeft and Tacelli write, “Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom.”[11] Habermas and Licona make the same argument and add that even if the disciples lied about the Resurrection, it would not explain the conversion of Paul and James (Facts 3 and 4).

Legend or Myth Theory

Another theory holds that accounts of the Resurrection were myths or legends. According to this theory, the historical Jesus was a religious teacher, possibly a healer of psychosomatic illnesses, but not a miracle worker and certainly not one who rose from the dead. As time went on, the legend developed that He worked miracles and rose from the dead.  Embellishments and legends can certainly develop given enough time. The Gospel of Peter, for example, written in about AD 125, added fanciful elements to the Resurrection story, including men descending from heaven and a talking cross.[12] Kreeft and Tacelli list six arguments against this theory.[13] First, the style of the Gospels is devoid of such fanciful elements as found in the Gospel of Peter. A second argument is that there simply was not enough time for such fanciful embellishments. Most scholars believe that the Synoptics were written in the first century AD, when some of the eyewitnesses were probably still alive. Some scholars argue that Luke was written before Paul died in about AD 64, which would make Mark even earlier. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, Paul recites a creed that includes Christ’s death and Resurrection. The letter was probably written in AD 53-54, but the creed is much earlier. Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, and Keith Loftin write, “Most scholars, critical and conservative, date this creed within just a few years after Jesus’s crucifixion. Even Gerd Lüdemann, himself no friend of the resurrection theory, grants ‘that all the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus . . . not later than three years after the death of Jesus.’”[14]

Another problem for the legend theory is that the first eyewitnesses to the Resurrection were women. In first -century Palestine, women were not considered credible witnesses. If the accounts were legendary, they would not have women as the first eyewitnesses. Moreover, the apostles would not have been willing to endure persecution and martyrdom for what they knew was a legend. Nor would a legend have been able to convince Paul and James that Jesus had risen from the dead. Another argument against the legend theory is that first-century Jews did not expect that anyone would rise from the dead before the Last Day. As N.T. Wright says, “Nobody in Judaism had expected the Messiah to die, and therefore naturally nobody had imagined the Messiah rising from the dead.”[15] It is therefore unlikely that a legend about Jesus’ bodily resurrection would have developed.

The Hallucination or Vision Theory

Another naturalist attempt to explain the post-resurrection appearances is the hallucination theory. This theory goes back to the critical New Testament scholar David Strauss, who developed it in the 19th century, and is continued today by Gerd Lüdemann.[16] People often have grief hallucinations in which they think they see the loved one in the distance. This is particularly common if they use alcohol or drugs to numb the pain.[17] The disciples were, of course, grieving over their dead leader. But there are problems with this theory. The above-mentioned creed in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 (NASB) says He “appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.” In other words, the appearances were shared by numerous people at the same time: the apostles in the locked room, the two on the road to Emmaus, the apostles again in Galilee, and the five hundred. But hallucinations are individual experiences – they are not shared. Gould, Dickinson, and Loftin quote clinical psychologist Gary Sibcy, who performed an exhaustive review of the professional literature over two decades. He stated that he had “yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination, that is, an event for which more than one person purportedly shared in a visual or other sensory perception where there was no external referent.”[18]

The hallucination theory also fails to account for the empty tomb. If the disciples merely hallucinated the appearances, the tomb would not be empty. If it were not empty, Tom Wright argues, sooner or later his Jewish followers would have had to collect and rebury his bones, in accordance with Jewish tradition.[19] The theory also fails to account for Facts 3 and 4: It is unlikely that James, the brother of Jesus, would have had a grief-induced hallucination. He might have grieved over the loss of his older brother, but he was a skeptic and did not expect a resurrection. Paul, of course, was a fervent opponent of Christianity and would hardly have grieved over the crucifixion. Moreover, the Gospels recount physical appearances, including the resurrected Jesus’ eating and drinking. The women at the tomb most likely even touched him, as did Thomas.

In the vision theory, the disciples really did see something, but it was a heavenly vision, not a physical body. Jesus’ soul or spirit was raised to heaven and appeared spiritually to them.[20]  This is possible in the case of Paul, who saw a brilliant light. But it does not do justice to the very physical appearances described above, nor does it explain the empty tomb. Wright argues that, without the empty tomb, the disciples would have dismissed the appearances as sightings of a ghost.[21] Some skeptics try to equate the appearance to Paul and the appearance to the disciples. But Jesus’ appearance to Paul came AFTER the Ascension, whereas the disciples saw him while he was still on earth. Moreover, Paul clearly taught that Jesus had a body in the risen state.[22]

Fact 3: The Church Persecutor Paul Was Suddenly Changed.

Paul was a zealous Pharisee who considered the early Christ-followers heretics and a threat. He participated in the stoning of Stephen, the first martyr, in Jerusalem (Acts 8:1). He was on the road to Damascus to bring Christ-followers back to Jerusalem as prisoners when he saw a bright light and heard Jesus say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Acts 9:4). He was blinded and led to Damascus, where his eyes were opened by the Christ-follower Ananias (Acts 9:17). Saul, who was also called by the Greek name Paul, began to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He soon became the apostle to the Gentiles and wrote many of the books in the New Testament. Paul clearly states that the risen Christ “appeared to me also” (Gk. “He was seen by me also”) (1 Cor 15:8). Paul was beheaded for his testimony in Rome in AD 64. It is highly unlikely that Paul would have turned his back on his previous life just based on the testimony of “heretics.” He really thought he had seen the risen Christ.

Fact 4: The Skeptic James, Brother of Jesus, Was Suddenly Changed

James, one of Jesus’ brothers (Mark 6:3), did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Mark 3:21 says, “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” John 7:5 says, “For even his brothers did not believe in him.” In the creed recited by Paul, Jesus appeared to James (1 Cor 15:7). He became a leader in the church at Jerusalem (Acts 15:13) and was martyred.[23] This is another example of a skeptic being converted as a result of seeing the risen Christ.

Fact 5: The Tomb Was Empty

All four Gospels report that, after the crucifixion, Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb. All three report that, on the third day, the women found the tomb empty. This fifth fact is widely, but not universally, accepted among scholars. Bart Ehrman, for example, argues that Jesus’ body was thrown into an open pit, as Romans often did after a crucifixion. But Josh and Sean McDowell point out that the Romans sometimes did permit burial of crucifixion victims in Palestine to avoid defiling the land under Jewish law.[24] Since it was the Sanhedrin that initiated the crucifixion, it was responsible for burying the body. There is also archaeological evidence from Palestine of bones in ossuaries with nails from crucifixion.

Some skeptics argue that Jesus’ body was placed in a tomb, but the body was stolen, either by the disciples or by someone else. If the disciples had stolen it, they would have known the Resurrection was a lie and would not have accepted martyrdom. As for someone else stealing the body, who would have an interest in doing it? This, of course, would not explain the sightings of the resurrected Christ. Another proposed explanation is that the women mistakenly went to the wrong tomb. Jesus body is still in the tomb, but not the one that was empty. First, the women had seen where the body was placed, and it is unlikely that they would have forgotten where it was. Also, Peter (Luke 24:12) or Peter and the “other disciple” (John 20:6-7) ran to the tomb and found strips of linen used for burial. Another problem with this explanation is that the authorities could have produced the body in response to the events at Pentecost. That would have shut down talk of the Resurrection. Instead, they claimed that Jesus’ disciples stole the body (Matt 28:13).

If the tomb was not empty, Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead. It would mean that the sightings of the “resurrected” Jesus would have been visions at most. The empty tomb itself does not prove the Resurrection, but it corroborates the sightings and experience of the disciples that Jesus truly did rise bodily from the dead.

Other Objections (Not Minimal Facts)

Discrepancies Between Resurrection Accounts

One objection often made is that the four Gospels give differing accounts of the Resurrection.[25] For example, how many women went to the tomb on the third day and how many angels were there? Did Jesus appear to the disciples at Jerusalem, as Luke writes, in Galilee, as Matthew writes, or first in Jerusalem and then in Galilee, as John writes? If these differences cannot be reconciled, at worst this would be a blow to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, which does not lie at the center of the Christian faith. Still, Gleason Archer writes, “A careful examination of these four records in comparison with one another demonstrates that they are not in any way contradictory, despite the charges leveled by some critics. It is helpful to synthesize all four accounts in order to arrive at a full picture of what took place on Easter itself and during the weeks that intervened until the ascension of Christ.”[26]  

One should keep in mind that none of the Gospels pretend to be a complete account of the life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus. Books in the first century AD had to be short, as they were written by hand on expensive papyrus or parchment and then had to be copied laboriously by hand to pass them on to others. The authors of the Gospels, therefore, were very selective about which details to include and which to leave out. John only mentions Mary Magdalene at the tomb, but he does not write that she was the only one at the tomb. Matthew (Matt 28:2-7) and Mark (Mark 16:5) write about one angel at the tomb while Luke (Luke 24:4) and John (John 20:12) write about two angels. But Matthew and Mark do not write that there was only one angel at the tomb. Likewise, the apparent problem about where the appearances took place goes away if John’s account is accepted: Jesus appeared to the disciples in both places.

The alleged discrepancies suggest that the Gospel writers are relying on different traditions. This indicates the use of multiple independent sources, which would buttress claims that the Resurrection really did occur.

Other Religions Make Similar Claims

The argument is that other religions make the same claims as Christianity. If these claims are myths, is not the Resurrection also a myth? Note that tis line of argument does not address the evidence laid out in the Minimal Facts approach.

It is not true that other religions make the same claims. Hinduism has no known founder. Buddhism has a founder, Siddhartha Gautama, but he made no claims to divinity, and Buddhism does not speak of a resurrection. The Buddha achieved “enlightenment” and taught that people could escape the cycle of rebirth by following the “eightfold path.” The founder of Islam, the prophet Muhammad, did not claim divine status nor did he rise from the dead. His tomb in Medina is a pilgrimage site for pious Muslims. He claimed to receive the Koran orally from the angel Gabriel over a period of time. The first revelation was in AD 609 in a cave on Mount Hira. Besides himself, there were no witnesses to his receipt of the Koran. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, claimed he received the golden plates from the angel Moroni, which he deciphered using a “seer stone.” Once deciphered, he returned the plates to Moroni. Mormons say there were 11 witnesses to the deciphering process (not to the receipt of the plates), but this does not withstand scrutiny well. One should note that Mormons claim to be Christians, and Muslims count Jesus as one of their prophets.

Contrast the accounts of Muhammad and Joseph Smith to the Resurrection, to which there were numerous eyewitnesses, including up to 500 at one time (1 Cor 15:6). Another notable difference is that many of the Christian eyewitnesses suffered martyrdom for their testimony. Muhammad was a powerful military leader and not martyred. Joseph Smith was killed when he tried to defend himself in a local jail using a smuggled pistol. Both Muhammad and Joseph Smith also benefited from their stories with power and multiple wives. There is nothing like that in the early Christian church.

Among world religions, Christianity’s claims are unique. They should be evaluated on the evidence.

The Gospel’s Authors Were Biased

 The argument is that the Gospel authors were followers of Jesus Christ, and so were biased. Can we trust biased sources?

Of course they were biased! They believed in the Resurrection. If you believe in the Resurrection, you would be a fool not to follow Christ! Who else besides a believer would write an account about someone that most people had never heard of? But biased does not mean untrustworthy. Perhaps everything we know about ancient personalities comes from sources that were biased either for or against that person. Even modern historians, who endeavor to be “objective,” have a point of view. If we disqualify all sources that have a bias, we would know very little about anything. That the writers of the Gospels were biased does not mean they were not honest or objective.

Minimal Facts Conclusion

The most controversial of the five minimal facts are the empty tomb and the nature of the appearances to the disciples. Fact 1, the crucifixion, is not questioned by serious scholars – it is confirmed by multiple sources, including non-Christian ones such as Josephus, and the criterion of embarrassment makes it extremely unlikely that early Christians would have invented such a shameful death for their leader.[27] Fact 3 – that Paul suddenly changed due to a claimed appearance – is well known. Paul was a fierce opponent of the Christian faith, and only a dramatic event could have explained his conversion. Fact 4 – that James, the brother of Jesus, converted – also requires an explanation. The gospels record that James rejected his brother’s claims, but suddenly in Acts he is a leader of the church in Jerusalem. Paul reports that Jesus appeared to James after the Resurrection, which would explain his conversion.

The naturalist explanations of Fact 5, the empty tomb – theft of the body, the swoon theory, wrong tomb – are questionable and fail to address the other four facts. In particular, the suggestion that the disciples might have stolen the body does not work. If they had stolen the body, they would have known that the resurrection was a lie and would not have been willing to suffer and die for proclaiming it. This contradicts fact 2 – the disciples believed Jesus appeared to them. The case is very strong that his appearances were real, bodily ones and not hallucinations or mere visions.

The Minimal Facts, taken together, make a powerful case for the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It is the best explanation for all five facts looked at individually and taken together. Each of the naturalist theories at best explains one of the facts taken in isolation. Combining the naturalist theories together to explain all the facts decreases their likelihood immensely.[28]

If you would like a Word document of this article, please send me an email at rampinelli@aol.com.

Bibliography

Archer, Gleason L., Jr. New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001. 

Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006.

Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith : Christian Truth and Apologetics. Third edition. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008.

Gould, Paul M., Travis Dickinson, and R. Keith Loftin. Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel. Nashville, TN: B & H Academic, 2018. 

Habermas, Gary R., and Mike Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004.

Keener, Craig S. Miracles Today: the Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021.

Kreeft, Peter J. and Ronald T. Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009.

McDowell, Josh and Sean McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, 4th ed. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2017.

Moreland, James Porter, and Tim Muehlhoff. The God Conversation : Using Stories and Illustrations to Explain Your Faith. Revised and expanded 2nd ed. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2017.

Wright, N. T. (Nicholas Thomas). Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church. New York: HarperOne, 2008.

[1] Peter J. Kreeft and Ronald T. Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics: Reasoned Answers to Questions of Faith, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009), 192.

[2] See Craig S. Keener, Miracles Today: The Supernatural Work of God in the Modern World, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021).

[3] Gary R. Habermas, and Mike Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2004), 48-77

[4] Habermas and Licona, 70.

[5] Habermas and Licona, 49. They quote from John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991), 145.

[6] Habermas and Licona, 49.

[7] See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 6.

[8] Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, 193-195.

[9] Habermas and Licona, 50.

[10] Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, 195-197.

[11] Kreeft and Tacelli, Handbook of Catholic Apologetics, 196.

[12] Ibid., 201.

[13] Ibid., 200.

[14] Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, and Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel, Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 71.

[15] N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope (London: SPCK, 2007), 59.

[16] William Lane Craig. Reasonable Faith : Christian Truth and Apologetics. Third edition. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2008. p. 384

[17] Habermas and Licona, 105-6

[18] Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, und Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel, Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 122.

[19] Tom Wright. Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, (New York: HarperOne, 2008), 69-70.

[20] Habermas and Licona, 154-155.

[21] Wright, Surprised by Hope, 70.

[22] Habermas and Licona, p. 155

[23] Habermas and Licona, 68.

[24] Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict: Life-Changing Truth for a Skeptical World, 4th ed. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2017), 251.

[25] Habermas and Licona, 122-123.

[26] Gleason L. Archer, Jr. New International Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 420.

[27] Habermas and Licona, 48-49.

[28] Habermas and Licona, p. 120-121

Brief History of Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

November 27, 2023 /

1917  Balfour Declaration by the British Government, supporting a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine.

1917 – 1948  British Mandate in Palestine. British take Palestine from the Ottomans. In 1919, the newly established League of Nations gave the British a mandate over Palestine and a separate mandate over the area east of the Jordan River.

1917    Expelled Jews allowed to return.

1919 – 1923  Third Aliyah. 40,000 Jews immigrated.

1921  Jaffa riots. Arab mobs violently attacked Jewish population.

1924 – 1928  Fourth Aliyah. More than 80,000 Jews immigrated.

1929 – 1939  Fifth Aliyah. 225,000-300,000 Jewish immigrants.

1929  Palestine riots. Arab mobs attacked Jewish population centers. Triggered by a dispute over access to the Western Wall of Temple Mount.

1936 – 1939  Arab revolt. Arabs revolted against British, calling for independence and an end to Jewish immigration as well as Jewish land purchases.

1947  Approximately 630,000 Jews and 1.2 million Arabs lived in Palestine.

1947 (Nov. 29)  UN General Assembly approves a partition plan for Palestine.

1947-48  Civil War between Jews and Arabs

1948 (May 14)  State if Israel announced on the eve of the end of the British Mandate.

1948  Arab-Israeli War. Arab armies from Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq attack the new State of Israel on May 15. The war lasts until 1949, ending with a series of armistices (Egypt: 24 February, Lebanon on 23 March, Transjordan on 3 April, and Syria on 20 July). The armistice lines, called the Green Line, formed the borders of Israel until the 1967 war. Israel greatly expanded its territory. Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt the Gaza Strip.

            Around 750,000 Arabs fled or were expelled (Nakba, or catastrophe). Surrounding Arab countries put them in camps and refused to assimilate them. 156,000 Arabs remained in Israel and became citizens. Jordan expelled Jewish residents from the Old City of Jerusalem.

1948-1972  Large-scale Jewish emigration from the Muslim world (much of it forced). Between 800,000 and 1,000,000 Jews emigrated; 650,000 settled in Israel.

1948-1951  700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, including 300,000 from Muslim countries.

1956  Suez Crisis. Israel, the United Kingdom, and France attack Egypt to regain control of the Suez Canal. The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. pressured the parties to withdraw.

1964  Palestine Liberation Organization founded with the goal of establishing an Arab state over all of the former Mandate of Palestine, eliminating the State of Israel. Also, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was established

1967  (June 5 – 10)  Six Day War. In May, 1967, Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, cutting off Israel’s southern port, Aqaba. It mobilized its troops and demanded that the UN withdraw peacekeepers from Sinai. Israel struck launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt on June 5, destroying its air assets on the ground. It attacked the Gaza Strip and Sinai, which it seized. Jordan attacked Israel, assisted by Iraq, and Israel counterattacked, seizing East Jerusalem and the West Bank. On Day 5, Syria joined the war. Israel countered by seizing the Golan Heights.

            This was followed by a war of attrition between Egypt and Israel, in which each side shelled the other side’s military positions across the Suez Canal.

            The result: Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and Sinai, Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. Between 200,000 to 250,000 civilians fled the West Bank (out of a total population of 1,000,000). Between 80,000 and 110,000 Syrians fled the Golan Heights.

June 19, the Israeli government decided to return Sinai (but not the Gaza Strip) and the Golan Heights in return for a peace agreement and demilitarization. In September at the Khartoum Arab Summit, the Arab countries rejected it, under the motto “no peace, no recognition and no negotiation with Israel”. But starting in 1971, Egypt began making overtures through the U.S., offering peace if Israel returned the Sinai and other Arab territories.

On June 25-27, Israeli incorporated East Jerusalem into a united Jerusalem municipality, effectively annexing it.

Gush Enunim launched a settlement program in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and now there are hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers (no longer in Gaza), which is an obstacle to a peace solution.

1968   The PLO and PFLP  began a campaign of international terror, primarily directed at hijacking El Al flights. The PLO also began to attack Jordanian interests.

1970    Black September. Jordan fights and expels PLO from Jordan. PLO moves to Lebanon.

1972    Munich Olympics Massacre. Palestinian terrorists, assisted by German Neo-Nazis, capture then kill 11 members of the Israeli Olympic Team.

1973    Yom Kippur War, October 6 – 25. Egypt and Syria, helped by expeditionary forces from other Arab countries, Cuba, and North Korea, launched a surprise attack against Israel on October 6, Yom Kippur, a high Jewish holiday. Israel was taken by surprise and suffered initial losses. It counterattacked and drove the Syrians from Golan and pushed the Egyptians back. It then crossed the Suez Canal and encircled the Egyptian Third Army.

            After the ceasefire, Egypt and Israel agreed to disengage, with the Israelis returning back across the Suez Canal but retaining most of the Sinai. A disengagement agreement was made with Syria in 1974, with Israel returning to the ceasefire line of 1967.

1975    Lebanese civil war begins, at first between Christian militias and Palestinians (PLO). Soon other Lebanese groups joined in. Fighting lasted until 1990.

1977    Egyptian president Sadat visits Israel and speaks before the Knesset.

 1978   Peace talks between Egypt and Israel, hosted by U.S. President Carter. Called the Camp David Accords after the venue, resulted in a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Israel withdrew from Sinai but retained the Gaza Strip. In 1981, Sadat was assassinated by angry military officers, but his successors have maintained peace with Israel.

1981    Palestinian Islamic Jihad founded. It calls for the military destruction of Israel and rejects a two-state solution. Its military wing is the Al Quds Brigade (Al Quds is the Arabic designation of Jerusalem).

1982-1985   Israel invades Lebanon to defeat PLO forces in southern Lebanon, which had been attacking northern Israel. It continued its advance to Beirut, where the PLO had its headquarters. The PLO received help from Syrian forces. Israel drove the Syrians out to the Bekaa Valley and besieged Beirut. In August and September, 14,000 PLO fighters evacuated to Tunisia, where they established their new headquarters. In 1982, US Marines landed in Lebanon as part of the Multinational Force supervising the truce between Israel and the PLO. October 23, 1983, Shia suicide bombers drove into the French and American military barracks, killing 241 Marines and 58 French paratroopers. In June 1985, Israel withdrew to a buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Conflict with the Lebanese Shia militia Hizbollah began.

1987-1993  First Intifada in the occupied territories. Much of it consisted of non-violent political actions, but there were also violent actions, and the first suicide attacks began. 160 Israelis and 2,162 Palestinians were killed, including 1,000 Palestinians killed by other Palestinians under the accusation of being collaborators. It ended with the Oslo Accords.

1987    Hamas founded as an explicitly Islamic resistance movement. The founding charter of Hamas mandates the killing of Jews, the destruction of the state of Israel, and advocates for the establishment of an Islamic state in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

1993 – 1995    First Oslo Accord (Declaration of Principles) agreed on in Washington on September 13, 1993. The PLO recognized the existence of Israel and Israel recognized the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Second Oslo Accord, negotiated in Taba, Egypt in 1995, established the Palestinian Authority and a stepwise withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank was divided into three areas: A, B, and C. The Israeli military remains in areas B and C. Negotiations on a final status agreement were supposed to begin. Israeli prime minister Yitshak Rabin was assassinated by a far-right Israeli settler  in 1995.

2000    U.S. president Bill Clinton hosted the Camp David Summit between Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat. Israel offered a Palestinian state initially on 73% of the West Bank (that is, 27% less than the Green Line borders) and 100% of the Gaza Strip. In 10–25 years, the Palestinian state would expand to a maximum of 92% of the West Bank (91 percent of the West Bank and 1 percent from a land swap). Israel would keep a swath of land between Maale Adumim (7 km east of Jerusalem) and the Jordan River and would also control the border between Jordan and the West Bank. The Palestinians said this would divide their state into 3 sections on the West Bank. Palestine would also have sovereignty over the Temple Mount but not the Western Wall. An elevated highway would connect Gaza and the West Bank. The right of return remained a sticking point – the Israelis rejected it and the Palestinians insisted on it. The parties failed to reach agreement, and in 2001 hawkish Ariel Sharon replaced Ehud Barak. The discussions surrounding the Camp David Summit were perhaps the last best chance to reach an agreement.

2000-2005  On September 28, 2000, Ariel Sharon’s led a Likud delegation to visit the Temple Mount. The Second Intifada began the next day, with Palestinians throwing rocks at Jews worshiping at the Western Wall. The Intifada lasted at least until 2005. Approximately 1000 Israelis and 4800 Palestinians were killed plus an additional 577 Palestinians by other Palestinians.

2004    Yassir Arafat died on November 11.

2005    Mahmoud Abbas elected president of the Palestinian National Authority (later also State of Palestine).

2005    Israel, under right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, dismantles 21 settlements and withdraws completely from the Gaza Strip. It also evacuated 4 settlements from the northern West Bank. Israel instituted a partial blockade of Gaza to prevent military and dual use supplies from entering the Strip. The next three years saw a sharp rise in rocket attacks against Israel.

2006    Hamas won legislative elections and formed a government under Ismail Haniya.

2006    Hamas raided Israel from Gaza and abducted Corporal Gilad Shalit. Israel responded with Operation Summer Rains, which consisted of increased shelling and ground incursions, with the goal of stopping rocket attacks and rescuing Corporal Shalit. Israel also destroyed Gaza’s only power station.

2006-8            Negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On September 16, 2008, Olmert offered a plan that was more generous than the 2000 plan offered at the Camp David Summit. The West Bank would not be divided and there would be a tunnel between it and Gaza. Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem would be under the PA’s authority, which would make it possible to establish a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem. Small, isolated Jewish settlements would be dismantled. Large ones annexed by Israel, but land given to Palestinians in compensation. No right of return (only 1000 per year for 5 years), but a fund to help compensate refugees. Abbas rejected the offer, because he was not given the opportunity to study a detailed plan of Jerusalem.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ehud-olmert-s-peace-offer and https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/diplomacy-defense/92894-151119-abbas-says-he-rejected-olmert-peace-offer-in-2008-over-unseen-map

2007    Battle of Gaza, June 10-14. Armed Hamas militants violently seized PA facilities in Gaza and dismissed all non-Hamas officials. President Abbas dissolved the Hamas-led Haniya government, replacing it with a government led by Salam Fayyad.

2008-9            On February 27, Palestinian militants fired more than 40 rockets from northern Gaza. Israel responded with Operation Hot Winter, launching air attacks against militants and government facilities in Gaza. A ceasefire was negotiated. Israel broke the ceasefire on November 4 in response to finding a tunnel on the border, which it said would be used to capture more Israeli soldiers. Hamas responded by launching rocket attacks. Israel began an offensive on December 28 called Operation Cast Lead and began a ground invasion on January 3. An estimated 1,116-1,417 Palestinians and 13 Israelis died.

2011    On August 18, Palestinian militants launched cross-border attacks on civilian and military targets.

2012    On March 9, Israel carried out a targeted air strike in the Gaza Strip killing Zohair al-Qaisi, the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). Israel said it was a preemptive attack to prevent a massive cross-border attack that al-Qaisi was planning. Militants responded with a massive wave of rocket attacks. Israel’s response was Operation Returning Echo. Israel bombed targets connected with Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees. In October, Israel targeted Ahmed Jabari, chief of the Hamas military wing.

2014    Gaza War. Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 in response to Hamas rocket attacks. On July 17, Israeli troops entered the Gaza Strip. This war killed 2,205 Palestinians and 71 Israelis plus 1 foreign national.

            Jerusalem Unrest on the West Bank, especially in July. Sometimes called the Third Intifada. More than 150 attacks. On November 18, the synagogue massacre, in which two Palestinians attacked worshipers with knives and axes, killing four plus a responding police officer.

2015-6 “Intifada of the Individuals” on the West Bank. Uncoordinated attacks in response to the Israeli Agricultural Minister’s public prayers on the Temple Mount. Period of unrest lasted well into 2016.

2017    Temple Mount crisis. July 14, three armed Israeli-Arabs shot and killed two Israeli police officers guarding an entrance to the Temple Mount. Israel responded by setting up metal detectors, which triggered a wave of unrest in which 11 people died. The metal detectors were removed on July 27.

            December: “Day of rage”, including protests and clashes throughout the West Bank, after President Trump announces decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

2018    Gaza border protests, including clashes with Israeli border troops.

2019    Multiple clashes between Israel and Gaza militants.

            November 26, “day of rage” on the West Bank and Gaza after U.S: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that Israeli settlements were not illegal.

2021    Rocket attacks on Israel, followed by air attacks on militants in Gaza.

2022    Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza.

2023    April-May. Militants fired rockets into Israel. Israel responded with airstrikes.

            October 7, Hamas launched a well-prepared ground attack on southern Israel as well as simultaneous rocket attacks. Some 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, were murdered and 240 taken hostage. Israel responded with air attacks and, since October 27, a ground offensive called Operation Swords of Iron, which is ongoing. Israel’s goal is the return of all hostages and the destruction of Hamas.

Discussion of Resignation Letter by Craig Mokhiber

November 27, 2023 /

By Greg Rampinelli

Craig Mokhiber was Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. He resigned on October 28, 2023, due to what he calls the UN’s failure in Gaza. The letter can be found here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24103463-craig-mokhiber-resignation-letter.

Mokhiber’s Accusations

In the letter, he accuses Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and of seizing and reassigning homes in Jerusalem based solely on race. He also says violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Moreover, he claims that Apartheid rules “across the land”. In addition, he accuses “western corporate media” of continuously “dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence.”

Accusation: Israel is committing genocide

Mokhiber does not mention the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, in which Hamas fighters brutally murdered some 1400 Israelis. It was this which triggered the Israeli counterstrikes and invasion of Gaza.

Article II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as follows.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

  1. Killing members of the group;
  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
  3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

To qualify as genocide, the intent to destroy a group, in whole or in part, is essential. Mokhiber provides no evidence that Israel is trying to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza. It is trying to destroy Hamas, an organization recognized as terrorist by much of the world. There are, of course, enraged Israelis who would contemplate that. Hamas, by the way, still wants to destroy the State of Israel and establish an Islamic state “from the River to the Sea”. What that would mean for the 7 million Jews in Israel is easy to imagine.

Israel is conducting air and ground operations in the Gaza Strip to root out and destroy Hamas. Israel claims it is targeting military targets only. Urban warfare is very bloody, and Gaza is densely populated. In the battle for Mosul against ISIS, between 9000 and 11000 civilians died, according to the Associated Press. Those civilians who have not fled northern Gaza, where fighting is currently concentrated, are in danger of being killed in the military operations. While the civilian losses are horrific, they are not evidence of genocide.

The letter accuses Israel of genocide, not of war crimes. Mokhiber would stand on firmer ground if he had accused Israel of war crimes. Crimes occur in all major wars. Civilized countries try to avoid them and punish the perpetrators when discovered. But is Israel committing war crimes?

The International Committee of the Red Cross states these principles of International Humanitarian Law, which commanders must ensure are followed:

Distinction: You must always clearly distinguish between combatants and civilians or the civilian population as such. Combatants may of course be attacked unless they are out of action, i.e. they are hors de combat. Civilians are protected from attack but lose that protection whenever they take a direct part in hostilities for the time of their participation.

Proportionality: When military objectives are attacked, civilians and civilian objects must be spared from incidental or collateral damage to the maximum extent possible. Incidental damage must not be excessive in relation to the direct and concrete military advantage you anticipate from your operations.

Military necessity: “the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy” and that “for this purpose it is sufficient to disable the greatest possible number of men.” It allows for whatever reasonable force is necessary, is lawful and can be operationally justified in combat to make your opponent submit. 

Limitation: Weapons and tactics that are of a nature to cause unnecessary suffering or superfluous injury are prohibited. It applies, for example, to weapons designed to cause injuries that are impossible to treat or that result in a cruel and lingering death.

Good faith: The military should show good faith in their interpretation of the law of armed conflict. Good faith must also be observed in negotiations between opponents and with humanitarian organizations.

Humane treatment and non-discrimination: All people must be treated humanely and without discrimination based on sex, nationality, race, religion or political beliefs. Those who are out of action (hors de combat), such as surrendering combatants, air crew parachuting from downed aircraft, the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, prisoners of war and other captives and detainees, must be identified as such and treated humanely.

Regarding civilian infrastructure, Hague IV states:

Article 25: The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.

Article 26: The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities.


Article 27: In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.

It is the duty of the besieged to indicate the presence of such buildings or places by distinctive and visible signs, which shall be notified to the enemy beforehand.[2]

Hospitals, schools, and the like must be spared unless they are being used for military purposes. If a school is used to store large amounts of ammunition, for example, it becomes a legitimate military target. Power stations are legitimate military targets if enemy forces are drawing power from them. The principles of proportionality and military necessity apply, but these are judgment calls.

Israel’s military operations are clearly causing massive civilian casualties. Israel is not carpet-bombing Gaza: It selects its targets based on its understanding of military necessity. But in an urban environment, “collateral damage” is inevitable. If civilians share an apartment block with a Hamas commander, Israel can attack the commander, which will cause civilian casualties. This is not a war crime, unless it is militarily unnecessary or collateral damage is unproportional, which is subjective. We will probably not know until after the war whether Israel committed war crimes, but war crimes are common in such wars, and are not genocide.

Mokhiber also accuses Israel of seizing and reassigning homes in Jerusalem based solely on race. He gives no specifics, but he might be referring to cases such as that of Ghaith-Sub Laban. https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-jerusalem-old-city-evictions-east-c53ae70f2fa76e4b1f4b528bca4ff35e

Her apartment used to belong to Jews, who were forced to flee when Jordan conquered East Jerusalem in 1948. Israel annexed East Jerusalem after the Six-Day War in 1967, and decided to return property to Jews who were expropriated in 1948. Germany did something similar after reunification in 1991. Of course, this principle does not apply to Palestinians who were forced out of their homes in Israel in 1948, who are not allowed to return, so it seems unfair. But it’s not genocide.

Mokhiber claims that settler pogroms are accompanied by military units. He gives no specifics. Israeli settlers in the West Bank have attacked Palestinian civilians, and Palestinian civilians have attacked them. It is a problem, but violence is not one-sided. Jewish settlers have also attacked Israeli soldiers https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-palestinians-jewish-settlers-storrm-town-pepper-spray-soldiers-rcna53240. If Mokhiber has specific cases of Israeli settlers being accompanied by Israeli military units when attacking Palestinians, he should cite them.  

Accusation: Apartheid rules “across the land”

Does Israel practice Apartheid? If we define Apartheid as in South Africa (or the U.S. South under Jim Crow), it does not practice Apartheid in Israel itself. Arab Israelis are citizens and have essentially all the rights that Jewish citizens have. There are currently nine Arab members of the Knesset plus one Arabic-speaking Druze member. As there are 120 members of the Knesset in total, Arabs are underrepresented, but they are present. An Israeli Arab, Khaled Kabub, was appointed to Israel’s Supreme Court in 2022.

As of March 2023, Israel’s population stands at approximately 9.73 million. Jews make up the majority at 73.5% (about 7.145 million individuals).[3] The Arab community, spanning various religions excluding Judaism, accounts for 21% (around 2.048 million). An additional 5.5% (roughly 534,000 individuals) are classified as “others”. This diverse group comprises those with Jewish ancestry but not recognized as Jewish by religious law, non-Jewish family members of Jewish immigrants, Christian non-Arabs, Muslim non-Arabs, and residents without a distinct ethnic or religious categorization.[4] 

Regarding education, more and more Arab-Israelis are attending college, both in absolute terms and proportionately.  In 2021, they were about 17% of all students in Israel, somewhat less than their 21% share of the population. https://che.org.il/en

Israeli Arabs, both Christian and Muslim, can serve in the Israeli Defense Force, but are not subject to conscription.

Israel is an explicitly Jewish state, established to be a homeland for Jews worldwide, so there is some discrimination, especially regarding immigration. Israeli Arabs may very well experience discrimination in employment and housing, which is a common experience of minorities everywhere, but this is improving. This is not Apartheid.

If Mokhaber is referring to the West Bank, he could make a much stronger argument. The West Bank is still occupied, and its residents are not Israeli citizens, except for the settlers. Israel considers them an unfriendly, possibly enemy population, and keeps them under control for security reasons. The solution is to end the Occupation, but this requires a peace agreement. Ehud Olmert’s proposal of 2008 was the best chance yet to achieve this.

Western “corporate media” continuously dehumanizes Palestinians

Is he talking about Fox News?

In my opinion, much of the western media is very sympathetic to the plight of Palestinian civilians, but not to Hamas. The media outlets I watch try to present both sides and are somewhat skeptical about Netanyahu and the Israeli military’s account. This is a matter of perception, of course. Both sides accuse the media of bias toward the other side.

Here’s an interesting anecdote about an NBC journalist who took Hamas’s side in the October 7 attacks: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nbc-journalist-arrested-by-israeli-police-for-cheering-on-hamas-during-horrific-terror-attack/

Mokhiber’s Solution

To remedy the problem, Mokhiber recommends the following:

  • One state based on human rights
  • Return and compensation for Palestinian refugees
  • Disarmament of Israel’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons

One-state based on human rights

The UN in 1948 established a Jewish state and an Arab state in the British Mandate of Palestine west of the Jordan River. Since the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Palestine was supposed to become a homeland for the Jews, where they could be safe. The Holocaust showed that a Jewish state was essential. Jews have been safest in western Europe and the U.S., but even there, anti-Semitism is rising. A Jewish state is needed now as much as before.

The conflict between Arabs and Israelis prior to 1948 showed that a unitary state would be filled with conflict: One side would dominate and oppress the other. This is what Mokhiber accuses Israel of doing. If the unitary state were dominated by the Arabs, would they suddenly treat the Jews fairly? Recent history shows they would not!

As for “based on human rights”, where do we find that in the Arab world? That is totally unrealistic. A unitary state in Palestine would turn the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into an internal one, a civil war. Is that a good solution?

Many Palestinians want a unitary state because they believe they would dominate it. According to the Arab Center in Washington, D.C., the estimated number of Palestinians at the end of 2021 was about 14 million: 5.3 million in the State of Palestine (3.2 million in the West Bank and 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip), 1.7 million in the 1948 territories, and nearly 7 million in the diaspora (6.3 million live in Arab countries and 750,000 in foreign countries). https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/brief-report-on-the-population-of-palestine-at-the-end-of-2021.

There are 7 million Jews in Israel. Even if none of the Palestinians in the diaspora returned, the number of Palestinians would equal the number of Jews in a unitary state. Israel/Palestine would no longer be a Jewish state and would not be safe as a homeland for the Jews.

Far-right Israelis also want a unitary state “from the river to the sea”, but they want it to be Jewish, with the Arabs expelled.

Both Jews and Palestinians have legitimate historical claims to the land. Palestine “from the river to the sea” was the land of Israel in biblical times. Even after the Bar Kochba revolts in 136 A.D., Jews remained the majority of the population. Eventually, the land became Arab and Muslim, but Jews maintained a significant presence in the land. Palestinians, of course, have also lived there for centuries. If they cannot live together in peace in a unitary state, a two-state solution is best, as the UN envisioned in 1948. Ehud Olmert’s plan of 2008 would have been a good solution, but the Palestinians rejected it.    

Return and compensation for Palestinian refugees

During the 1948 War, 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled Israel. Since the surrounding Arab countries refused to assimilate them but insisted on return, the descendants of the original refugees are also considered to be refugees. Accordingly, about 5 million Palestinians are considered refugees. If they all returned to Israel, it would no longer be a Jewish state and not a safe homeland for the Jews.

At the end of World War II, millions of Germans fled eastern Europe to what remained of Germany. They were assimilated. Do they have legitimate claims to return to their ancestral lands?

Reasonable compensation of Palestinian refugees would be appropriate, and Israel has offered that as part of a peace agreement, but a right of return, if fully exercised, would destroy Israel.

Disarmament of Israel’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons

Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons, but it is very likely that it has them. Israel probably does not have chemical or biological weapons, although it could make them. As long as Israel is threatened, by Iran, for example, it will not voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons. That would be national suicide. The United Nations realistically cannot make that happen.

Conclusion

Hamas’s attack on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, was horrific. It murdered some 1400 peaceful, unarmed civilians in shockingly brutal ways. And given the chance, it will do it again. Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation on October 24, 2023: “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it again and again. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its 7 October onslaught – ed.] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

For the peace of Palestine and the security of Israel, Hamas must be destroyed, just as the Nazis had to be destroyed in World War II.

An opinion poll of Palestinians conducted by Birzeit University, Ramallah (West Bank) showed that some 75% of Palestinians support the Hamas-led slaughter of Oct. 7. Likewise, 75% of Palestinians seek the annihilation of Israel. They want a Palestine “from the river to the sea.” This position is distinct from a position of supporting a Jewish-Arab state from the river to the sea, or the so-called “one-state solution,” which only 5.4% of Palestinians support. Another 17.2% support the two-state solution.

Right-wing Israelis cite this to support their own preference of a Jewish state from the River to the Sea, but that would require the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their ancestral home, which is morally unacceptable. The current situation in the West Bank is morally unacceptable and will continue to breed terror attacks. Palestinians need a greater degree of self-rule so they can develop economically and socially. But they need to give up their dream of driving Israel into the sea.

One option would be for Egypt to take over the Gaza Strip and Jordan the West Bank. Israel would probably welcome that, but neither the Palestinians nor Egypt and Jordan want that. The most feasible solution is a two-state solution with a demilitarized Palestinian state subject to some kind of outside monitoring. Prime Minister Olmert’s proposal in 2008 would have been a fair solution. Perhaps it can be resurrected.

If Mokhiber really wants peace in Palestine, he should support a negotiated two-state solution. In the meantime, he and other “human rights activists” should try to be more even-handed. Israelis don’t consider the United Nations a neutral actor. In that, I believe Israel is right. If the UN cannot condemn the Hamas atrocity of October 7, 2023, without reservation, it has lost all moral authority.

Brief History of the Jews in the Holy Land Up to 1917

November 27, 2023 /

Abraham (ca. 2000 B.C.) “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates – the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.” (Genesis 15:18-21)

“I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will give into your hands the people who live in the land, and you will drive them out before you. Do not make a covenant with them or with their gods. Do not let them live in your land or they will cause you to sin against me, because the worship of their gods will certainly be a snare to you.” – Exodus 23:31–33

Israel ultimately conquered this territory under King David, but never occupied it completely – that would have required them to live in Syria and Lebanon as well.

Ca. 1445 to 1405 B.C. Exodus (alternative: 1245-1205 B.C.).

Ca. 1405 B.C. to 1385 B.C. Conquest of Canaan

Ca. 1385 B.C. to 1050 B.C.Wars of the Judges (including Samuel)

Ca. 1050 B.C. Monarchy established

722 B.C. The Assyrians sent the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom into exile. The ten northern tribes were then lost to history.

The remaining inhabitants of the Northern Kingdom are probably the forerunners of the Samaritans, who considered themselves the descendants of Israel and worshipped on Mount Gerizim. The Jews did not consider them true descendants of Israel, and there was enmity between the two peoples.

608 – 538 B.C. Babylonian Exile (alternative: 586 – 516 B.C.).

516 B.C. Rebuilt Temple dedicated

445 B.C. Walls of Jerusalem completed

332 B.C. Alexander the Great conquers Judea

167 B.C.  Antiochus Epiphanes, the Seleucid (Greek) King of Syria, bans Jewish religious practices and dedicates the Jewish Temple to the Greek god Zeus. Maccabees rebel.

165 B.C. Maccabees retake Temple.

152 B.C.  Hasmonean dynasty established.

67 B.C. Romans under Pompey conquer Syria and Judea.

37 B.C.  Herod the Great appointed King of the Jews

66 – 73 A.D. First Jewish rebellion. Romans destroy the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

132 – 136 A.D. Bar Kochba revolt. Judea and Galilee devastated. Jews barred from Jerusalem.

From 4th century A.D. Christianization. Jews remain a significant minority (possibly a majority)

438 A.D. Eastern Roman Empress Eudocia removes ban against Jews praying at the Temple site.

5th century A.D. Increased Christian immigration due to collapse of Wester Roman Empire.

614 A.D. Sassanids (Persians) conquer Jerusalem with Jewish help.

628 A.D. Byzantine Emperor Heraclius retakes Jerusalem with Jewish assistance. He reneges on his promise of restoring Jewish rights and carried out a massacre of the Jewish population, devastating Jewish communities of Jerusalem and Galilee. Jews flee the area or hide in mountains.

638 A.D.  Arab/Muslim conquest. Gradual Arabization of the population (many remained Christian). Jews allowed back into Jerusalem and maintained a significant presence in the region.

720 A.D. Jews banned from worshiping on the Temple Mount. Ban remained for 1000 years.

Subsequent centuries: Jewish emigration due to discrimination and persecution. Jews remained a significant minority.

1099 – 1291 A.D.  Crusades. Jews often fought on the side of the Muslims. Multiple massacres of Jews.

1187 A.D.  Saladin conquers Jerusalem and Palestine. Lets Jews return to Jerusalem.

1260 A.D. Egyptian Mamluks take control. Mamluks oppressed Jews (and Christians) and destroyed coastal cities, where many Jews lived. Despite this, there were waves of Jewish immigration to Palestine over the next centuries.

1517 A.D.  Ottomans conquer Palestine and make it part of the province of Syria. About 5000 Jews in Palestine, many in Safed in Galilee.

17th century  Decline in Jewish population due to economic and security problems.

1834 Peasants revolt in Egypt. Looting of Safed and Hebron massacre.

19th century Ashkenazi Jews immigrated from Eastern Europe and Sephardic Jews from Bulgaria, Turkey, and North Africa.

1880   The Jewish population of Palestine numbered around 20,000 to 25,000, of whom two-thirds lived in Jerusalem. About 10% of the total population.

1881-1903  First Aliyah. About 25,000 to 35,000 Jews immigrated to Palestine.

1896  A majority of the population of Jerusalem is Jewish.

1904 – 1914  Second Aliyah. 35,000 Jews immigrated, mostly from Russian Empire.

1909  Tel Aviv established as a modern Jewish city.

1914-1918  Ottomans deported many Jews as enemy aliens.

1917 Deportations of all Jews from Jaffa and Tel Aviv

1917  Balfour Declaration by the British Government, supporting a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine.

Miracles Book Discussion Group

October 16, 2022 /

Are you interested in theological questions? Would you like to practice your English?

St. Augustine’s of Canterbury (“The English Church”) in Wiesbaden offers a group discussion of C.S. Lewis’s Miracles, supplemented by examples from Craig Keener’s Miracles Today. The introductory session already took place on October 11, but the actual first discussion will take place on Wednesday, October 26. The group will meet every second Wednesday evening starting at 7 p.m. The sessions will be held in hybrid mode (undercroft of the church on Frankfurter Straße in Wiesbaden and simultaneously by Zoom) and normally last for 60 to 90 minutes.

If you would like to join the group, please contact me, Greg Rampinelli, at rampinelli@aol.com or rampyfhw@aol.com. I will send you the first set of slides as well as the Zoom link. The discussion group is open to anyone, not just members of our church.

Miracles is a philosophical/theological book that argues that miracles can and do occur. We will supplement it with accounts of modern-day miracles collected by Prof. Craig Keener and published in his recent book Miracles Today.

Clives Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a British writer, academic, and lay theologian. He taught literature at Oxford University, then at Cambridge. C.S. Lewis lost his mother when he was young and became an atheist at 15. His atheism was reinforced by the suffering he experienced as an officer in World War I. Thanks to the influence of writers George MacDonald and G.K. Chesterton as well as his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, he slowly and reluctantly began to believe in God. He became a theist in 1929 and a Christian in 1931. Baptized as a child in the Church of Ireland, he returned to the Anglican Church.

C.S. Lewis is famous for his works of fiction, such as the Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters, and The Great Divorce, as well as his Christian apologetics works, such as Surprised by Joy, The Problem of Pain, Miracles, and Mere Christianity.

P.S. We will also form a discussion group for C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, from the Chronicles of Narnia starting (tentatively) on November 13. It will be held after church.

God’s Empathy

December 26, 2021 /

Christmas 2021

We’re approaching the end of the Covid-19 pandemic’s second year. Last summer, thanks to vaccinations, many of us believed it would be over by now, and our lives would get back to normal. But with vaccine hesitancy and the rise of the Delta variant, and now Omicron, our hopes were soon dashed. The restrictions this Christmas are less intrusive than last year – we had a Christmas market in Wiesbaden – but the unvaccinated were barred from stores and restaurants, even with tests.

The split in German society is worse now than last year. Many of the vaccinated point their fingers at the unvaccinated and blame them for the continuing pandemic. Many of the unvaccinated, in turn, argue that the vaccinated have a lack of empathy. And the reality is that vaccines provide a lot of protection but don’t prevent someone from contracting and spreading the disease.

Sympathy, compassion, empathy

Christians are called to love their neighbors as themselves. If our neighbor is suffering, we should understand and care for his or her suffering. That’s sympathy. We should go further and put this understanding and caring into action. That’s compassion. Empathy goes further: here we share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. That’s hard to do.

Some Christians even argue that empathy is wrong. In the conservative evangelical website Desiring God, for example, Joe Rigney writes that empathy is a sin. Adopting the persona of Wormwood in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, he argues that empathy means losing yourself in the other’s feelings, giving up your own identity and judgment. Rigney compares it to seeing someone flailing in quicksand and jumping in with both feet. The result is that both go under. In contrast, compassion means keeping one foot on solid ground while reaching out to the other.

If Rigney’s definition of empathy is correct, then he’s right: when showing compassion, we must remain grounded in Christ. If we see a drug addict shooting up heroin, we must not inject it ourselves to be “empathetic”. But who describes empathy that way?

God’s empathy

God in the person of Jesus Christ gives us a different example of empathy. All people were lost in sin, falling short of the glory of God. There was a gulf, unbridgeable for us, between God’s holiness and our reality. But God loved us greatly and decided to cross over that gap. God’s eternal Word, His only begotten Son, was born to a virgin. Jesus began as an embryo, then a fetus, and finally was born in a stall. The Lord of the Universe had become a baby, whose first bed was a feeding trough for farm animals. C.S. Lewis picturesquely wrote, “If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.”

Jesus lived a simple life as a carpenter’s son in a small village in Galilee. He taught and worked miracles as an itinerant preacher. His family thought He was crazy.  He ran afoul of the religious and political authorities. Betrayed and abandoned by His friends, He was tortured to death on the cross, the most humiliating form of execution the Roman Empire knew.

Jesus had empathy with us. In His human nature, He felt the same things we do – cold, hunger, thirst, pain. Jesus went through this for many reasons. The Lord of the Universe lived as a poor man to elevate the poor, making the last first. He suffered betrayal and death as our representative to redeem us and the world. He didn’t have to go through any of that – but He did because He loved us.

Jesus felt the same things we did. He truly had empathy. But without sin. Rigney’s definition of empathy is wrong, I believe, but he’s right that in showing compassion, we must keep our allegiance to Christ and the truth. If we try to pull someone out of the quicksand, we still must keep one foot on solid ground. Our relationship with God gives us that ground.

Empathy for the unvaccinated

Those of us who are vaccinated must not demonize the unvaccinated. We should understand that many of them are truly afraid of the side effects of the vaccine, including those that are still unknown. And if an unvaccinated person gets seriously sick, we should reject any sense that it “serves them right”. Nor should we exclude them unnecessarily from participation in public life.

But we also have an obligation to others, including those who can’t be vaccinated or are at risk due to weakened immune systems. We should insist on frequent testing of the unvaccinated – and maybe of the vaccinated as well – as a condition for participation in public life. Masks in public spaces indoors should remain mandatory, and we should maintain social distancing.

Empathy, combined with truth, can heal our broken society. Jesus Christ showed us the way. As we celebrate His birth, we should ponder that His life, death, and resurrection served to reconcile us to God and each other. Let’s go about this work of reconciliation.    

photo of constellation
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Pexels.com

The Fine-Tuning Argument

September 28, 2021 /

Greg Rampinelli

The famous neo-Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins writes in The Blind Watchmaker, “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”[i]

The evidence from physics shows that the universe is fine-tuned for life, which strongly suggests design and purpose. This is widely accepted among physicists, including prominent atheists like the late Stephen Hawking, who attempt to explain it through naturalist means. This article discusses some examples of fine-tuning in physics as well as its implications.

Examples of Fine-Tuning

The Hoyle Resonance

The idea of fine-tuning may have originated with astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, who was trying to discover why stars were able to create carbon. After the young universe cooled off enough for atoms to form, there were only two elements in the universe: hydrogen and helium. These atoms came together through gravity to form young stars. As these elements came closer together, the young stars heated up, and the resulting fusion process created the heavier elements, atoms with more protons and neutrons. Hoyle was puzzled because the fusion of beryllium (4 protons and 4 neutrons) with helium (2 protons and 2 neutrons) to create carbon (6 protons and 6 neutrons) was energetically unlikely: beryllium and helium together have a higher energy state than carbon. To produce enough carbon for the universe, there had to be a carbon excitation state with at least 7.596 and 7.716 megaelectron volts more than in the carbon ground energy state, which is a small range. He later discovered that this precise carbon excitation state existed, which is good because otherwise there would be no carbon in the universe (and hence no life).

Hoyle was impressed by the precision required. In 1981 he wrote:

“Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”[i]

Fundamental Particles

The fundamental particles in the universe include electrons and the up and down quarks, as well as a few other quarks, leptons (electrons, muons, tauons, and neutrinos), and force carriers (photons, gravitons, etc.). Up quarks have a charge of +2/3, down quarks have a charge of –1/3, and electrons have a charge of -1.  Protons are made of two up quarks and one down quark, so they have a charge of +1. Neutrons consist of one up quark and two down quarks, so they have a charge of 0. Antiparticles, with opposite charges, also exist. The masses of these particles are important. The up quark has a mass of 2.3MeV, which is 4.5 times that of the electron, which has a mass of 0.511 MeV, while the down quark’s mass is 4.8 MeV, which is 9.4 times that of the electron. That means neutrons are heavier than protons. Since protons are lighter than neutrons, they are inherently stable. As neutrons are heavier, they will decay into a proton, an electron, and an antineutrino within about 15 minutes, unless they are captured in an atom’s nucleus.[ii]

Examples of Fine-Tuning of Particles

The masses of the particles are very important and appear to be fine-tuned. If the mass of the down quark were increased by a factor of 3, the only element in the universe would be hydrogen, as neutrons would decay even in a nucleus. If the mass of the up quark were increased by a factor of 6, protons would fall apart and decay into neutrons, positrons, and neutrinos. There would be no atoms, just a universe filled with neutrons. On the other hand, if the mass of the down quark declined by 8 percent, protons would capture electrons and form neutrons, creating a neutron universe. The same would happen if the mass of electrons increased by a factor of 2.5.[iii]

Are these different values for the quark masses and electrons theoretically possible? As far as we know, yes. An absolute upper boundary for the mass of particles is the Planck mass, at which the particle would become its own black hole. This mass is 1.2 x 1022 MeV, which is astronomically higher than the mass of the up quarks, down quarks, and electrons. The largest quark ever observed (the top quark) had a mass of 1.73 x 105 MeV, which is over 37,000 times larger than the down quark and over 78,000 times larger than the up quark. Even if we take this value as an upper boundary instead of the Planck mass, the likelihood of the up quark and down quark falling in a life-permitting range is very small. As for the electron, the muon and tauon, also leptons, are 206 and 3477 times heavier than the electron’s mass. While there might be reasons why the range of possible values would be less, we don’t know what they are. In conclusion, if the masses of the up quarks and down quarks were determined by chance alone, we would probably not have any elements besides helium.

Neutrinos are extremely common particles, numbering about 340 million per cubic meter in the universe, compared to two hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. They are leptons like electrons but have very little mass, only about one-millionth of the electron’s mass. If the neutrino’s mass increased by a factor of 2, the additional mass in the universe would have prevented galaxy formation.[iv]

Fundamental Forces

Physicists recognize four fundamental forces: the gravitational force, the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. The gravitational force is familiar to us in everyday life: If you drop a ball, it will fall to the ground. We experience the electromagnetic force through electricity and magnetism, but its importance goes far beyond that. For example, the light we see results from this force. With the electromagnetic force, particles with opposite charges (e.g. protons and electrons) attract each other, while particles with the same charge repel each other. The strong force holds the nucleus of an atom together, while the weak force governs radiation but can also convert up quarks into down quarks, and vice versa. These forces can be described through equations. For example, Newton’s gravitational force equation is F = G(M1M2)/d², where M1 is the mass of the first object, M2 is the mass of the second object, d² is the square of the distance between them, and G is the gravitational constant. All forces have constants in their equations. But physics can’t explain why the constants have the values that they do.

Examples of Fine-Tuning of Forces

If the strong force were twice as strong, the early universe would have turned more than 90 percent of the hydrogen formed into helium, instead of the actual 25 percent. In this hydrogen-poor universe, stars would burn very poorly and probably not create more complex elements. Similarly, if gravity were stronger, the universe would have cooled more slowly and protons would have been locked away in helium, so the universe would not have enough hydrogen to make efficient stars or complex elements.[v] But if gravity were much weaker, stars and galaxies would not have formed at all. As for electromagnetism, if it were much weaker, there would be no chemical reactions. If the strong force were much weaker, nuclei larger than hydrogen would not exist. Likewise, if the weak force were weaker, we’d have more neutrons, and all hydrogen would be transformed into helium.

As an example, let’s look at gravity. The strongest of the fundamental forces, the strong force, is 1040 times stronger than gravity. If we take that as an upper bound, the range that gravity could fall in while still permitting life is quite small. If gravity’s force were increased by 3×10³, planets could not last for more than a billion years, which would not be enough time for life to develop. Divided by the maximum range of 1040, the probability that gravity would be consistent with life would be a minuscule 3×10-37. That’s 3 divided by 10 followed by 37 zeros. In contrast, 3 chances in a billion would be 3 divided by 10 followed by 9 zeros. If gravity increased by a factor of a billion (109), any land animals larger than insects would be crushed, or the earth would have to be reduced to a diameter of about 13 meters. But the probability that gravity would fall by chance even within this range is 1031, still minuscule.[vi]

The ratios of the fundamental forces are also important. The ratio of the gravitational force to the electromagnetic force could not vary much from its current value, or there would be no stable stars. The range of ratios consistent with stable stars is about 1 in 1035 of all possible ratios.[vii]  The ratio of the strong force to the electromagnetic force must likewise be similar to its current value. If the ratio were significantly different (0.4 percent), stars would not create carbon (if the strong force were stronger), or the carbon created would all turn into oxygen (if the strong force were weaker).[viii] Furthermore, many elements would not be stable if the ratio of the strong force to the weak force were significantly lower.[ix]

The Cosmological Constant

Einstein originally introduced the cosmological constant, Λ, into his field equations of general relativity to offset the effect of gravity, which would otherwise cause the universe to collapse into itself. He later removed it, but physicists found that it was necessary and so added it back in. Cosmologists today interpret it as “dark energy”, the energy associated with the quantum vacuum. This energy causes the universe’s expansion to accelerate, which is what we observe. The problem is, if we add up the energies in the vacuum, we get a much larger number – by a factor of 10120 – than the actual observed constant. In other words, there must be something that offsets this and does so to an exquisite degree of precision. One possibility might be negative dark energy, which would offset the positive dark energy. If this is the correct interpretation, the ratio of positive and negative dark energy appears to be very precise, since the cosmological constant is 2.888×10-122 lP-2.[x] This is very close to zero, but not quite. If the cosmological constant were strongly negative, the universe would collapse since it would not offset gravity.[xi] If it were slightly more positive, the universe’s expansion would accelerate even more, and galaxies and stars would not have formed.[xii]

The Density of the Universe

The parameter Ω, commonly known as the density parameter, is the mean density of the universe divided by the “critical density”, which is the density at which the universe is flat and Euclidean geometry applies. The density parameter is very close to 1. At the time of the Big Bang, the universe needed to expand at just the right rate. If the expansion rate had been too small, the density would have been much larger than the critical value, and the universe would have recollapsed before galaxies and stars could form. If the expansion rate had been too large, the density would have been much smaller than the critical mass, and regions of small excess density (inhomogeneities) would have been too small for gravity to condense into galaxies. To avoid both cases,  Ω at one second after the Big Bang would have to be equal to 1 to within an error of 10‑15.[xiii] Put another way, the density of the universe one nanosecond after the Big Bang was around 1024 kg/m³. If it had been just one kg/m³ higher, the universe would have collapsed by now. If it had been one kg/m³ lower, the universe would have expanded too rapidly to form stars and galaxies.[xiv]

Entropy

Entropy means disorder. According to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, a closed system over time will increase in entropy. That means, the energy it has available to do useful work will decline over time since its energy will be transformed into heat, which will dissipate. Eventually, our universe will die a heat death, with no useful energy available and all matter dispersed throughout space. That we obviously have not reached a state of total entropy means the universe is not infinitely old (which we already know from the Big Bang). It also means that the amount of entropy was less in the past as the universe was younger. The closer we are to the Big Bang, the lower the entropy. If the universe were organized simply by chance, high entropy universes would be far more likely than the low entropy universe we have. Oxford physicist Roger Penrose estimated the likelihood that our universe would have such low entropy as it has at 1 chance in 1010(123). That’s 101230. In comparison, the known universe has “only” about 1080 particles.

There are other examples of fine-tuning in the universe. These are just some of the most prominent ones. There are also arguments that our planet is fine-tuned for life and that the origin of life required a high degree of fine-tuning as well, but these will be the subject of other articles.

Explanations

Explanation 1: There is no real fine-tuning

Physicist Victor Stenger argued that the laws of physics had to be as they were, and no other self-consistent laws were possible. Furthermore, science can explain the apparent fine-tuning. A variant of this argument is, since we haven’t observed any other values for these constants of nature (since we haven’t observed any alternative universes), we simply can’t say whether there’s fine-tuning or not. This is a minority view. Most physicists, including prominent atheists like Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose, recognized the reality of fine-tuning. Now, perhaps some of these examples of fine-tuning could not be otherwise, given the laws of science. And some physicists hope that a “theory of everything” will someday explain the apparent fine-tuning. There’s clearly some wishful thinking here.

Explanation 2: The Weak Anthropic Principle

The weak anthropic principle argues that any universe we observe would have to be fine-tuned for life since otherwise, we couldn’t observe it – we wouldn’t exist. This explanation is not satisfying. It’s like saying that a man facing a firing squad survives, but there’s no need to explain why, since if he hadn’t survived, he wouldn’t know that he did. The argument is circular. If a man facing a firing squad survives, the most logical explanation is that the shooters intentionally missed. The weak anthropic principle combined with the multiverse is discussed below.

Explanation 3: The Strong Anthropic Principle

As argued by John Barrow and Frank Tipler, the strong anthropic principle argues that “the Universe must have those properties which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history.” [i] One view of quantum mechanics argues that everything is in the form of potential particles until collapsed when observed. In other words, observers determine reality from potential reality by observing it. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Experiments show that light can be in the form of waves or particles, depending on how it is observed. Still, this is a minority position.

Explanation 4: The Multiverse, Combined with the Weak Anthropic Principle

The idea of the Multiverse is consistent with some “theories of everything”. One theory is that the quantum vacuum generates “island universes” eternally. The field of island universes expands (inflation) so that these universes are completely independent of each other. Each would have its own set of physical laws and constants. If an infinite number of universes are generated, sooner or later there will be one (or more) that would permit life. Then the weak anthropic principle applies: if we observe a universe, it must be one that supports life. This theory cannot be proved or disproved.

An argument against this is based on “Boltzmann brains”. Named after 19th-century physicist Ludwig Boltzmann, a Boltzmann brain is a fully formed brain with memories of past events that didn’t exist. The argument is, it’s far more likely that random fluctuations in the quantum vacuum would create a small universe observed by a Boltzmann brain than a huge universe like ours. While the argument might sound ludicrous, is it any less realistic than the Multiverse theory?

The Multiverse theory is currently the most popular one among physicists attempting to explain fine-tuning without a designer. But if the Multiverse theory is true and the quantum vacuum is everywhere, why don’t we observe new universes popping into existence?

Explanation 5: Aliens from outside the Universe

Elon Musk and others argue that an advanced civilization from outside the universe might have created a computer game that mimics a universe. This simulation is so realistic that we think we are real, even though we’re only part of the simulation. This begs the question of how the aliens’ own universe came into being.

Explanation 6: God

Theists, such as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, believe in a God who created the universe. God is omnipotent, omniscient, and transcendent, outside space and time. Such a God could certainly create a finely tuned universe and would do so if He wanted life to exist.

The principle of Occam’s Razor says we should prefer the simplest explanation. Assuming that fine-tuning is real, which it certainly seems to be, the best competing explanations are the Multiverse and God. While committed atheists reject God as an impossible explanation and so embrace the Multiverse, the Multiverse is a complex cause that requires an infinite number of universes to explain fine-tuning. Theists argue there’s also other evidence for God (such as revelation and experience), so it’s hardly surprising that God created a life-permitting universe. While not denying the possibility of a Multiverse (God could make one if He wanted), theists claim that Occam’s Razor favors a designer God.

[i] Dawkins, Richard The Blind Watchmaker, p. 133

[i] Fred Hoyle, “The Universe: Past and Present Reflections.” Engineering and Science, November 1981. pp. 8–12 Quoted in Wikipedia

[ii] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe p. 47

[iii] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe pp. 50-53

[iv] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe pp. 173-177

[v] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe p. 78

[vi] Holder, Big Bang, Big God pp. 96-97

[vii] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe p. 111

[viii] Holder, Big Bang, Big God p. 91, Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe p. 118

[ix] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe pp. 72-75

[x] Wikipedia Cosmological Constant, retrieved Sep. 29, 2021

[xi] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe p. 158-159

[xii] Wikipedia Fine-Tuned Universe, retrieved Sep. 29, 2021

[xiii] Holder, Big Bang, Big God p. 88

[xiv] Lewis and Barnes A Fortunate Universe p. 167

[i] Dawkins, Richard The Blind Watchmaker, p. 133

Kalam Cosmological Argument

June 5, 2021 /

Greg Rampinelli

God is spirit, and so we can’t see Him directly. Some people argue that it’s irrational to believe in something that you can’t see. But rational people believe in atoms, and magnetism, even though they can’t see them. We believe in these invisible forces and particles because we observe their effects. We observe God’s effects, too. The biggest one is the universe, which comprises all matter and energy in existence.

One of the most important questions that philosophers ask is, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” The Christian answer is, because God created the universe ex nihilo, from nothing. Atheists, of course, reject that. There are numerous philosophical arguments that make the case that God created the universe. One of the simplest is the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which originated with the Persian Muslim scholar Al-Ghazali and was developed recently by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. It takes the form of a classic syllogism:

Major premise: “Whatever begins to exist has a cause.”

Minor premise: “The universe began to exist.”

Conclusion: “Therefore, the universe has a cause.”

(William L. Craig, Reasonable Faith, p. 111)

Theists argue that the cause is God.

Whatever begins to exist has a cause

Regarding the major premise, “Whatever begins to exist has a cause”, some atheist philosophers argue against it. Philosopher J.L. Mackie, for example, argued that there was no compelling reason to insist on it. He further argued that, if God created the universe, who created God? But our universal experience is that all contingent things (things that do not necessarily have to exist, which is almost everything) have a cause. As for who created God, that doesn’t contradict the major premise, which states that “Whatever BEGINS to exist has a cause”. God did not begin to exist, and so does not have a cause (that is, God is a necessary being, not a contingent being). Another argument against the major premise comes from quantum mechanics, in which random fluctuations in a quantum vacuum might cause a universe to pop into being. This will be discussed later, since a quantum vacuum isn’t nothing.

The universe began to exist

The minor premise, “The universe began to exist”, has solid support. It’s true that, until recently, many philosophers, including Aristotle, believed that the universe was eternal. In contrast, the Kalam Cosmological Argument denies that the universe could have arisen at some infinitely earlier time in the past, since we would otherwise not reach the present (this is admittedly a difficult argument to follow). Moreover, the Second Law of Thermodynamics argues that entropy (disorder) increases in a closed system (such as the universe). The Law predicts that the universe will eventually reach a state in which no celestial bodies exist, but only widely distributed atoms. If the universe were eternal, we would have reached this state already. Hence, the universe cannot be eternal, and so it began to exist. Further, the evidence is overwhelming that the universe is expanding. An expanding eternal universe would have already reached the end state predicted by the Second Law of Thermodynamics – no stars, no planets, just isolated atoms.

The widespread acceptance of the Standard Model (“Big Bang” Theory), which states that the universe began from a singularity about 14 billion years ago, would seem to have settled the question. But other explanations have been touted. The Steady State Theory, for example, argued that the space left open by the expanding universe is filled by newly created matter. No evidence was ever provided, and the theory never explained how the light elements, such as helium and deuterium, could have been created without the “Big Bang”. 

Another theory, or set of theories, that argue for an eternal universe is the oscillating universe. According to this theory, the universe has expanded since the “Big Bang”, but it will eventually stop expanding and then fall back into itself in a “Big Crunch”. When the universe collapses to a single point, a new “Big Bang” will occur, followed eventually by a “Big Crunch”, followed by a “Big Bang”, and the cycle repeats itself for eternity. There is no evidence for this theory – but any evidence would have been destroyed in the Big Bang. This means that the theory is not falsifiable, and so should be considered a metaphysical theory, not a scientific one, even if scientists promote it. More seriously, the universe seems to be expanding at an accelerating rate, which makes it unlikely that the universe will collapse again. On the other hand, in Conformal Cyclic Cosmology, the renowned cosmologist Roger Penrose argues that this ultimate “heat death” would be equivalent to the singularity at the start of the “Big Bang”, and so the next cycle would begin. This seems fanciful.

Stephen Hawking and James Hartle argued that the universe didn’t develop from a single point, like the apex of a cone, but rather had a rounded shape, like a shuttlecock. Prior to that, there was no time, and so, Hawking argued, the universe had no real beginning. In fact, near the bottom of the shuttlecock, time ceases to exist and becomes pure space. So that theory, for which there is no real evidence, would mean the universe didn’t come into being at a given time, but wasn’t eternal either. I admit, I don’t understand the argument (which is a modest way of saying it makes no sense to me). This model isn’t universally accepted among cosmologists, to say the least. It’s based on the use of “imaginary time”: when real numbers for time are plugged into Einstein’s general relativity equation, a singularity results. That means, if real numbers are used, the universe had a beginning in time.

The universe has a cause

The conclusion, “The universe has a cause” follows necessarily from the major and the minor premise. So, what is the cause?

The cause of the universe must be outside the universe, because something cannot cause itself. Since the universe consists of all matter and energy, the cause cannot be matter and energy. Further, the cause must exist prior to the universe. Since time presumably began with the universe, the cause must be eternal or timeless. And the cause must be exceedingly powerful to create something from nothing. There are two types of causal explanations: impersonal explanations, that is, the workings of natural laws, and personal explanations, that is, the will of someone or something that can choose to do something. Since no matter or energy existed prior to the universe, there was nothing that an impersonal, natural law could work on. Therefore, the cause must be personal. A non-material (i.e. spiritual), timeless, powerful, and personal cause is what we mean by God.

Of course, atheists reject this conclusion. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be atheists. The strongest non-theistic explanation for the cause of the universe comes from quantum mechanics. Both Villenkin and Hartle-Hawking argue that random fluctuations in a quantum vacuum can fleetingly create particles. If these particles are close enough to each other, gravity (assuming it exists in the pre-universe state) can collapse them into a point. This can result in the “Big Bang”, and the universe is created. So, the universe is created from nothing! Except, of course, the quantum vacuum is not nothing (pardon the double negative!). It has fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of the quantum field.

So, an argument is that the quantum vacuum existed eternally, and the random fluctuations in the vacuum created enough particles – fleetingly – which gravity then attracted into one point. Voila! The universe was born! No one has proved it yet, but no one can disprove it, either, since any evidence would have been obliterated by the big bang itself. The observable universe has a mass of 1053 kg. Could so much mass really be created randomly through fleeting fluctuations? If so, why don’t we see new universes popping into existence, maybe between Saturn and Uranus?

Conclusion

Ultimately, it comes down to inference to the best solution. As a theist, I’m convinced by the Kalam Cosmological Argument that the universe was created by God. To an atheist, though, the idea of a creator God is impossible, or unacceptable, and ANY other possible solution is preferable. And so atheists are forced to accept arguments for which there is no evidence and that seem absurd.

A bit of irony: Stephen Hawking once wrote that philosophy is dead. His models for the origin of the universe are, strictly speaking, not scientific. According to Karl Popper, the influential philosopher of science, falsifiability lies at the heart of science. If a theory can’t be proved wrong, it’s not a scientific theory, strictly speaking, even if based on science. How could Hawking’s model for the beginning of the universe be tested? If it cannot, it really belongs to metaphysics, a branch of philosophy.

To conclude, I’m convinced that the Kalam Cosmological Argument is a powerful tool to show that God created the universe. It has its detractors. There are many other powerful arguments for the existence of God and the truth of Christianity. The next one I’ll discuss is the “Fine-tuning argument”.

A final note, this on language. I apologize for writing so much in the passive voice. That makes it harder to understand. But if we’re discussing atheist views on the origin of the universe, I see no way to use the active voice. Theists can say, “God created the universe”. Atheists can only say, “The universe came into being”, since they deny the existence of a personal agent (God). Perhaps linguists could develop an argument for the existence of God based on language style.

For a more complete discussion of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, see William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics, 3rd edition, Crossway, Wheaton IL, 2008 or William Lane Craig, On Guard, David C. Cook, Colorado Springs, CO, 2010

Introduction to Apologetics Series

June 5, 2021 /

Greg Rampinelli

We Christians have faith in Christ because the Holy Spirit worked in us. No one comes to Christ through logic and reason alone, but that doesn’t mean our faith is irrational. We live in a skeptical world, in which some of our friends and neighbors reject Christianity as a bunch of fairy tales, similar to belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. Despite this prejudice, there are strong, rational reasons to believe in Christ, and it will strengthen our faith and witness if we’re familiar with them.

Let’s start by ridding ourselves of a common prejudice: Christians have “blind faith” while atheists are strictly rational, following the evidence where it leads. Malarkey! As a rule, atheists are as committed to their worldview as we Christians are to ours. That should not surprise us. A worldview provides assurance and makes us think we understand reality. A threat to our worldview is a serious threat to our identity. Nobody wants to give up their core beliefs, and atheists are no exception. When confronted with strong arguments for theism, they will resist and search for responses that confirm their beliefs.

There are many strong arguments for Christianity. In this series of articles, I will briefly discuss some of them and defend against some of the arguments against our faith.

Happy Easter – Jesus Has Overcome the World

April 3, 2021 /

On Good Friday, it looked like the powers of evil and darkness had won. Jesus, who had spent the past three years forgiving sins and healing the sick, who preached that loving God and our neighbor was more important than following religious rules, and who proclaimed the reign of God and reconciliation, this Jesus was arrested, shamed, beaten, whipped, and finally executed through crucifixion by the religious and political authorities. One of his followers betrayed him, the rest abandoned him.

On Holy Saturday, his broken corpse lay in a tomb. Dead. His followers huddled in a room, terrified that they’d be next. They had believed that Jesus was the Messiah, who would throw the Romans out and establish an earthly reign. They hoped to rule with him, but their hopes were dashed. Everything seemed hopeless.

On the third day, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb to finish the burial preparations that they had started on Good Friday. Suddenly, there was a great earthquake, an angel appeared, rolled away the stone in front of the tomb and sat on it. The Roman guard just stood there, shaking. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.” Then, as they were hurrying to tell the disciples, they saw Jesus himself. He had indeed risen from the dead!

The powers of evil and darkness – what the Bible often calls “the world” – threw everything they had at him. They lost, God won. Jesus faced death, the most fearsome weapon in the arsenal of evil, and he conquered it. He says, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” And so we can say with Paul, “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

Death is still terrible, but it does not have the last word. As Jesus told the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” And someday, in God’s good time, Jesus will extend his reign to fully rule the earth, which we Christians call his “second coming”. Then, as Isaiah says, “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them… They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” 

In the meantime, evil is still with us and people still suffer and die. Free will and the forces of nature still take their toll, and our mission of growth – spiritual, moral, intellectual – in the face of challenge and tragedy continues. We are still charged with making the world better. But we know that our victory has already been won, and even though we die, we shall live.

Have a happy and blessed Easter. Jesus is risen and has overcome the world. And with him, we have done so as well. Allelujah!

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