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On the Origins of Scientific Naturalism

Part Two

As further background to my forthcoming study of our topic, please consider also the following essay, written in response to an examination question during my 2011 sojourn at Biola University.

Dr. Cornelius George Hunter

Historical Perspectives

Thomas Alderman

Unit 4 Reading Response

Question #4

Word Count: 698

Question #4: Leibniz’s theology mandates a non-intervening creator, for god is all the greater if his world operates autonomously. How does this “greater god” theology support theological naturalism? What are the other three theological arguments, identified in pp. 19-33 of Science’s Blind Spot, that support theological naturalism? How do they support theological naturalism? Did Charles Darwin reason from theological naturalism in arguing for his theory of evolution? Historian Alan Charles Kors writes that 18th century French atheism arose from “within the deeply Christian learned culture.” Can this also be said of theological naturalism and Darwin’s theory of evolution? Is theological naturalism biblically orthodox? Most models of the relationship between Christianity and science treat Christianity with a broad brush, and do not substantially discern variations, and biblically orthodox versus unorthodox influences. Consequently, the unorthodox influences have typically been under appreciated or gone unnoticed. Do we need a new model that acknowledges unorthodox influences? Is it true that after the 17th century, theology no longer was influential in science?

Response: Scientific Naturalism

     Naturalism is the view that nature is one interlocking system of physical (i.e., impersonal) causation.  It comes in two forms: “strong” (atheistic) naturalism, which posits that only matter exists; and weak (deistic) naturalism, which holds that if God exists, his existence and activities are not scientifically detectable and therefore not the concern of science.

     A majority of scientists today, especially in the field of biology, are naturalists; of those, the vast majority are deists, few of whom can guess the genealogy of the idea.  It arose in the late Seventeenth Century with the supplanting of Aristotelian physics by atomistic mechanical philosophy.  It became part of the anti-clerical agenda of the so-called Age of Reason of the Eighteenth Century, and for further spurious reasons became nearly synonymous with science.

     Most, or nearly all, of the arguments for naturalism were theological (hence, “theological naturalism”).  Certain assumptions were made concerning the nature of God which were inconsistent with His continuing involvement in nature.  Many could be characterized as variations on the theme of God’s perfection: since God is perfect, He must have created a perfect universe.

     Further assumptions were then made concerning what a perfect universe would look like.  As Immanuel Kant (1754-1804) put it, God is wise; therefore, Creation should reflect that wisdom by being beautiful, perfect, and harmonious.  As others put it, there is nobility and perfection in regularity and order; God’s immutability implies a natural order which operates autonomously; and ultimately, God would not create a universe which required any adjustment – by miracle, for instance.

     In each case, naturalistic philosophers began with a conception of God.  It was not the biblical God – in both the Old and New Testaments, God is revealed as acting in history in many ways, both by miracle and by providence.  Prophecies have been fulfilled, and God’s fingerprints – or rather, His very signature – are everywhere in nature.  Romans 1:20.

     Indeed, God is perfect; however, He is not accountable to human reasoning: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.”  Isaiah 55:8.  The point, however, is not that the naturalists of the Seventeenth Century were not Christian; the point is that they were theists, and their naturalism was a consequence of their theology.

     In any event, the God of the naturalists became undetectable to science; for if God is not involved with nature, there is no activity to detect.  Neither can a spirit, or an immaterial God, be physically detected – or so it is assumed.

     Science has no difficulty detecting the personal, however: human agency is identified routinely in archeology and forensic science.  The criteria for identifying design – when the putative agent is a human person – are simple, straightforward, and metaphysically neutral.  The same criteria, applied to “natural” phenomena, lead in the same way to the same kind of conclusion: natural phenomena result from the activity of an intelligent, or personal, agent.  But science is not permitted to follow that evidence where it leads, because, so they say, to posit a divine person is not science at all.  Why is it not science?  Because science (again, so they say) has to do with the discovery of naturalistic – which is to say, mechanistic, impersonal – explanations for natural phenomena.  Why is that?  They do not say.  And again, most of them do not know.

     There was another notable argument against God’s direct involvement with nature, based on the need to explain how evil can exist in a world created by a loving, omnipotent God.  It can exist, it was said, because nature is autonomous from God.

     The autonomy of nature was central to Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.  A naturalistic theory for life was necessary in order to exculpate God from natural evil.  Said Darwin,

I cannot see . . . evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us.  There seems to me too much misery in the world.  I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [the parasitic wasp] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars. . . .”

     To Darwin it was impossible that God would make a world in which there was so much inefficiency and waste.  By 1859 he found theological naturalism ready to hand, and he made the best use of it he could.

On the Origins of Scientific Naturalism

One

We have seen1 that modern science was the product of Christian scientists of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries such as Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton.  We have also seen2 that unfortunately, by the end of the Nineteenth Century that theistic consensus had been largely supplanted by a new paradigm, best known as scientific naturalism.  That shift has proven so important to the mission of the church that I set myself to understand how it could have occurred.  The next several posts to this weblog will address that theme.  As a sort of primer, please enjoy the following essay, my answer to an exam question from my time at Biola University in 2011, addressing that very question.

Dr. Cornelius George Hunter

Thomas O. Alderman

Historical Perspectives – Unit 2

Reading Response Question #4.

Word Count: 697

Exam Question #4: Christopher Kaiser argues that ancient and medieval Christian creational theology interacted with science in four main ways.  What are the first three of those four modes of interaction (excluding the “ministry of healing”) and what difference did they make in the cultivation of science?  How did the later medieval development of conceiving of God’s “two powers” set up natural philosophers to significantly depart from the original creationist tradition?  How does Kaiser’s research inform your view of how science and religion have related (history) and how they should relate (a matter of philosophy and theology)?

The Rise of Naturalistic Science

The myth of the conflict between faith and reason is perpetuated almost entirely through ignorance of the time when science was conducted as the “handmaiden” of the Gospel, and of the spurious reasons why that model lost its hold on the Western mind.

Christopher Kaiser3 lays his axe to the root of the myth by showing by whom, when, and why it first germinated.  The theme of the book as a whole is the multifaceted dialogue of Christianity with science between the Fourth and Twentieth Centuries.  Kaiser emphasizes four topics in the dialogue:

The comprehensibility of the world: A rational God has created both a rational world and a rational humanity capable of comprehending that world.

The relative autonomy of nature: The regularities of nature stem from the physical laws which God has imposed on physical matter. 

The unity of heaven and earth: The heavens are governed by the same laws as the Earth. 

The ministry of healing and restoration. [Kaiser, 5.]

In all of these areas of dialogue, the biblical view was far more conducive to empirical investigation of nature than the classical view.  Aristotle’s conception of the cosmos was based more on his suppositions about the divinity of the celestial objects and his assumptions about what kinds of motions would be suitable to the divine. By contrast, the biblical view invites man to investigate and see what God has actually done.

Nature is seen as comprehensible for several reasons.  One, it is subject to God’s command and laws.  Two, the same Logos which ordered the world is also reflected in human reason, which is ours as created in the image of God.  Three, the universe is finite.

The biblical view of the unity of heaven and earth also encourages empirical investigation.  The sun, moon and stars move at God’s command and in accordance with his laws.  Josh 10:12; Job 9:7.  And Christ is Lord over all things.  Matt. 28:18; John 1:3-4.

The relative autonomy of nature, or the notion that nature was created by and governed by a rational God and hence amenable to the human rational faculty, was also rooted in scripture.  Plants and animals were created to propagate after their kind, Gen. 1:11f., 21f., 24f. God governs the universe: the sun, moon, and stars (Job 38:33; Ps 104:9; the tides (Job 38:8-11); the seasons (Gen. 8:22); and the wind, rain, and lightning (Job 28:25ff.; 38:24f.; Ps. 148:8). 

Unfortunately, the seeds of the unraveling of this consensus were present almost from the beginning of the Church Age.  It was Augustine (354-430) who posited that God implanted “seminal” causes in nature at Creation “so as to have their effects in a predetermined sequence.”  Kaiser, 41.  Thus the “ordinary course of nature,” was contrasted with the power which God reserved to act contrary thereto. Thierry of Chartres (d after 1156) developed this idea further by explaining the work of the six days of Creation as the mechanical outworking of physical principles.

The Church’s uncritical stance toward non-biblical authorities led her to a slow surrender of the authority of God over His creation.  The Scholastics pushed Augustine’s distinction between God’s regular power and his absolute power so as to form a separation between the natural and the supernatural.  God had been seen as acting continuously to uphold the creation; now, that seemed unnecessary: He only acted when He wished to overturn the natural order of things. The relative autonomy of the cosmos was being pushed into full autonomy. Ultimately, the rationalistic spirit of the time led to the conception of nature as inherent in the elements of which it consists, and hence the notion that miracles are violations of the laws of nature (William of Conches, c. 1120).

This made science a purely rationalistic endeavor, leaving the Church with authority in matters of religious faith and morals only, and it constitutes the epistemological dichotomy which besets us today. As Stephen J. Gould has stated, “Science treats factual reality, while religion struggles with human morality.”

Even the greatest theologians of the Church are fallible, and the more influential they are, the more damage they can do.  The human rational faculty is glorious, but must be exercised in reverence.  Augustine also taught that wherever the truth is found, it is the Lord’s, and he taught that our understanding of scripture may inform our natural philosophy, and vice versa.  But until an idea is confirmed by both the Word and the data, we should be tentative in our opinions. 

1 (Exploding the Myth of Conflict Between Science and Religion, (https://joshualetter.com/2024/12/05/science-and-religion-exploding-the-myth-of-conflict/)

2 https://joshualetter.com/2024/12/27/science-and-religion-exploding-the-myth-of-conflict-4/

3 Christopher Kaiser, Creation and the History of Science, (William B. Eerdmans 1991)]

The Demise of the Copernican Principle

Around 450 B.C., the Greek philosopher Empedocles propounded the idea that all matter is comprised of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire.  Since earth was the heaviest element, he, and Aristotle after him, reasoned that the Earth must be at the bottom and therefore the center of the universe (“geocentrism”).  Much later, the Greco-Roman philosopher Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 A.D.) developed an elaborate model of the solar system based on geocentrism, which was not eclipsed (pun intended) until the 17th Century when Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) showed that the Earth orbits the sun (“heliocentrism”).

[What follows is an essay I wrote for a class while studying for a degree at Biola University in 2010.]

What has become known as the “Copernican Principle,” then, posits that the more we learn about the universe, the better we understand our own insignificance.  The notion constitutes a profound misinterpretation on many levels.

First, the Copernican Principle assumes that the relocation of the Earth from being orbited by the sun to orbiting it constituted a lowering of the Earth’s status. This notion is based, however, on the false assumption that Aristotelian geocentrism was anthropocentric – man-centered – which it was not.

Aristotle thought the Earth to be located at the center of the universe not because of man’s importance but because of the Earth’s weight, being the heaviest of the four elements, Earth, water, air, and fire.  Also, the sublunar realm (beneath the moon) was deemed corruptible, unlike the heavens.  The lowly position of the Earth is seen in Dante’s decision to locate hell, which is even more dishonorable, under the Earth.  It is also reflected in Galileo’s insistence, upon discovering proof of Copernicus’ theory, that the Earth “is not the sump where the universe’s filth and ephemera collect.”  Thus in Aristotelian terms, moving the Earth away from the center was a promotion.  Kepler, too, considered Copernicus’ model to be more anthropocentric than Ptolemy’s because God had given Man an advantageous location – away from the center – the better to survey the universe.

So Copernicus’ theory did nothing to undermine the importance of human life. Emphatically, that was not his purpose.  He was a Christian neo-Platonist who expected physical reality to reflect the precision of mathematics and who was disturbed by the Ptolemaic model’s contrivances and lack of elegance.

Second, the Copernican Principle uncritically accepts the idea that the physical universe is governed by impersonal, mechanistic necessity, and uncritically discards the teleological hypothesis in nature.

The Copernican Principle gained plausibility for a while, after we learned that our sun is an ordinary star in a galaxy of a hundred billion stars; more so when we learned (not until the 1920s) that our galaxy is an ordinary galaxy in a universe of a hundred billion galaxies; and even more so when we learned that the universe, though not eternal, is billions of years old, to say nothing of the discovery of physical explanations for the origin of the solar system.

Since Hubble, however, the Principle has been wearing thin.  We have learned that the universe is neither infinite nor eternal; that in the finite past the universe began with an enormous explosion of energy from a point in space-time, out of nothing as far as we can tell; and that intelligent life would have been impossible anywhere in the universe were it not for the fact that there are hundreds of physical parameters which must be exactly what they are.  Relative autonomy and teleology are back!

Moreover, it is not theists alone who are saying so.  Consider the observations of Lee Smolin in The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next (Houghton-Mifflin 2006)).  Smolin is not sanguine about the return of teleology.  He states that string theory is in crisis.  It makes no predictions, and there have been no useful new proposals for fixing it in decades.  That leaves us with the standard model of particle physics, which dates to 1973!  Says Smolin, we haven’t had that kind of a drought in centuries.

Where, then, does that leave us?  In a recent interview, [Leonard] Susskind claims that the stakes are to accept the landscape and the dilution in the scientific method it implies or give up science altogether and accept intelligent design (ID) as the explanation for the choices of parameters of the standard model:

If . . . the landscape turns out to be inconsistent . . . we will be in a very awkward position.Without any explanation of nature’s fine-tuning we will be hard pressed to answer the ID critics.  One might argue that the hope that a mathematically unique solution will emerge is as faith-based as ID.  (Quoted in Amanda Gefter, “Is String Theory in Trouble?”  New Scientist, December 17, 2005; Smolin, p. 197; emphasis added.)

The failure of the Copernican Principle gambit may make it necessary for Smolin and Susskind to reconsider whether accepting ID really means giving up science altogether.  Peace between faith and reason may break out sooner than we think.

Thomas Alderman 2010

ps. Don’t miss The Story of Everything, a Discovery Institute feature film in theatres beginning April 30. “We don’t ask you to believe despite the evidence: We SHOW you the evidence!” It’s sure to be worthwhile.

Person of the Century

On X today, February 2, 2026, Charles Krauthammer nominates Winston Churchill for Person of the Twentieth Century.  I concur.

For Christmas a few years ago my daughter-in-law gave me Andrew Roberts’ Churchill biography.  I thanked her as follows.

March 7, 2020

Dear Mary,

I just finished Andrew Roberts’ Churchill and I want to say again, thanks!

It was quite a few years ago that I first realized how indebted we are to “the Greatest Generation,” and I have since then had a heightened interest in the history of the 50-year period prior to my birth in 1949.  One of my regrets is that I did not quiz my parents more closely about their experiences.

But now I realize for the first time the extent to which we owe our freedom and prosperity to one man.

Roberts concludes by saying (p 975) that if Hitler had delayed the Anschluss [the annexation of Austria] and Czech crises for a few years, Churchill’s moment would have passed.  Halifax would have become Prime Minister, and he would have sought, quite reasonably, to discover Hitler’s terms of peace.  Those terms might not have been very onerous, since all Hitler needed at that moment was a single front.  Churchill saw that if the Soviets were alone, they would more likely face defeat; whereupon there would be nothing to prevent Hitler from disavowing the settlement with England, who in turn, then, would also have been alone.  Then it would have been too late for the US to re-arm.

Churchill maintained that it was the British people who had the lion heart, and that he merely “had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.”  Roberts denies that: “[I]t was much more the case that Churchill had the lion heart and also gave the roar, and in so doing taught the British people to rediscover the latent lionheartedness in themselves.”  (p 980.) 

Whether one believes in Providence, as I do, we can only regard these things with gratitude and awe.

By the way, thanks, too, for the WhatsApp call the other day for Leona to chat with us.  So great to see her walking and flourishing as she is clearly doing in every way.  Thanks for thinking of us.

Love,

Tom

Just a Bystander

In his outstanding book, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2d ed. 2017), Richard Bauckham observes that referring to the Jesus disciple who cut off an ear of the servant of the High Priest as “’one of those standing near’ (Mark 14:47) is an odd way to speak of one of the Twelve.”1  In the Gospel of John, we learn that it was Peter who wielded the sword; and Matthew and Luke, without naming Peter, do at least identify him as “one of Jesus’ companions” (Matt. 26:51), or as “one of . . . Jesus’ followers” (Luke 22:49-50).  Why is Mark being so cryptic here?

If you’re like me, you barely paused when you read that text for the umpteenth time.  But if you stop and think about it, it really does seem puzzling.  Who was this fellow who was “standing around?”  As John’s readers later find out, it wasn’t just some random stranger who assaulted the High Priest’s servant – it was Peter, for heaven’s sake!  Why not say so?

Citing Thiessen2, Bauckham offers a cogent explanation.  By assaulting the High Priest’s servant, Peter had placed himself in grave danger of arrest.  By withholding the name of the assailant, Mark sought to protect Peter from that danger.  This is a case of “protective anonymity.”  John could name Peter because John wrote at a time when Peter was beyond the reach of the High Priest (i.e., he had already been killed).

It happens that there are several other important figures in the drama of Christ’s Passion who are also anonymous in Mark.  There were the young man who left his robe and fled naked from Gethsemane (Mark 14:51); the woman who anointed Jesus with a jar of expensive perfume (Mark 14:3-9); the owners of the donkey Christ rode into the City (Mark 11:1-3); and the man who led the disciples to the upper room for the Passover meal (Mark 14:12-16).  Have you ever stopped to wonder why are all of these are unnamed in Mark?  By offering plausible resolutions to these mysteries, Bauckham strengthens our confidence in the accuracy of Mark’s narrative.

Bauckham proposes that in each of these instances Mark was acting to protect Jesus’ followers from reprisal by Christ’s enemies by keeping their identities secret.  In the case of the young man who abandoned his garment, presumably he could have retained it had he not been resisting arrest.  The owners of the donkey and the upper room also may have justly feared reprisal – it was not much later that a disciple of Jesus was murdered at the instance of the Jewish leaders (Acts 7); James, a leader of the early church, was later martyred (Acts 12:1-2); and an attempt was made on Peter’s life too (Acts 12:3).

But all of this shines a bright light on another mystery in Mark’s Gospel, namely, Peter’s denial of JC (also recorded in all three of the other Gospels).  Was this a deliberate betrayal?  Peter was now in the courtyard of the High Priest, whose servant Peter had assaulted a very short time earlier.  When he was challenged as a disciple of the accused, Peter, thinking only of himself and how he might avoid immediate arrest and possible execution, panicked, and he resorted to the only expedient immediately available to him, namely, concealing his relationship to Jesus.  It was only when the cock crew that he remembered his pledge.

It gives every believer immense comfort to know that Peter – even Peter – was later restored in his relationship to Jesus.  If that is possible, then there is also hope for me.

But that is not all!  As a bonus Bauckham’s insights afford us a means of establishing the early authorship of Mark and the entire New Testament.  In John’s Gospel the identities of the assailant and the woman who anointed Jesus are revealed.  As mentioned above, there is a cogent explanation for the difference between Mark and John.  John did not write until Peter and Mary had died and were thus beyond the reach of Christ’s enemies.  When would that have been?  Bauckham’s estimate: Mark would have written very early, probably between 30 A.D. and 60 A.D.  I would venture to say it would have been very much toward the earlier of those dates, since Paul’s letters were written prior to Mark, and Matthew, Luke, and Acts were all written after Mark but before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

ENDNOTES

1Bauckham, 184.

2Thiessen, The Gospels (186-187; apparently out of print).

THE OLIVET DISCOURSE A Comment

Thomas Alderman, November 29, 2025

All three Synoptic Gospels – Mark, Luke, and Matthew – contain Jesus’ discourse concerning future events, known as “the Olivet Discourse” because He delivered it while gazing from the Mount of Olives at the magnificent Herodian Temple across the Kidron Valley.

The Discourse poses a number of hermeneutical challenges, but one in particular causes some to stumble.  Jesus predicts the destruction of the Temple.  He also predicts His own return “in clouds with great power and glory.”  But then He emphasizes that “this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”  Manifestly, the generation living when Jesus spoke has been gone a long time – yet Christ has not returned.  Did Jesus make a mistake?  Or did the Gospel authors err in recording what He said?  And if He or they erred in this instance, where else might they have erred?  Is the New Testament reliable at all?

According to William L. Lane, author of the New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) Book of Mark,1 “In the Gospel of Mark there is no passage more problematic than the prophetic discourse of Jesus on the destruction of the Temple.”2  Other scholars concur: Hans Bayer, Professor Emeritus, Covenant Theological Seminary, declares it to be “one of the more difficult things to understand in the Gospels.”  At the same time, since the Olivet prophesy is among the most difficult New Testament texts, its vindication, if that were possible, would be of interest to the honest seeker.  Many have therefore attempted to rescue the Discourse with various explanations as to how Jesus’ predictions could all have been true.  I set myself to understand those attempts in the hope of reaching an opinion on the question.

Continue reading “THE OLIVET DISCOURSE A Comment”

Timothy and William Paley

Readers of this blog have been favored with the observations of Lydia McGrew, detailing many “unintended coincidences” in the New Testament where otherwise unrelated narratives corroborate each other in surprising ways. (Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017); June 3, 2025 joshualetter post.)  McGrew is following in a venerable tradition, of which one of the earliest and greatest exponents was William Paley (1743-1805).  Today Paley is more famous for the revival of the argument for the existence of God from design in nature, but he deserves as much credit for his exposition of scripture.  Here is one of Paley’s unintended coincidences:

[W]hen I read, in the Acts of the Apostles, that when Paul came to Derbe and Lystra, “behold a certain disciple was there, named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess;” and when, in an epistle addressed to Timothy, I find him reminded of his “having known the holy scriptures from “a child,” which implies that he must, on one side or both, have been brought up by Jewish parents; I conceive that I remark a coincidence which shows, by its very obliquity, that scheme [collusion] was not employed in its formation. 

William Paley, Horae Paulinae (Hardpress 2017, Kindle Location 106.)

If collusion is excluded, and if several accounts are all compatible, the only plausible explanation is that the reason they are consistent is that they all reflect what actually took place.  And the greater the number of such accounts, and the more detailed they are, the greater our confidence in that conclusion.  At least equally important is the confidence which we thereby also gain in the reporters’ commitment to the truth generally.

Now, memory of the past can be lost, and the past can be misrepresented, but the past itself is fixed.  Some of it can be remembered, and some of it can even be documented.  For example, Lee Harvey Oswald either acted alone or he did not, and nothing we do or say today can alter the fact.  If an account exists which cannot be falsified, we consider that it may be true; but if there are several accounts of the same events and none of them separately, nor all of them together, can be falsified – that is, if combined they all describe a single, coherent set of facts – then absent collusion, our confidence in their veracity climbs, until we begin to say we know what took place.

That is what we find in the New Testament.

I hope to elaborate on that theme in these pages in the near future.  In the meantime, Gary Habermas helps us to appreciate the consistently singular quality of the NT writings:

 Arguably the best example here is the work of Sir William Ramsay, the famous archaeologist and professor at the universities of Oxford and Aberdeen at the turn of the twentieth century.  Trained in nineteenth-century German liberalism at the University of Tubingen and holding to those views, he was a noted archaeologist and authority on  the history of Asia Minor.  Through his excavation of this region, and contrary to his own opinions on the New Testament, he began to change his view concerning Luke, Paul, and Acts.  After decades of research in this area, expressed in several major books on these subjects, he had distinguished himself as perhaps the greatest authority of his day on these subjects.  To sum up his research, Ramsay concluded, “Luke is a historian of the first rank; not merely are his statements of fact trustworthy . . . this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians.”  [Gary Habermas, On the Resurrection: Evidences, Kindle Location 891, citing William M. Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, 4th ed. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920), 222.]

Maybe it’s not so surprising that both Paul and Luke wrote about Timothy.  But this is merely one of a great proliferation of such examples demonstrating the truthfulness and the accuracy of the authors.  The impression of veracity will never be felt if all you do is look for anomalies.  No, one must look at the endlessly repeated instances of meticulous investigation, research, and reportage, and eventually realize, “All of this really happened!”  And then you realize, “I am free, glory to God!”

ps. Listen to “Who Is Theophylus?” with Shane Rosenthal of The Humble Skeptic at https://www.humbleskeptic.com/p/who-is-theophilus

Archaeological Find Powerfully Supports the Gospel of Luke

Luke addressed both his Gospel and the Book of the Acts of the Apostles to one Theophilus – or in the case of the Gospel, to “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:3), indicating he was a person of rank.  Scholars have debated for centuries who this personage may have been.  Now, the discovery of an artifact from First-Century Jerusalem may have solved the mystery.  What’s even more exciting is the light which the solution sheds on the meticulous accuracy of Luke’s accounts.

In 1983 archaeologists discovered an ossuary, a bone box, which bears the inscription, “Theophilus the High Priest and his granddaughter Joanna.”

The Jewish historian Josephus records that a Theophilus was the Jewish High Priest from A.D. 37-41.  Could Luke have been corresponding with the leader of the Jewish Sanhedrin?

The name of Joanna appears twice in the Bible.  First, at Luke 8:1-3, it is said that she was among those accompanying Jesus as He went from town to town preaching the Kingdom of God:

The Twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others.  These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

And at Luke 24:1-10, we see that Joanna was among the women who went to Jesus’ tomb early Sunday morning, thereby becoming one of the very first witnesses to the Resurrection:

When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.  It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.  [vv. 9-10.]

But here is the really amazing part.  Luke 24, verses 8-11 constitutes a chiasm.  According to Google AI, a chiasm is

a literary device with a symmetrical structure, often described as an A-B-C-X-C’-B’-A’ pattern. It presents a concept and then repeats it in reverse order, creating a balanced and memorable structure. This structure highlights the central idea, which is typically found at the peak of the chiasm.

So here is the chiastic structure of Luke 24:8-11:

A: They remembered his words (v. 8)

B: The Eleven (v. 9)

C: The others (v. 9)

D: Mary Magdalene (v. 10)

X: Joanna (v. 10)

D’: Mary, mother of James (v. 10)

C’ The others (v. 10)

B’ The apostles (v. 10)

A’ They did not believe these words (v. 11)

The chiasm sends a message to the reader: This is important. Pay attention!

Renowned Bible scholar Richard Bauckham concludes that the appearance of Joanna’s name at the focus of the chiasm reflects Luke’s intention to emphasize her significance as a witness to the empty tomb.

It is also conceivable that Luke intended to send a personal message to Theophilus in particular – on the supposition, arguably, that the chiasm would have some special significance to him.  Thus, “Theophilus!  Your own granddaughter is a witness to the Resurrection!  If you have any questions, you may direct them to her.”  Perhaps Theophilus had a close, confidential relationship with Joanna, such that he might be highly likely to credit her testimony.  Perhaps Joanna, during an interview by Luke, encouraged him to address his Gospel to Theophilus.  Perhaps Theophilus then became one of that “great company of the priests,” referred to at Acts 6:7, who “were obedient to the faith.”

At a minimum, the chiasm and the possible connection between Joanna and Theophilus seem to reflect Luke’s meticulous research and attention to detail – a circumstance adding to the reader’s conviction of the historicity of the astonishing events which Luke recounts.[i], [ii]

[i]Incidentally, Luke employs chiasm again at Luke 24:13-35.  See https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/2015/04/02/luke-2413-28/.

[ii] Other sources: Frank Turek, Cross-Examined.org, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-6NeP7ENRk; Shane Rosenthal, “Luke’s Key Witness,” humbleskeptic.com, May 31, 2025, https://www.humbleskeptic.com/p/joanna-an-obscure-disciple-or-lukes.

Hidden in Plain View

Lydia McGrew, Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017).

INTRODUCTION

God has providentially, miraculously bestowed upon us many excellent proofs of the veracity of the authors of the Fourfold Gospel of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John.  Indeed, the Gospels by every measure show themselves true.

Certainly one of the most important ways God has ordered things so as to assure us of His Word, has been to provide not just one detailed account of Jesus’ ministry, but four accounts.  Trial lawyers know quite well that whenever two or more witnesses testify about the same event, it will be nearly impossible for either of them, if false, to escape detection if he is subjected to skilled cross-examination.  That is because a manufactured account by definition will clash with what actually happened.

By the same token, if two witnesses to the same event are both truthful, each of their accounts will match reality; and matching reality, they will not be contradictory, though in many cases they might differ in a number of respects.  They will fit together like pieces of a puzzle and will constitute a single coherent account.  What’s more, the very differences in their accounts will often be such as to rule out collusion.

One consequence of this is that if the testimonies of two witnesses are compatible, then barring collusion, one may be relatively confident that one has uncovered the truth.  If one has four witnesses whose testimony is compatible, truth is virtually guaranteed.

In regard to the earlier comment about skilled cross-examination, it must not be overlooked that the Gospel accounts have been subjected to two thousand years of withering cross-examination by biblical scholars, lawyers, historians, and archeologists, and have never been falsified.  To the contrary, the more we have learned about Jesus from extra-biblical sources, the more thoroughly the Gospels themselves have been vindicated.

Of course a profusion of witnesses also entails a greater chance of inconsistencies among them, or seeming inconsistencies.  This is to be expected, even if the witnesses are truthful.  Two witnesses will almost never give identical accounts.  If they did, one would immediately suspect collusion.  But depending on the complexity of the subject of their testimony, two truthful witnesses will almost always describe events somewhat differently.  They may have observed different aspects of the same event, or they may have observed from different locations.  But despite such differences, their testimonies will match reality, and, matching reality, upon careful consideration they will also be seen to match each other, providing the investigator with heightened confidence that the truth has become known.

One early proponent of the integrity of the Gospel accounts was William Paley (1743-1805), who observed that “. . . [P]erfection is no accident.  It is the effect of truth.  Nothing but truth can preserve consistency.”

Now quite recently another biblical scholar has examined the Gospels with this principle in view.  Philosopher Lydia McGrew, in Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts (DeWard, 2017), shows that the four Gospel narratives, by providing differing accounts of many of the same events, corroborate each other in surprising detail, negate collusion, and amplify the conviction of the authors’ honesty and accuracy.  McGrew provides 41 examples from the Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline Epistles, one of which I propose to discuss here: Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000.

WOE TO YOU, BETHSAIDA!

At Matthew 11:20-24, the Evangelist says that “Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.  “Woe to you Korazin!  Woe to you, Bethsaida!” Jesus said.  “If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.”   Why did Jesus denounced woe upon Bethsaida?  What “mighty acts” did he perform there?

Matthew doesn’t tell us – there is no other reference to Bethsaida anywhere else in Matthew.   We must turn to the Gospel of Luke.  Luke 9:10 says that when the apostles returned from their missionary journey, Jesus took them to Bethsaida, and the crowds followed Him there.  Jesus preached to them and healed them, and later that day He miraculously fed the 5,000.  Is that what Matthew was talking about?  Yes it is.  But neither Matthew nor Luke tell us anything about the people failing to repent.

We keep looking.  Go to the Gospel of John, Chapter 6.  After feeding the 5,000, Jesus crossed the Sea of Galilee, and the people followed Him.  When they found Him, He told them, “I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”  John 6:26.

So what do we have?  Luke tells us about the feeding of the 5,000; Matthew tells us where that was done; John tells us of the people’s deplorable spiritual condition: rather than lament their sin, the people are only concerned about their appetites.  And Matthew records the denunciation of woe.  Each Evangelist provides a part of the story, but they all mesh together perfectly to provide one complete and coherent account.

Now, Mark also records the feeding of the 5,000, but he doesn’t record the location, or the people’s motives, or the denunciation of woe.  This shows that Matthew, Luke and John are independent of Mark.  The differences among them, in turn, also tend to negate collusion.

But there is more!  Why did Jesus, at John 6:5, ask Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”

He did it to test him, of course; but it was natural for Jesus to ask Philip.  Why?  John 1:43-44, which records Jesus’ initial call to Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel, just happens to mention that Philip, Andrew, and Peter were all from Bethsaida!

And even more.  Three Gospels mention the fact that there was grass in the place where the feeding of the five thousand took place (Mark 6.39, Matt 14.19, John 6.10), but only Mark emphasizes its color: “Then he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass.” Does the color of the grass matter?  It may not affect the nature of the miracle Jesus was about to perform, but it does enable us to fit the several accounts together.  John 6:4 states, “The Jewish Passover Feast was near.” It was springtime!  And Mark, describing also the feeding of the 4,000, shows that Jesus “told the crowd to sit down [not on the grass, but] on the ground.”  This enables us to distinguish the feeding of the 4,000 from the feeding of the 5,000, establishing that they were probably two separate miracles.

CONCLUSION

Why are there four Gospels?

It takes very little faith, in my opinion, to recognize divine Providence in the fact that we have four independent records of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.  It would be difficult to think of a more powerful means for God to use to ensure that His Truth would become known, than a multiplicity of detailed accounts.

As noted earlier, McGrew has provided dozens more examples of “unintended coincidences” showing the NT text to be richer than many of us realized.  My favorites include Jesus before Pilate and Joseph’s tomb.  For an enjoyable and encouraging read, I heartily recommend it.

“I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.”

– Jesus (John 5:24)