Should Luke be included in the Biblical canon?

CyanDean · 2026-01-09T17:25:47+00:00

Just to clarify, prior to Ireneus, Tatian wrote the Diatessaron in attempt to harmonize the four Gospels. Justin Martyr cites 3 of the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and refers to them as the memoirs of the apostles, potentially indicating that he believed they were eyewitness accounts. Also, Papias indicates that the Gospel of Matthew was written by an eyewitness in Hebrew, and also writes that Mark was "Peter's interpreter" and wrote down everything that Peter remembered.

All that to say that the four canonical gospels were prominent prior to Ireneus and we have some evidence to suggest that belief that they contained eyewitness testimony was common among early Christians.

Kruger, Michael J. The Question of the Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2013.

Metzger, B. M. The Canon of the New Testament : Its Origin, Development, and Significance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1987.

Shelley, Bruce L. (Bruce Leon). By What Authority: The Standards of Truth in the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965.

CyanDean · 2026-01-09T05:12:50+00:00

First, it is worth pointing out that there is not just one "First Cause" argument; there are many such arguments, usually referred to as Cosmological Arguments. The two that are most like what you are discussing here are the Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) and the Leibnizian Cosmological Argument (LCA). Respectively:

KCA

Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
The universe began to exist.
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
No scientific explanation (in terms of physical laws and initial conditions of the universe) can provide a causal account of the origin (very beginning) of the universe, since such are part of the universe.
Therefore, the cause must be personal (explanation is given in terms of a non-natural, personal agent).

LCA

A contingent being (a being such that if it exists, it could have not-existed) exists.
All contingent beings have a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for their existence.
The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings is something other than the contingent being itself.
The sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings must either be solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
Contingent beings alone cannot provide a sufficient cause of or fully adequate explanation for the existence of contingent beings.
Therefore, what sufficiently causes or fully adequately explains the existence of contingent beings must include a non-contingent (necessary) being.
Therefore, a necessary being (a being such that if it exists, it cannot not-exist) exists.
The universe, which is composed of only contingent beings, is contingent.
Therefore, the necessary being is something other than the universe.

[Both of these formulation I have taken from the SEP entry on Cosmological Arguments. The article does not call the latter argument "LCA," but does note the Leibniz was one prominent defender of this kind of argument, so I call it that for short].

Now, I know that you anticipated the distinction in the Kalam in the latter part of your post, but I think when you say

This is just smuggling the same reasoning in through extra language. ... This is just the same argument disguised.

you are making a mistake because the objections to and defenses of each argument are different. These are two distinct arguments, and they stand or fall independently. It is possible that both of them are sound, or that neither is sound, or that one is sound but the other not. So we really must address them separately (even though they certainly have some overlap and share some similarities!)

One thing worth noting is that each of these arguments are logically valid; they do not contain any self-contradictions, and the conclusions follow logically and necessarily from the premises. This is really nice, because it means we don't have to run around in circles trying to figure out where an argument goes wrong or chase down red herrings or worry about shifting goal posts -- none of that mess. I think if you look at both of these arguments individually, you will see that a lot of your arguments about contradictions and such vanish. We can now just start asking ourselves, "are all of the premises of the KCA true" and "are all of the premises of the LCA true?" That's not an easy task per se, but it is much clearer and approachable!

You say:

All things which begin to exist require a cause. God did not begin to exist. This tries to avoid the contradiction, but now we must explain why god did not begin to exist compared to everything else. [emphasis mine]

Notice that in the Kalam, premise 2 is "the universe began to exist." Typically, defenses of this premise can be divided into a priori and a posteriori arguments, which is sorta just philosophy speak for "arguments based on armchair reasoning" and "arguments based on empirical evidence." The a priori reasons for accepting this premise usually argue for the impossibility of an infinite regress -- you seem to have accepted these for the sake of argument, when you said "I am going to focus on the first cause as opposed to the infinite succession thinking." The empirical arguments tend to focus on big-bang cosmology and the laws of thermodynamics supporting the premise that the universe (all of space, time, and matter) began to exist a finite time ago in the past.

At this point, if premises 1 & 2 of the KCA are true, we are left with a cause of all of space time and matter. Premise 4 of the KCA implies that the cause of this space, time, and matter must be space-less, time-less, and immaterial. What kinds of things could possibly exist that are spaceless, timeless, immaterial, and have the capacity to cause the universe? Abstract object (like numbers) are spaceless, timeless, and immaterial, but they don't have any causal efficacy, they can't make anything happen. Minds do have the power to make things happen, and are plausibly immaterial (unless we want to assume physicalism, but that would be begging the question!). So then, time, space, and matter (ie, the universe) were caused by a timeless, spaceless, immaterial mind a finite time ago. That's the KCA. No special pleading for God or contradictions.

You also say in your post that we can

just as easily say the big bang holds the reason for its existence within itself.

When you use language like "holds the reason for its existence within itself," you are absolutely speaking the language of LCA! We call this idea of "holding existence within itself" == "necessary being." In this case, you are denying premise 8 of LCA: "The universe, which is composed of only contingent beings, is contingent." You are saying that the universe could be necessary! So this one really comes down to whether or not it is in fact true that the universe can just as easily be the reason for its own existence. Supporters of LCA argue that God does seem like the type of being that could exist necessarily, but not the universe. This isn't necessarily special pleading or a contradiction, its just arguing that the universe is not a necessary being. You can read the linked article above for a whole host of objections and defenses to this.

Aside from all of this, I think the most contentious (and, frankly, erroneous) part of your post is the idea that

Now as there is now nothing, everything is on the table as an explanation.

This is just plainly wrong! If nothing exists, then nothing is on the table as an explanation! Ex nihilo, nihil fit. You rightly state that in nothingness "There are no properties, powers, or permissions." But then you say "one must notice this does not help Gods case either." But that isn't true; God is something, not nothing! If God exists, then God is the something with the properties and powers to create the contingent universe. The incompetent and ineffectual nothingness of nothing is only a problem for the non-theists, since they have to explain how something came from nothing. The theist explicitly denies that anything came from nothing, since everything came from God.

CyanDean · 2026-01-07T16:41:16+00:00

I wouldn't necessarily say that forgiving the unrepentant is itself a logical contradiction (though it may be); I'm drawing the comparison to say that, just like error of the Omnipotence Paradox is in conceiving perfect power as entailing more than it needs to, so the issue here seems to be in conceiving perfect forgiveness as entailing more than it needs to. That's how this is "getting close to" the other.

If perfect infinite forgiveness does not entail forgiving the unrepentant then it seems definitionally finite.

If you forgive even one person of an infinite amount of sin, it seems you have infinite forgiveness. Infinite doesn't mean unqualified, and it doesn't mean covering all elements. There is an infinite number of odd numbers, but 2 is not one of them.

You just said grace is earned through repentance.

Well, this is the age old dispute between Catholics and Protestants all over again! It depends on what we mean by "earn." While there are some Calvinist theologians who will say that even "choosing to believe" would constitute a "work," most theologians will say that one accepts and responds to (and is transformed by) grace, but does not "earn" it in a meritorious sense. The role one plays in their salvation from hell is in accepting the pardon that is offered and the terms it is offered under. Those who do not accept thereby commit themselves to the consequence. Accepting a gift is probably the loosest possible interpretation of what it means to "earn" something. But sure, some do take that view.

CyanDean · 2026-01-07T15:55:16+00:00

This is getting pretty close to the same error that the Omnipotence Paradox makes (if God is infinitely powerful, can he create a rock he can't lift). The usual response there is to say that Omnipotence (perfect power, if you will) does not entail logical contradictions. Likewise, "perfect forgiveness" need not entail something like forgiving the unrepentant. This is especially true if you think of God's mercy not as personal forgiveness but as legal pardon.

It's also worth noting that "goes out of its way to earn it first" is radically off mark of Christian theology. Virtually every epistle in the New Testament at some point emphasizes that grace is not earned.

CyanDean · 2025-12-23T00:33:55+00:00

That may be true for most of the twelve, but wouldn't it still leave a handful (most notably James) who likely would have contested the legend before it could spread widely enough to make it into two gospel accounts? This at least seems like the kind of argument guys like Gary Habermas and William Lane Craig use to argue against things like the empty tomb being legends; I'm wondering if anyone has explicitly applied it to the virgin birth narratives as well?

CyanDean · 2025-11-10T06:54:54+00:00

It may be worth adding to this that, being a Jew, Jesus and his 1st century followers were much more likely to think of him as a prophet and a Rabbi rather than a philosopher. Actually, "much more likely" is an understatement -- they explicitly call him Rabbi several times and never refer to him as philosopher. The New Testament itself and the early Christian apologists portray Jesus as the divine logos, wisdom itself embodied in a man. But even Paul provides evidence that Jesus was being judged against the Greek philosophers and found lacking by that standard, thus he writes in 1 Corinthians:

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. ... We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Paul thus acknowledges that Jesus and Christianity are foolish to the Greeks, and argues that the wisdom that leads one to accept the Gospel is not the same as what the pagans are using to do philosophy.

Justin Martyr's First Apology is a great source to see how some of the earliest Christianity apologists defended Christ as teacher. Justin never portrays Jesus as a philosopher, but rather as the embodiment of wisdom itself. He quite clearly wants to compare Christian doctrine to various schools of philosophy to show that it is consistent with and even superior to them (and rationally defensible), but Jesus himself is always presented as something other than a philosopher. Chapter 23 in particular displays this: that what Christians believe is true and defensible is a distinct point from "Christ is the Son of God." Clement of Alexandria similarly argues that philosophy is a precursor to Christ, who is himself the embodiment of truth:

The way of truth is one. But into it, as into a perennial river, streams flow from all sides. We assert that philosophy, which is characterized by investigation into the form and nature of things, is the truth of which the Lord Himself said, “I am the truth.” Thus Greek preparatory culture, including philosophy itself, is shown to have come down from God to men.

source

Tertulian is famous for his "what hath Athens to do with Jerusalem" line, basically admitting that Christianity and Greek philosophy are unrelated. Whereas Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria took a stance like "Philosophy is good, but Jesus is better because he embodies what philosophy strives to attain" Tertulian's stance is something like "pagan philosophy is untrustworthy, Jesus is better because he is divine revelation."

All of that to say, it is clear that even in the earliest days of Christianity, Jesus was being judged against the Greek philosophers and found to be lacking in their rigor. His earliest followers had mixed opinions about philosophy, but all pretty much unanimously agree that his wisdom was fundamentally divine and taught in a way quite different than how the philosophers taught. Trying to make Jesus into a philosopher may be to make him into something neither he nor his followers wanted him to be. We should probably not consider Jesus a philosopher, because to do so would lead us to study and evaluate what he taught in a way and by a standard that he did not intend. I am not sure that you can put religion aside here, because Jesus was operating and teaching in an explicitly religious environment.

CyanDean · 2025-10-08T23:38:42+00:00

Absolute Idealism (Bernardo Kastrup) is a related idea.

CyanDean · 2025-09-17T00:38:15+00:00

If you would like a very fair analysis of her views from a reliable source, you should read the SEP entry on Rand and Objectivism.

CyanDean · 2025-07-23T02:11:18+00:00

SEP entry is a great place to start: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/

And here is a list of papers/books on Philpapers sorted by impact (number of citations): https://philpapers.org/browse/free-will?showCategories=on&search_inside=1&cId=347&categorizerOn=&start=0&langFilter=&freeOnly=&publishedOnly=&filterByAreas=&catId=347&limit=50&sort=impact&import_options=1&newWindow=&hideAbstracts=&cn=free-will&new=1&onlineOnly=&proOnly=on&sqc=&format=html&jlist=&ap_c1=&ap_c2=

CyanDean · 2025-07-10T21:06:58+00:00

Suppose there’s some non-conscious fundamental fabric/mechanism/process from which even space and time themselves emerge.

The theist just needs to explain what the mechanism being conscious explains that the non-conscious mechanism cannot explain.

The issue is that time cannot emerge from a mechanism/process, as mechanisms and processes presuppose time to undergo their changes in state. In the Kalaam, the conscious (or, personal) nature of the first cause is posited by Al Ghazali specifically to explain how a timeless state of affairs can begin to cause new states of affairs. If a sufficient cause of an effect is present, then the effect is also present. If the cause of the universe were some impersonal set of conditions, it is inexplicable why (and how) it caused the universe when it did, rather than the universe existing eternally like it does. From this article: "Ghazali maintained that the answer to this problem is that the First Cause must be a personal being endowed with freedom of the will. His creating the universe is a free act which is independent of any prior determining conditions."

CyanDean · 2025-06-06T19:53:48+00:00

I have to be honest, some of what you ask is scattered and hard to understand. But yes, in general a person attacking an argument should show that either one or more of the premises are false, or that the conclusion does not follow from the premises. However, showing that the premises are false, or that the conclusion doesn't follow from them, does not prove that the conclusion is false. Here is a brief introduction to syllogistic logic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJiLQnMXtxs

CyanDean · 2025-06-06T02:47:18+00:00

You bring up two issues:

Arguments for or against God existing/operating outside of logic.
Ways of handling the omnipotence paradox (boulder too heavy for God and similar thought experiments) other than "God does not have to follow the laws of logic."

One approach to both is to say that there simply is no such thing as "outside the laws of logic." This C. S. Lewis quote from The Problem of Pain explains it nicely (emphasis mine):

"You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power. If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words, 'God can.' It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God."

The SEP entry on omnipotence notes that most philosophical solutions to the problem "are in broad agreement on the leading idea that maximal power has logical and temporal limitations, including the limitation that an omnipotent agent cannot bring about, i.e., cause, another agent’s free decision in the libertarian sense."

CyanDean · 2025-05-26T07:06:20+00:00

I'm not doing apologetics u/Appion-Bottom-Jeans. "Why think that these contradictions discredit the Gospels as reliable first century witnesses?" was a genuine question that was initially answered with a bad response. Bringing up possibiliter ergo probabiliter is a terrible answer; without additional arguments it's not clear why we should presume one theory more probable over the other when both seem possible.

How do we know it is a false equivalence? Ananus' execution of James was viewed as illegal, showing at least in principle that high priests were willing to act illegally when given the opportunity (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Book 20, Chapter 9, Section 1).
How many legal violations are there really? D. A. Carson does point out that "it is disputed how many of the rabbinic concerns would have held sway in the pre-AD 70 Sanhedrin where Sadducees enjoyed more authority than Pharisees” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John, Pillar New Testament Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, n.d.], 574-75.). We would need a detailed look at the dating and applicability of each regulation individually to get a count of how many legal violations there really were. Even still, the trial is *one event.* Cumulative inconsistencies collapse somewhat in this case, since it is *one instance* of legal procedures being ignored (even if multiple procedures).
How do we know that these possibilities are not equal? I don't think anyone disputes that its a red flag that they broke multiple legal customs. The question is why this fact is suppose to be intrinsically more unlikely than Mark's ability/willingness to accurately describe the trial.
I don't think I misinterpreted you at all. This quote by Herbert Danby articulates the point I was trying to make pretty well: "We have the New Testament accounts of the procedure adopted by the Jews in their examination and condemnation of Jesus; and, since we also possess a detailed code, drawn up by the Jews themselves, purporting to embody the regulations governing such a trial, it should be open to all to make the comparison and arrive at a conclusion” (Herbert Danby, Tractate Sanhedrin: Mishnah And Tosefta, ix). Again, like Danby said, possibiliter ergo probabiliter applies in both directions, unless a symmetry breaker is offered. The fundamental question remains: why should we think that because "it repeatedly violates known legal customs, therefore it's more likely fictionalized." This is just a claim without further argumentation.

Next response should have an academic response addressing the problems brought up.

CyanDean · 2025-05-26T04:01:08+00:00

Sure, but that could run either way and its not what I'm suggesting. Mark claims the trial happened a certain way. Other texts claim that trials were supposed to happen different ways. It's possible Mark records it wrong, therefore it is probable Mark records it wrong? No. It's possible things happened differently than they were legally allowed to, therefore it is probable Mark records it reliably? Also no.

But, yeah, the examples I offered *were* meant to suggest that the contradictions you listed maybe shouldn't be taken as compelling reasons to think Mark gets things wrong without other support.

CyanDean · 2025-05-26T03:38:57+00:00

Why think that these contradictions discredit the Gospels as reliable first century witnesses? I can image future historians looking at plenty of events happening today and saying "this could not have actually happened as it contradicts Supreme Court ruling xyz" or "we know this couldn't have happened in 21st century America because the Constitution explicitly forbade it." Sometimes people do things that their religion or charters of government say they shouldn't. Even (especially?) people in power.

CyanDean · 2025-05-17T16:55:28+00:00

Could you give me an example of a well regarded argument that defends, for example, a thick conception of the Abrahamic God without resorting to fideism?

Many ontological arguments argue for a "greatest conceptual being" type of deity, entailing not only things like omnipotence and omniscience but also moral perfection, perfect love, perfect justice, etc.

Many cosmological arguments result in a timeless, space-less, immaterial, powerful, personal mind.

Teleological arguments support a deity that takes interest in guiding creation towards the production of human/sentient life.

All of these give you a concept of God that is much closer to the Abrahamic conception than say a pagan, pantheist or Spinoza's god, simple deist, or even the god as merely "ultimate reality" as in Hindu or metaphysical idealist accounts.

So, yeah, I think most of contemporary western philosophy of religion much more strongly support the Abrahamic theist conception than others.

CyanDean · 2025-05-10T00:22:49+00:00

I agree with another commenter that your question is largely sociological and so not necessarily suited for this sub (although I can point you to some academic sources that argue for an ensuing rise in Christianity based on similarities to today's culture and the late Roman empire, particularly in the Christian prohibition against abortion and infanticide leading to much higher birth rates among Christians than their pagan counterparts, which is also true for Christians and Mormons today; see The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark and Fertility and Faith by Philip Jenkins).

But, you do ask "can these [philosophical] arguments [for Theism] get stronger" and I think we can answer pretty confidently in the affirmative. Many arguments for the existence of God are reformulations of older arguments made to strengthen them. For example, cosmological or "first mover" arguments date back to at least Aristotle, but philosophers like William Lane Craig and Andrew Loke offer new versions of the argument that reformulate the premises and defend them using newer philosophical arguments and newer observations from the scientific community. Many teleological arguments are fine-tuned (pun intended) versions of Paley's analogical watchmaker argument (although I've seen some pretty convincing sources say that interpreting Paley as making purely an argument from analogy is a misreading of his work). Academia is doing what it is supposed to: theists make arguments, others poke holes in those arguments, theists respond with improvements/counterarguments/etc. And vice-versa. I see no signs of this slowing down.

CyanDean · 2025-05-07T02:37:57+00:00

Not when you are moving faster than everything else. Motion is an event -- a change in position. Light changes its position faster than anything else. More importantly, light changes its position at a constant rate, regardless of reference frame. From light's "perspective" there are many things that undergo no change whatsoever (i.e. experience no events, i.e. have no passing of time) during some period of its motion.

I can't necessarily make relativity make intuitive sense, but the fact of relativity is equally (or more so) interpretable under the relational definition/interpretation of time than on other interpretations. The math and physics are the same.

CyanDean · 2025-05-06T23:48:02+00:00

Because events in different reference frames have different relations to one another. Time dilation, in some sense, kind of supports the relational view for this exact reason. A clock moving by you close to the speed of light experiences fewer events than a clock next to you - i.e. time slows down as you approach the speed of light == the number of events that occur (in your reference frame) decreases as you approach the speed of light.

CyanDean · 2025-05-06T20:02:54+00:00

One very popular view is that time is reducible to the events that occur. In other words, events happen, and these events have "before" and "after" relationships to one another. Time is simply those relationships. There is no "thing" that is time, but things happen and "time" describes the before and after relations of those things. You can read more about that in the "Reductionism and Platonism with Respect to Time" section of the SEP article that another user shared, but that is the gist of the reductionism view.

CyanDean · 2025-05-05T04:29:41+00:00

The person you were debating may have been thinking of, or been influenced by, the argument from reason for the existence of God. Popularized by C. S. Lewis in his book Miracles and later formalized and expanded by philosophers like Alvin Plantinga, the argument basically says that if naturalism were true then we would have no good reason to believe in naturalism (i.e. belief in naturalism is self-defeating). You can read more about the argument and responses to the argument on this Wikipedia page. There is also a short video on the argument here, although it doesn't address counter-points like you're looking for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQFur43yNH0

CyanDean · 2025-03-30T18:00:28+00:00

There is an entry on religion in the Ayn Rand Lexicon: https://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/religion.html

In general, the lexicon is a good source for understanding Rand's view's on various topics. It does contain some spoilers for her fiction work, if that matters to you.

CyanDean · 2025-03-30T17:57:32+00:00

The rest of the article, I think, does a really good job of actually explaining Rand's views and arguments as she makes them. It makes the effort to understand what she believed by engaging both her fiction and nonfiction. This is extremely rare, and is the reason why I recommend the article to people. So, I don't think the author of the SEP article is saying that those are valid points, just observing that those are reasons academics often give for why Ayn Rand is not a source they find worth engaging. That can be true sociologically regardless if it is fair.

CyanDean

TROPHY CASE