Is the falsifiability of Christian claims a conclusive argument for Christianity?

Last updated on: March 21, 2016 at 1:44 pm by Edwin Woodruff Tait

Is the falsifiability of Christian claims a conclusive argument for Christianity? 2016-03-21T13:44:00-05:00 Edwin Woodruff Tait

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This article argues that it is, but I think the argument is pretty much bunk. Christians do indeed make specific historical claims, but that’s only proof of Christianity if you start with the premise that religions should do that. It isn’t true that Buddhism is non-falsifiable. Buddhism claims to be a means leading to peace of mind and freedom from the inner suffering that arises from selfish desire. If you practice the Buddhist way for a period of time and find yourself more and more miserable and torn apart by conflicting desires, then a good case can be made that Buddhism has been falsified, at least for you. He’s assuming from the start that other religions should make the kinds of claims Christianity makes and then faulting them for not doing so, and that’s just ridiculous. Furthermore, it isn’t really true that Christianity is falsifiable, at least now. We don’t have a time machine. We aren’t in a position to check the New Testament’s claims by direct observation. Yes, when first made the claims might have been falsifiable, but again, we don’t know enough about the circumstances under which they were made to be too sure about this. And the fact that Christians put so much time and energy into apologetics isn’t necessarily a point in favor of Christianity. A case can be made that these efforts are necessary because Christians insist on pinning their faith to very contingent historical claims, against which in many cases there is a good bit of prima facie evidence that has to be explained away. From a certain point of view, this is a massive waste of intellectual and spiritual energy. I myself find apologetics to be, in most cases, spiritually arid. In fact, Muslims do engage in a lot of apologetics as well–most of it even worse than standard Christian apologetics, in my limited experience. To be clear: I believe that the historical evidence on the whole supports the claim that Jesus rose again, and I believe that there are very good reasons why Christianity makes contingent historical claims. I glory in belonging to a religion that makes such claims. But I think it’s silly to use the fact that other religions don’t make such claims as an argument against them.

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