Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

An Overlooked Argument for the Resurrection

Michael J. Kruger

In my jargon, the argument is rationally acceptable, but not rationally compelling (rationally  coercive, philosophically dispositive). There is no getting around the fact that, in the end, you must decide what you will believe and how you will live. In the end: after due doxastic diligence has been exercised and all the arguments and considerations pro et contra have been canvassed. The will comes into it.

Don't confuse argument with  proof or faith with knowledge.  And forgive me for this further repetition: We cannot decide what the truth is, but we must decide what we will accept as the truth. The truth is what it is in sublime and objective indifference to us, our hopes, dreams, needs, wants,  and wishes. But the only truth that can help us, and perhaps save us, is the truth that we as "existing individuals" (Kierkegaard) existentially and thus subjectively appropriate, that is, make our own. In this sense lived truth is subjective truth. In this sense, S. K. is right to insist that "truth is subjectivity" in Concluding Scientific Postscript.

More in this vein in Notes on Kierkegaard and Truth.

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Bill Vallicella

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4 responses to “An Overlooked Argument for the Resurrection”

  1. Trudy VanderMolen Avatar
    Trudy VanderMolen

    I wish Kruger would have gone further. Why were the first century believers so convinced of Jesus’ resurrection that they were willing to be persecuted and martyred in horrible ways? Who would be willing to be thrown to lions, or crucified as burning torches for something that they didn’t think actually happened?

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  2. Vito B. Caiati Avatar
    Vito B. Caiati

    Bill,
    As a believer in the Resurrection, I have nothing to add, either to Kruger’s “overlooked” argument, which you wisely judge as “rationally acceptable, but not rationally compelling.” Rather, on this Good Friday morning, I offer links to two of the traditional events that took place this week, Semana Santa, in Malaga, Spain, which capture the bold, confident, masculine Catholic faith of former times—the remnants of which were still barely alive in my youth–that the Leftists who have commandeered the Church in the last sixty years have all but eradicated.
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1771832513796665633
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1772693798214111571

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  3. Joe Odegaard Avatar
    Joe Odegaard

    Thank you for the links, Mr. Caiati. How I long for a return to that faith of former times.
    Maybe it is still strong in Russia, maybe this video shows that.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwGd0cvksZs

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  4. tom Avatar
    tom

    Dr. BV,
    What are the criteria for deciding what to accept as truth? Surely, some decisions are ‘better’ than others.

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