Are Claims Evidence?

Are Claims Evidence? · Why Wouldn't Every Claim be Sufficient Evidence? · Visual Experience is Prima Facie Evidence · Relevant Expert?

Matt Dillahunty

Short Version:

Claims aren't evidence.

Long version:

A claim is not evidence of the truth of itself / of that same claim.

Joe Schmid:

I'm not sure what that means.

The obvious problem is, does Dillahunty mean ever at all, or does he mean in specific contexts where there are specific reasons to doubt the claim?

If he means ever at all, he's obviously wrong.

If he means in specific contexts, why not ask whether the Gospels' claims about Jesus or Catholicism's claim about itself could be outside those contexts?

Another obvious problem, kind of related is, does he mean any kind of preliminary evidence, does he mean sufficient evidence or does he mean evidence trumping anything and everything else?

Everyone would agree that not all claims are sufficient evidence or evidence trumping everything else. That would fall on the item that claims contradict.

Here are three claims that contradict:

• Christianity isn't true, the Gospels don't portray the real Jesus (usually meaning "who wasn't divine" but can also mean "who was actually an avatar of Vishnu, like Krishna or Buddha") and there is no sense in looking for the Church he founded since he didn't have the will or the power to preserve it.
• Christianity is true, Catholicism is the Church Jesus founded (alternatives to "Catholicism" include "Eastern Orthodoxy", "Coptic Church", "Branch Theory", "Baptist Continuity" but not Lutheranism or Anglicanism).
• Christianity is true, but Catholicism misunderstands the idea of continuity and therefore implications about a "one true Church" (position of Lutherans, Anglicans, Gavin Ortlund), and it's not all that institutional.
• A fourth, Christianity is true, there is no institutional continuity and a Restorationist Church is obliging (position of Mormons, JW, Churches of God).

Each of these claims cannot be a trumping claim or even sufficient claim of the truth of the claim itself. At least three of the four versions needs to be at most only preliminary evidence which means that they are evidence until facing stronger evidence. Or not even that.

And as to claim two, each version of it, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Orthodox of the East, Baptist Continuity, Albigensian Continuity, possibly even Branch Theory, is at rivalry with the other versions in such a way that not each of the claims can be sufficient evidence.

But this is also the strongest version I can give Dillahunty. Baptist and Albigensian continuity aren't equal to Catholic continuity. The claim "look, we are the Church you find here 200 years ago" is stronger than "we are a Church that 200 years ago was very hidden, so don't look for it" ... again, a claim from a community about the origins of the own group, of the "in-group" as modern sociologists would say, is stronger than a specific claim about an "out-group" of another group than itself. Communities, like persons have memories. Communities, like persons, are often honest about themselves to outsiders, and it's hard for a community to be dishonest to insiders, apart from shell games. Communities, like persons, are often angry at each other and can say pretty rough stuff about each other which isn't necessarily true.

For instance, if I were assessing the rival claims of Judaism and Christianity, which I'm not, I'm already Christian, I might expect both to be dishonest about each other. But what John says about Jews is no match for putting Targum Onkelos in a tractate of the own Talmud known as Gittin. So, on that issue, I'd say Christianity wins by being more honest about Jews than Jews are about Christians, as near as one can get back to the point of divergence. But I didn't find this out before chosing Christianity over Judaism.

But this poses the circumstance that claims are not equal, and claims are therefore not equally "not evidence of themselves" ...

"Jesus was Crucified and appeared to disciples" is stronger than "Jesus was stoned and then hanged" ... bc Josephus mentions Jesus in the Roman period, after or along with Theudas, and not in the pre-Roman period, when the presumed disciple of Joshua Ben Perakhia would have lived. Josephus mentions Jesus' disciples as still being a tribe, but it's impossible to trace Christians all the way back from the time of John Hyrcanus or Alexander Jannaeus.

Which brings us to the fact that both the Gospels and Josephus (yes, I uphold the Testimonium Flavianum) are giving evidence by claims which taken together are stronger than the counterclaim in the Talmud. Even to the so far undecided. One reason why so many Jews these days aren't using Gittin or the Talmud, but rather go with Atheist or Humanist versions of what Jesus really was about. Illustrating that the rejection of Jesus by Jews hasn't been able to stay with one claim, they have shifted ground, more than once.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
XVth LD after Pentecost
6.IX.2026

I'll now resume a video where Joe Schmid replies to Dillahunty, which is from where I resumed above "dialogue", here it is: Why CLAIMS are often EVIDENCE (answer will SHOCK you)