Continuation
3
Still in the same vein, Greenleaf asks: Would men invent such teaching. From Greenleafs own arguments there is every reason to think the mens beliefs were profound and genuine, and that those beliefs were in accordance with a pre-existing doctrine. So it isnt a matter of their belief that needs to be questioned, but the means by which they conveyed it into the transcription, for they would incorporate in the documents what they earnestly and profoundly believed to be the truth. What can be said with near certainty is that first and foremost the men presented evidence of their faith; but whether the events described could be counted as factual, given that they were wholly unnatural occurrences, which were only supported by documents, is addressed by asking: Why, if in everyday life, we would not accept testimonies alone as incontrovertible evidence for alleged supernatural events then why must we allow a special exception in this particular case? Greenleaf rejects any possible objection with a prejudice that elsewhere he asks sceptics to put aside in the search for the truth: the death of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection are true and incapable of refutation (quotes Paley). And surely such an absolute assertion is utterly inconsistent with the rules of evidence? And then there is this: But it is impossible to read their writings and feel that we are not conversant with men eminently holy, and of tender consciences, with men acting under an abiding sense of the presence and omniscience of God. (The underscoring is mine) These are opinions and not examples of a disinterested, forensic analysis. It is not for Greenleaf to direct the reader to consider his personal and subjective notion of feelings as evidence; he is presuming to lead or influence the reader with his own opinions or religious calling.
4
And still on the question of facts Greenleaf says: The proof that God has revealed himself to man by special and express communications, and that Christianity constitutes that revelation, is no part of these inquiries. So he makes an unsupported assertion to a supposed truth without the least reference to matters of fact, and having made the assertion immediately presumes to exclude any critique of his claim. And having pulled up the drawbridge behind him, by presuming to set those terms of reference, he then with breath-taking cheek seeks to find fault with David Humes empirical argument! He says [Humes position] excludes all knowledge derived by inference or deduction from facts, confining us to what we derive from experience alone." Well, yes, Dr Greenleaf, for that is precisely what is meant by the term facts! We see a ploy that appears throughout his piece, where he introduces a premise as if it were already a certain truth, as if to establish it in the readers mind, and then as in this particular instance remembers the legal protocol and adds as an afterthought that what he claims to be proven forms no part of these inquiries. But if, as in a court of law, those leading statements form no part of the inquiries then should they not be struck from the record?
And then we have another of those unsupported assertions and a plea to authority by one who ought to know better, in which the truth of miracles is assumed with no objections allowed:
But the full discussion of the subject of miracles forms no part of the present design. Their credibility has been fully established, and the objections of skeptics most satisfactorily met and overthrown, by the ablest writers of our own day, whose works are easily accessible. 1097
Prior to that fallaciously dismissive passage Greenleaf says:
We may fairly conclude that the power which was originally put forth to create the world is still constantly and without ceasing exerted to sustain it; and that the experienced connection between cause and effect is but the uniform and constantly active operation of the finger of God. Whether this uniformity of operation extends to things beyond the limits of our observation, is a point we cannot certainly know. But if we may infer, from what we see and know, that there is a Supreme Being, by whom this world was created, we may certainly, and with equal reason, believe him capable of works which we have never yet known him to perform.
In the above passage Greenleaf has digressed and gone well beyond the legal parameters to delve into the realm of metaphysics. Now what we can certainly know is that nothing in or of the contingent world is necessarily true, and in consequence there need be no world, to include all its operations, upon which, by analogy, he endows the Deity with its causal powers of creation and conservation. He admits we cannot go beyond experience and yet still seeks to do so, making God dependent upon features of the empirical world, that is to say cause and effect, a contingent principle that can be denied without contradiction. But if God, the Supreme Being, is dependent upon a contingent principle then by definition God is not God, which would be self-contradictory such as saying A=A is false or a thing is not the same as itself. Greenleaf argues that the power originally put forth to create the world as cause and effect is the active operation of the finger of God. But the analogy is a misleading one for cause and effect does not imply that anything was originally created; we do not create anything in the physical world, not objects, not thoughts, not anything; we just apply, adapt, or respond to what is already there. This synthesis doesnt occur with the introduction of something that didnt previously exist but comprises a change or variation in existent things. Even our most fantastic imaginings, for example, are not created from nothing but compounded from general experience.
Without stopping to examine the correctness of [Humes] doctrine, as a fundamental principle in the law of evidence, it is sufficient in this place to remark, that it contains this fallacy: it excludes all knowledge derived by inference or deduction from facts, confining us to what we derive from experience alone, and thus depriving us of any knowledge, or even rational belief, or the existence or character of God.
Greenleaf is supposed to be confining himself to matters of fact and experience as a principle of the rules of evidence, supposedly before a trier of fact, and yet questions Humes empiricism to speculate on the existence of God! And Humes empirical conclusions are hardly fallacious when Greenleaf himself has already acknowledges the limits of experience: Whether this uniformity of operation extends to things beyond the limits of our observation is a point we cannot certainly know. Humes argument is that by inference we may deduce conclusions that are to be found in possible experience, but nothing in experience is necessary, while Greenleaf is supposing to extend the principle beyond possible experience, which is nothing more than an exercise in sophistry or speculation. And notice how he already assumes the existence of God that the knowledge by inference is supposed to provide! So much for bringing to the investigation a mind freed, as far as possible, from existing prejudice, which was his very first sentence in page 1 of the piece. We are not seeing a genuine enquiry, a quest for the truth; rather we are seeing one who finds for a conclusion that is given in advance.
