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The Impossible Faith
A Thesis So Explosive, An Atheist Paid $5,000 for An Answer The Impossible Faith offers the proposition that Christianity could not have succeeded unless it had indisputable proof of the resurrection of Jesus. Had there not been such evidence, Christianity would have been an "impossible faith". Using his seventeen years of experience in apologetics ministry, the author will demonstrate the impossibility of Christianity in the eyes of the people of the first century and present an apologetic for Jesus' resurrection. Christians will be encouraged and emboldened by the message of The Impossible Faith, realizing "how firm a foundation" they have in Christ Jesus. Non-Christians will be challenged to consider the truth of Christianity in a new light. The arguments in this book are so powerful that one atheist paid over $5,000 for a response. It is impossible to estimate the evangelistic impact that is possible because of The Impossible Faith. James Patrick Holding is President of Tekton Apologetics Ministries, one of the leading apologetics ministries on the Internet. Tekton Apologetics Ministries was recommended by apologist and prominent author Lee Strobel on Hank Hanegraaff's The Bible Answerman in December, 2001. Holding has written over 1700 articles for his ministry, as well as articles for the Christian Research Journal and for the publications of Creation Ministries International . He has also published The Mormon How Latter-Day Saint Apologists Misinterpret the Bible. He lives in Central Florida with his beloved wife and a very small, very spoiled poodle.
112 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 2007
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About the author
James Patrick Holding
22 books4 followersJames Patrick Holding, commonly referred to as JP Holding, is a Florida-based Christian apologist and president of Tekton Apologetics Ministries which provides answers to questions which are often posed regarding the Christian faith. Tekton Apologetics Ministries is one of the leading apologetics ministries on the Internet with over 17,000 articles. JP Holding holds a Masters degree in Library Science.
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February 19, 2013
J.P. Holding has hit it out of the park with this book. I found myself struggling to come up with any sort of substantial response to his brilliant sociological take on the argument for the resurrection.
Holdings argument is centered on the fact that Christians main arguments and claims are historical and as such are falsifiable especially to those at the time of Christ's death and acclaimed resurrection. On top of this Christianities historical claims were extremely offensive and counter-cultural to the peoples of the time. Given this it would take nothing less than a miracle for Christianity to succeed in the cultural back-drop that it did if Jesus had not risen from the dead.
Holdings argument is centered on the fact that Christians main arguments and claims are historical and as such are falsifiable especially to those at the time of Christ's death and acclaimed resurrection. On top of this Christianities historical claims were extremely offensive and counter-cultural to the peoples of the time. Given this it would take nothing less than a miracle for Christianity to succeed in the cultural back-drop that it did if Jesus had not risen from the dead.
January 30, 2024
I like to learn about why and how people think and act the way they do. Books on religion, for and against, offer a fascinating view of our most cherished ideas. How did those ideas come about? How do they influence our behavior, if, in fact, they influence it? I read this book because I want to read Richard Carrier’s response. Let’s give James Patrick Holding a hearing before Carrier. Holding states his central claim this way:
“The Impossible Faith offers an explosive proposition: That Christianity, by the reckoning of men, ought to have been one of those faiths that either passed into history or became seriously altered. . . the Christian faith had none of the advantages that other thriving faiths, such as Islam and Mormonism, had during their formative years. There is simply no possibility that Christianity would have been accepted by anyone in the ancient world, unless its first missionaries had indisputable proof and testimony of the faith’s central tenet, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
I love “explosive” and the modifying phrase, “by the reckoning of men,” but overall Holding’s proposition doesn’t do his mission justice. Allow me to attempt clarity.
Proposition
Christianity survived special resistance during its development, yet it did survive. This survival can only be explained in one way; its first missionaries had indisputable proof of the faith’s central tenet, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Bear in mind that Holding is an apologist for Christianity. He not only believes the Easter story, he thinks God will decide each person’s eternal destiny based largely on their belief or unbelief. He wants his writing to “lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.” Given Holding’s goal, I offer some advantages and disadvantages of his proposition.
Advantage 1
Accepting the proposition releases all modern apologists from any responsibility to produce evidence for the resurrection. It implies we have insufficient or unpersuasive evidence today, but that should not make anyone skeptical. 2000 years ago, witnesses and their close associates believed the story, and their belief was only possible if they had undisputable evidence. Because they believed, we must believe.
Advantage 2
Every flaw in Christian reasoning becomes evidence for its veracity. Example: The national deliverance hoped for in the Old Testament could never be accomplished by an itinerant preacher with no political power, who died young at the hand of the Romans. [Read Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Jesus matched none of these characteristics, had no role in government, could not declare war or make peace, etc.]
Don’t let Holding’s defeater hit you in the face. He could say, “Of course! Jesus’ life and ministry made no sense in the light of Jewish prophecy! That means he must have risen from the dead, otherwise, the story would be laughed out of the Temple! The fact that this improbable story survived means it must be true.” He doesn’t actually write this, but it’s in the spirit of the book.
Repeat with every other objection to the plausibility of the gospel. Every thorn becomes a rose, every pebble a diamond.
Advantage 3
If Holding can convince us his proposition is valid, we must convert. The proposition invalidates all troubling questions about physics, biology and the written record. Those become irrelevant and nonsensical, check mate, case closed.
Disadvantage 1
The proposition lives or dies on the quality of the witnesses and early believers. These people must be identified and shown to be reliable. If they are not identified or shown to be reliable—spoiler alert! this is exactly the case—the proposition is worthless.
Disadvantage 2
Christianity must be proved to be uniquely disadvantaged over other, similar faiths which survived, faiths Christians consider false. Examples Holding cites: Mithraism, Islam, and Mormonism. The faith most buffeted by resistance wins his credibility game, and since there can only be one winner, Christianity must prove to have suffered the worst resistance.
Disadvantage 3
Any similarity in early circumstances between Christianity and other faiths making similar claims throws doubt on the truth of the proposition.
Disadvantage 4
Holding’s reliance on the proposition indicates either extreme paucity—or outright absence—of evidence for the resurrection in the present day. He says this absence does not matter, but in so doing, he burns his bridge behind him. If he fails to persuade us, he’ll have no recourse to evidence; he’s admitted the evidence available to us, the living, is inadequate.
How does Holding walk this high wire for us? by throwing out one “just-so” story after another.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
In science and philosophy, a just-so story is an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals. The pejorative nature of the expression is an implicit criticism that reminds the listener of the fictional and unprovable nature of such an explanation.
In Christian apologetics, just-so stories take the form of sweeping statements about ancient cultures, statements which conveniently backup the writer’s interpretation of the Bible and serve no other purpose. They do not resemble the products of objective, methodical study. The statements are typically pulled from other apologists or out of the author’s imagination. Predictably, just-so stories often represent either irrelevant speculation or the opposite of the truth.
Examples of Holding’s just-so stories
To reduce my toll on your attention, I’ll focus on his case against Mormonism. In an effort to minimize Disadvantage 3 above, Holding draws imaginary distinctions between the resistance encountered by Christianity in the first century and Mormonism in the 19th:
“As an individualistic society, America had . . . a ‘live and let live’ approach that would have been foreign to the ancients.”
The implication—Christianity was resisted with greater vigor than Mormonism, due to the Roman Empire’s religious rigidity, contrasted with America’s religious tolerance—is completely false. Americans murdered Joseph Smith without trial, the opposite attitude of “live and let live.”
On the other hand, Romans tolerated every imaginable religion, refusing to honor or persecute any. Evidence: The Book of Acts, Chapter 18:12-16
“During the time that Gallio was the governor of Achaia, some of the Jews came together against Paul. They took him to court. They said to Gallio, ‘This man is teaching people to worship God in a way that is against our law!’
Paul was ready to say something, but Gallio spoke to the Jews. He said, ‘I would listen to you if your complaint was about a crime or other wrong. But it is only about words and names—arguments about your own law. So you must solve this problem yourselves. I don’t want to be a judge of these matters.’ So Gallio made them leave the court.”
Yes, he admits, early Mormons were persecuted, BUT . . . “The Mormons had some advantages that the early Christians did not. While some persecuted the Mormons, others were sympathetic, and offered the Mormons temporary shelter and respite. This would not have been the case for the early Christians.” He cites no evidence to support this claim. Of course, if the claim was merely pulled out of thin air, there would be no evidence to cite. Let’s consider the possibilities, given the outcome. Some people in the Roman Empire sympathized with Christianity, resulting in the Greek and Asian churches Paul corresponded with. The Roman governor Gallio protected Paul from being punished by his Jewish antagonists in the passage quoted above. Some one, some how, sheltered and fed the early Christians. We know this from writing in the New Testament and from the fact of Paul surviving long enough to write most of it.
In my last example, Holding maintains that Mormon conviction in the face of persecution was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from Christians doing the same.
“What of Mormons not giving up their core beliefs in spite of persecution? . . . in every religion, people die for their beliefs. This is true, however, in most cases the beliefs in question are not grounded in historical data, and are much easier to still believe in and die for than a faith held in a fact of history like the Resurrection.”
Has he read a single page of Mormon doctrine? It is nothing other than a series of claims about history, from Mesoamerica to the experiences of Joseph Smith. Additionally, the “historical data” these claims are “grounded” in is far superior to the data Christians rely on to validate the resurrection. Consider what we know about the people who made claims for Smith, including himself:
Eye witnesses to the production of the Book of Mormon attested, in their own writing, that his version of those events was true. We know their names, when they lived, and the names of their family members. We also know exactly when the events they attested took place.
Our only source of “historical data” on the resurrection is the New Testament. With the exception of Paul’s undisputed letters, we cannot identify any author of these accounts, in any meaningful way. We do not know when the accounts were written. The first letter to the Corinthians states that the risen Jesus “was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.” Paul did not witness this appearance. Not a single witness is named, nor did any of the five hundred write a single surviving sentence to tell the world “I saw Jesus after his death.”
And yet
Holding reminds us of his “get out of evidence” card. Yes, the resurrection is a wild, improbable story with no effective corroboration, but never mind that. The first century Christians had great evidence for it—evidence sadly lost to us now—and that’s all that matters.
“The empty tomb story would be checked. . . . Checking of the facts would be inevitable, since it would be assumed that checking Christian claims, and presumably disproving them, would help control the deviant Christian movement. . . Gullibility, for this reason alone, is not a sufficient answer.”
Again the just-so stories. He claims we know checking was inevitable and no one was sufficiently gullible to be deceived in the first century. In addition to contradicting all common sense, this assertion is contradicted in the New Testament:
“. . .there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.” —II Peter 2:1-2
Conclusion on Holding’s argument
The “explosive” proposition aims to assure us that the resurrection story is water-tight because the people who recorded it could not have possibly been deceived. The survival of faith in this story is testimony to its truth. Yet other, false faiths survived [Islam and Mormonism], so it must be possible for people present at the founding a religion to be mistaken, but not the first Christians.
Does he make the case? No. He sums up his evaluation of Mormonism this way:
“Mormonism simply does not pass the test of an ‘impossible faith.’ Despite some difficulties it encountered, the fact that it compromised on offensive doctrines [polygamy] and that it emerged in a society that offered it just as many sympathizers as enemies, means that it is a very much ‘possible’ faith that has followed a societal course we would expect from any otherwise unremarkable religious movement.”
In other words: “Christianity is special, because it just is, and Mormonism just isn’t.”
Conclusion on the value of this book
The book succeeds in illuminating the mental machinations of the faithful. Now this was not Holding’s goal. He wanted to convert people. I don’t find his reasoning persuasive, but it’s likely to encourage people who already believe. Sigmund Freud elegantly summed up the attraction of religion this way:
“Taken as a whole, the Bible contains almost nothing that could be accepted as an argument—let alone evidence—for its outrageous claims. Its style is confused, contradictory, petulant and empty of thought. It does, however, tell people something they desperately want to hear. ‘You are eternal. You will exist without end (although you did have a beginning). If you believe correctly, that existence will be blissful beyond any description.’ Faithful readers of the Bible don’t look for reason or evidence in its pages; they couldn’t care less. They’ll gladly swallow anything, if they can hold on to the hope of continued existence after death.”—Sigmund Freud, Civilization and it’s Discontents
“The Impossible Faith offers an explosive proposition: That Christianity, by the reckoning of men, ought to have been one of those faiths that either passed into history or became seriously altered. . . the Christian faith had none of the advantages that other thriving faiths, such as Islam and Mormonism, had during their formative years. There is simply no possibility that Christianity would have been accepted by anyone in the ancient world, unless its first missionaries had indisputable proof and testimony of the faith’s central tenet, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
I love “explosive” and the modifying phrase, “by the reckoning of men,” but overall Holding’s proposition doesn’t do his mission justice. Allow me to attempt clarity.
Proposition
Christianity survived special resistance during its development, yet it did survive. This survival can only be explained in one way; its first missionaries had indisputable proof of the faith’s central tenet, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Bear in mind that Holding is an apologist for Christianity. He not only believes the Easter story, he thinks God will decide each person’s eternal destiny based largely on their belief or unbelief. He wants his writing to “lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy mercy.” Given Holding’s goal, I offer some advantages and disadvantages of his proposition.
Advantage 1
Accepting the proposition releases all modern apologists from any responsibility to produce evidence for the resurrection. It implies we have insufficient or unpersuasive evidence today, but that should not make anyone skeptical. 2000 years ago, witnesses and their close associates believed the story, and their belief was only possible if they had undisputable evidence. Because they believed, we must believe.
Advantage 2
Every flaw in Christian reasoning becomes evidence for its veracity. Example: The national deliverance hoped for in the Old Testament could never be accomplished by an itinerant preacher with no political power, who died young at the hand of the Romans. [Read Isaiah 9:6 “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Jesus matched none of these characteristics, had no role in government, could not declare war or make peace, etc.]
Don’t let Holding’s defeater hit you in the face. He could say, “Of course! Jesus’ life and ministry made no sense in the light of Jewish prophecy! That means he must have risen from the dead, otherwise, the story would be laughed out of the Temple! The fact that this improbable story survived means it must be true.” He doesn’t actually write this, but it’s in the spirit of the book.
Repeat with every other objection to the plausibility of the gospel. Every thorn becomes a rose, every pebble a diamond.
Advantage 3
If Holding can convince us his proposition is valid, we must convert. The proposition invalidates all troubling questions about physics, biology and the written record. Those become irrelevant and nonsensical, check mate, case closed.
Disadvantage 1
The proposition lives or dies on the quality of the witnesses and early believers. These people must be identified and shown to be reliable. If they are not identified or shown to be reliable—spoiler alert! this is exactly the case—the proposition is worthless.
Disadvantage 2
Christianity must be proved to be uniquely disadvantaged over other, similar faiths which survived, faiths Christians consider false. Examples Holding cites: Mithraism, Islam, and Mormonism. The faith most buffeted by resistance wins his credibility game, and since there can only be one winner, Christianity must prove to have suffered the worst resistance.
Disadvantage 3
Any similarity in early circumstances between Christianity and other faiths making similar claims throws doubt on the truth of the proposition.
Disadvantage 4
Holding’s reliance on the proposition indicates either extreme paucity—or outright absence—of evidence for the resurrection in the present day. He says this absence does not matter, but in so doing, he burns his bridge behind him. If he fails to persuade us, he’ll have no recourse to evidence; he’s admitted the evidence available to us, the living, is inadequate.
How does Holding walk this high wire for us? by throwing out one “just-so” story after another.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:
In science and philosophy, a just-so story is an untestable narrative explanation for a cultural practice, a biological trait, or behavior of humans or other animals. The pejorative nature of the expression is an implicit criticism that reminds the listener of the fictional and unprovable nature of such an explanation.
In Christian apologetics, just-so stories take the form of sweeping statements about ancient cultures, statements which conveniently backup the writer’s interpretation of the Bible and serve no other purpose. They do not resemble the products of objective, methodical study. The statements are typically pulled from other apologists or out of the author’s imagination. Predictably, just-so stories often represent either irrelevant speculation or the opposite of the truth.
Examples of Holding’s just-so stories
To reduce my toll on your attention, I’ll focus on his case against Mormonism. In an effort to minimize Disadvantage 3 above, Holding draws imaginary distinctions between the resistance encountered by Christianity in the first century and Mormonism in the 19th:
“As an individualistic society, America had . . . a ‘live and let live’ approach that would have been foreign to the ancients.”
The implication—Christianity was resisted with greater vigor than Mormonism, due to the Roman Empire’s religious rigidity, contrasted with America’s religious tolerance—is completely false. Americans murdered Joseph Smith without trial, the opposite attitude of “live and let live.”
On the other hand, Romans tolerated every imaginable religion, refusing to honor or persecute any. Evidence: The Book of Acts, Chapter 18:12-16
“During the time that Gallio was the governor of Achaia, some of the Jews came together against Paul. They took him to court. They said to Gallio, ‘This man is teaching people to worship God in a way that is against our law!’
Paul was ready to say something, but Gallio spoke to the Jews. He said, ‘I would listen to you if your complaint was about a crime or other wrong. But it is only about words and names—arguments about your own law. So you must solve this problem yourselves. I don’t want to be a judge of these matters.’ So Gallio made them leave the court.”
Yes, he admits, early Mormons were persecuted, BUT . . . “The Mormons had some advantages that the early Christians did not. While some persecuted the Mormons, others were sympathetic, and offered the Mormons temporary shelter and respite. This would not have been the case for the early Christians.” He cites no evidence to support this claim. Of course, if the claim was merely pulled out of thin air, there would be no evidence to cite. Let’s consider the possibilities, given the outcome. Some people in the Roman Empire sympathized with Christianity, resulting in the Greek and Asian churches Paul corresponded with. The Roman governor Gallio protected Paul from being punished by his Jewish antagonists in the passage quoted above. Some one, some how, sheltered and fed the early Christians. We know this from writing in the New Testament and from the fact of Paul surviving long enough to write most of it.
In my last example, Holding maintains that Mormon conviction in the face of persecution was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from Christians doing the same.
“What of Mormons not giving up their core beliefs in spite of persecution? . . . in every religion, people die for their beliefs. This is true, however, in most cases the beliefs in question are not grounded in historical data, and are much easier to still believe in and die for than a faith held in a fact of history like the Resurrection.”
Has he read a single page of Mormon doctrine? It is nothing other than a series of claims about history, from Mesoamerica to the experiences of Joseph Smith. Additionally, the “historical data” these claims are “grounded” in is far superior to the data Christians rely on to validate the resurrection. Consider what we know about the people who made claims for Smith, including himself:
Eye witnesses to the production of the Book of Mormon attested, in their own writing, that his version of those events was true. We know their names, when they lived, and the names of their family members. We also know exactly when the events they attested took place.
Our only source of “historical data” on the resurrection is the New Testament. With the exception of Paul’s undisputed letters, we cannot identify any author of these accounts, in any meaningful way. We do not know when the accounts were written. The first letter to the Corinthians states that the risen Jesus “was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.” Paul did not witness this appearance. Not a single witness is named, nor did any of the five hundred write a single surviving sentence to tell the world “I saw Jesus after his death.”
And yet
Holding reminds us of his “get out of evidence” card. Yes, the resurrection is a wild, improbable story with no effective corroboration, but never mind that. The first century Christians had great evidence for it—evidence sadly lost to us now—and that’s all that matters.
“The empty tomb story would be checked. . . . Checking of the facts would be inevitable, since it would be assumed that checking Christian claims, and presumably disproving them, would help control the deviant Christian movement. . . Gullibility, for this reason alone, is not a sufficient answer.”
Again the just-so stories. He claims we know checking was inevitable and no one was sufficiently gullible to be deceived in the first century. In addition to contradicting all common sense, this assertion is contradicted in the New Testament:
“. . .there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.” —II Peter 2:1-2
Conclusion on Holding’s argument
The “explosive” proposition aims to assure us that the resurrection story is water-tight because the people who recorded it could not have possibly been deceived. The survival of faith in this story is testimony to its truth. Yet other, false faiths survived [Islam and Mormonism], so it must be possible for people present at the founding a religion to be mistaken, but not the first Christians.
Does he make the case? No. He sums up his evaluation of Mormonism this way:
“Mormonism simply does not pass the test of an ‘impossible faith.’ Despite some difficulties it encountered, the fact that it compromised on offensive doctrines [polygamy] and that it emerged in a society that offered it just as many sympathizers as enemies, means that it is a very much ‘possible’ faith that has followed a societal course we would expect from any otherwise unremarkable religious movement.”
In other words: “Christianity is special, because it just is, and Mormonism just isn’t.”
Conclusion on the value of this book
The book succeeds in illuminating the mental machinations of the faithful. Now this was not Holding’s goal. He wanted to convert people. I don’t find his reasoning persuasive, but it’s likely to encourage people who already believe. Sigmund Freud elegantly summed up the attraction of religion this way:
“Taken as a whole, the Bible contains almost nothing that could be accepted as an argument—let alone evidence—for its outrageous claims. Its style is confused, contradictory, petulant and empty of thought. It does, however, tell people something they desperately want to hear. ‘You are eternal. You will exist without end (although you did have a beginning). If you believe correctly, that existence will be blissful beyond any description.’ Faithful readers of the Bible don’t look for reason or evidence in its pages; they couldn’t care less. They’ll gladly swallow anything, if they can hold on to the hope of continued existence after death.”—Sigmund Freud, Civilization and it’s Discontents
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