The problems with prophecy

I've been reading The Happy Heretic some more.

She had a debate with a Christian or two that closely mirrors the circles I've run in the same arena. There's one point that I think she didn't address adequately (although I must say, she was limited in space and time): the problems with claims of prophecy.

In the event you don't want to slog through Hayes' debate, the long and short of it is that she can't get a reasonable response to her question about how we know the Bible the inspired word of God. When her debate opponent responded with "because of its fulfilled prophecies," she responded simply (and frequently) that you can't use the bible to prove the bible. I agree with her, but feel this point could have been better explained. She appears to think it's self-evident and/or self-explanatory, but my personal experience has taught me this is not so at all.

I thought I'd try my hand at it.

Clearly, pointing to any verse in the bible that states that scripture is the inspired word of God is meaningless as far as proof is concerned. Why? Because any book can call itself genuine, but that does not make it any more or less so. The book is creating its own press, so to speak, which falls flat as far as reasonable evidence goes.

But the prophecy argument, IMO, doesn't fall under the same heading as "inspired word of God because it says so." Except, come to think of it, with the myriad references in the NT that "this was done so that prophecy might be fulfilled." Clearly, anything that was done to check something off a list doesn't qualify as a fulfilled prophecy. At best, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy (not the same thing as a genuine prophecy, you understand), and at worst it is a writer telling a story in an effort to match cherry-picked "prophecies"* from the OT.

* And psalms being interpreted as prophesies, allegories, etc.

Anyhow. Each time I encounter the "fulfilled prophecy" defense, my first order of business is to address what, exactly, qualifies as a prophecy. As far as I'm concerned, what I will or will not be impressed by (as a prophecy) derives from common sense. Before I list, let me give you an example.

Let's say I announce that it will snow 12 inches. And two weeks later, it does! Somewhere....maybe on Mount Everest or in the Arctic, but the foot of snow has indeed fallen. Am I a prophet? Well, no. What if I say it will snow 12 inches and men will fight--then it snows in Ireland and another Irish Catholic murders another Protestant? Am I a prophet? Still not impressed? Let me try a bit harder.

Oooh. I have it. It will snow, men will fight, his fingernails will grow into claws, dogs will circle him and dance, and the moon will fall? Then all of it comes true ("his" of course referring to the man who isn't trimming his nails, and "dance" being meant in a figurative sense) except for the moon part. Am I a prophet yet? No?

What if I say, in a context of a history about Ireland, "It snowed, men fought, his fingernails were like claws, dogs danced around him, and the moon fell," then within five days, there's snow in Ireland, someone scratches his mortal enemy to death with his friends (dogs) watching and cheering him on, then the sun rises? Have I graduated to prophet yet?

I'm going to this trouble because I am routinely accused of being audacious enough to create my own rules for prophecy. I don't think these are my rules, though, so much as common sense. Obviously, there are some given (usually unspoken) rules that help us determine whether a "prophecy" is worthy of our awe. They are these:

1. It must clearly state who, what, when, where, why, and how (as applicable) any given event will take place. If I state instead that it will snow 12 inches tomorrow in Alabama, and it does, I will at least get your attention, I expect.

2. It must precede the events it predicts.

3. It must be clear, specific, and unequivocal. Don't give me vague, "figurative" or "allegorical." So was Nostradamus.

4. It must have a deadline. Open-ended prophecies have the perk of never being disprovable, and the possibility that, with all that happens and changes in this world from one moment to the next, there will eventually be an event that seems to bear out the "prophecy's" intent.

5. It must clearly be meant as a prophecy. That is, it must be future tense.

6. It must predict something unexpected (or, you might say, unpredictable). If I were to predict that it will be hot outdoors tomorrow where I live, or someone will detonate a car bomb in Baghdad, I daresay you wouldn't call researchers of the paranormal with your new find.

7. It must be unknown to those who are to fulfill it as well as those who are watching. This is why "double-blind" studies are the rule in psychological testing. People will do what they feel they are supposed to, and observers themselves will influence the outcome of any given experiment with their expectations, relayed through voice inflections and body language.

8. And along those lines, the event prophesied must be verified by an outside source (unbiased observer). No fair saying this happened just as it was predicted, in order to show the truth of your prophecy. Someone with nothing at stake must confirm that X happened just so.

9. All the condition/predictions of the prophecy must be met. Three out of five, or 12 out of 20, say, is not a prophecy. A prophecy is presumably made by a prophet. That is, by someone who knows exactly what will happen, when, how and to whom. They're informed of the event as though it happened yesterday, right? There's no reason for them to get any of the facts wrong, or for them to predict even a tiny bit of something that isn't going to happen.

I realize there's a bit of overlap between one or two of those criteria. As a general rule of thumb, if you can only connect the "prophecy" to the event it supposedly predicted after that event has passed, it wasn't a prophecy in the first place.

I daresay these would be very easy requirements for a true prophet to fulfill. They don't happen, though. They never have. Biblical "prophecies" fail these criteria on almost all counts.

Thus, prophecy--probably the second most popular proof* that "the bible is divinely inspired"--is only proof to those who have already decided that the bible is divinely inspired and thus need no proof.

* The most popular, I think, is that it contains no contradictions, when in fact it is full of them. When confronted with specific contradictions, however, those who believe in the bible's divine nature will claim that they are only "apparent" contradictions. Why are they only "apparent"? Because real contradictions, by their own rules, would disprove the "divine" nature of the volume, so they must, ipso facto, not really exist. This is a textbook example of circular reasoning.

As my example makes clear to those who are familiar with their bibles, I have been through this with Psalm 22 quoters up one side and down the other. If you'd like me to make an example of it, just say the word.

If, however, you feel that my criteria for "prophecy" is too stringent and I "have no right," I'd be interested in hearing your requirements for discerning true prophecy from false, and why you think so.

This entry was posted by diana and filed under religion.

12 comments

Comment from: Rick H

Well said! The bible is full of open ended prophecies. But as i am sure you realize by now you will never get that across to a true believer. The bible allways seemed to raise more questions then answers for me. “Blind Faith means never having to admit you are wrong".

06/22/05 @ 07:32

Comment from:

‘Morning, Rick.

If faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen (Heb 11.1), doesn’t that make “blind faith” redundant? :)

I’ve managed to convince a couple of people here and there that various things they were taught about the bible don’t hold up under scrutiny (not to say they ditched their faith, mind you), but that probably just means they weren’t True Believers ™ in the first place. ;)

06/22/05 @ 09:12

Comment from: Hinermad

Diana:

I admit I’m still scratching my head over some assertions in the Bible. Reading it in King James English doesn’t help. (Grin) I suppose it’s easier than reading Hebrew of Greek.

I think you might have hit an important point by saying “…things they were taught about the bible…” Bible teachers are subject to the same foibles as anyone else - honest misunderstandings and not-so-honest agendas. Ideally each believer would study the Bible for him or herself and draw his or her own conclusions. (As if. People are too lazy for that to catch on.)

Contradictions: do you have a favorite? I’ve heard several brought up from time to time, and I’ve heard some explanations for them that range from good to embarrassing. (Not that I expect to be able to explain away whatever you say - I’m still learning this stuff - but it gives me an excuse to study it.) I wonder if you have some that I haven’t encountered before.

Rick: Open ended prophecies? Do you mean prophecies that haven’t been fulfilled yet, or those where events have been claimed to fit previous predictions? Or both? (Not trying to be adversarial here, just want to make sure I know what you mean.)

FWIW, many believers don’t think “blind faith” is a good idea. Blind faith leads to things like Jonestown. But sometimes the evidence that leads one to (ummm… looking for a term… “informed faith” maybe?) isn’t recognized as valid by everyone.

Dave

06/22/05 @ 10:07

Comment from:

Good afternoon, mate. :)

Here’s a starter list of contradictions. And here is an apologist’s list of explanations (not necessarily the same list, but I thought it fair to supply both links). If I have a favorite, it’s probably the competing geneologies of Jesus. There’s much to address to make my case on this one, so how ’bout I make it the next blog entry…when I get home and have time to do it justice? (Also, the material from earlier research is accessible from there, so I needn’t reinvent the wheel.)

And…if I may…an open-ended prophecy is just one with no deadline.

I agree that “blind faith” can be insulting. However–as I was attempting to point out earlier–mustn’t it be blind by (biblical) definition?

And wouldn’t it be a fascinating world if everyone read the bible for themselves (you hit the nail on the head with that one, too; people are just too lazy) and drew their own conclusions?

06/22/05 @ 13:06

Comment from: Hinermad

Diana,

Thanks for the lists. (Wow, those are long. (Grin)) I’ve encountered the competing genealogies of Jesus before. Carl Sagan even mentioned it in _Contact_.

Open-ended = no deadline. Sounds like a reasonable definition, but considering the biblical purposes of prophecy (authentication and exhortation), being open-ended doesn’t automatically render a prophecy suspect. Well, any more suspect than it already is.

When used to authenticate a prophet the prediction has an implicit deadline - it must come true within a time frame suitable for those hearing the prophet to recognize that he is authentic. In that case, the prediction needs to be very specific. (The requirements you laid out above fit very well, although your “double-blind” rule tends to make it so that a prophecy isn’t recognized as accurate until after the fact.)

When used for exhortation, an open-ended prophecy is actually more convenient - you don’t get laughed at like the people who predicted the world would end in 1972, 1988, 1993, etc. But there does come a time when we must be able to compare a prophecy to events and say, “yep, that was right on the money.” Otherwise it’s not a prophecy, it’s a boogeyman story.

Dave

06/22/05 @ 13:56

Comment from: Hinermad

Diana,

Oops - consider this a postscript to the previous comment:

Faith is blind by biblical definition… interesting thought:

Rom 10:17 So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

I heard a teacher once say that faith based on sight (a metaphor for experiences, I believe he meant) is fragile because our eyes can be fooled, and that true faith comes from hearing (reading in a literate society) the word of God.

I think he was stretching a point to try to cover a 45-minute sermon, but there might be a kernel of wisdom in there. Faith isn’t blind, but it doesn’t trust what it sees without comparing it to God’s word.

Dave

06/22/05 @ 14:04

Comment from:

Mornin’, Dave.

I worked yesterday afternoon on the piece on the genealogies, then couldn’t figure out how to post the all-important comparison chart. It’s in Excel, but I can’t figure out how to even do a table in this blog–which only allows upload of jpgs and gifs and such–so I was looking for a way to upload the chart somehow/somewhere, so I can link to it. Ideas?

Meanwhile, you might consider how the “faith comes by hearing” verse works with “faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” The Romans verse doesn’t make the Hebrews verse go away. The writer of Romans didn’t at any point say you had to have proof, did he? He said you just had to “hear.” As a child, you can hear the story of Santa and believe. You still have no proof, so your faith is still blind.

I’m going to stick to my guns here: the sort of faith that is demanded in the bible is blind by definition. If you look up “faith” in the dictionary (as you know I’m inordinately fond of doing), you’ll find several different types. The sort we’re talking about, though, when we discuss faith in God, cannot have proof (another favorite contradiction of mine: the Faith Catch 22).

Logically speaking, if faith comes by hearing the word of God, and I don’t have faith, then clearly I haven’t heard the word of God yet. ;) (Or in logical notation, it’s a simple A -> B, therefore ~B -> ~A).

There are probably other things I’ll have to respond to in your comments later. I’m out of time now.

Have a great day!

06/23/05 @ 07:06

Comment from: Harry Burkett

why not set up the spreadsheet in excel then either do a screenshot and paste into an imaging program, or try Excels save to web and see if it saves your chart as a JPg?

If I am following your definitions correctly then Nostradomus is a quack - like we didnt already know that!

06/23/05 @ 11:24

Comment from:

Hi, Harry. :)

I already tried the save-as-web-page function. That makes it an .htm file. No help there.

I tried saving it in Paint as a .jpg, but it saved it itsy-bitsy, for some odd reason. Unreadable. Arg.

06/23/05 @ 16:51

Comment from:

Hi, Dave. :)

More responses to your comments, as promised:

You stated that “considering the biblical purposes of prophecy (authentication and exhortation), being open-ended doesn’t automatically render a prophecy suspect.” I can see no logical connection between “the biblical purpose of a prophecy” and reasonable requirements for determining its authenticity.

When used for exhortation, an open-ended prophecy is actually more convenient - you don’t get laughed at like the people who predicted the world would end in 1972, 1988, 1993, etc.

I don’t know what you mean, exactly, by a prophecy “for exhortation,” but other than that…you’ve made my point very well: if the prophet is genuine–regardless of any ulterior motive for his prophecy–he won’t fear deadlines, will he?

But there does come a time when we must be able to compare a prophecy to events and say, “yep, that was right on the money.” Otherwise it’s not a prophecy, it’s a boogeyman story.

Yes! And without a deadline, at what point can we agree that it’s a boogeyman story?

You see the problem.

06/23/05 @ 18:53

Comment from: Rick H

Key comment;
” Rom 10:17 So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Anyone stop to think that when the Bible first came into print only a very small and elite group of people could actually read? It seems to me that most of the original teachings were just that, a great big “Take my word for it” sell. Human nature is to look for explainations to the unexplainable. Enter a small group who claims to have all the answers and wow you got a following (insert ignorant for blind here?) Toss in a little mysticism and you have a cult IMHO.

06/24/05 @ 09:01

Comment from:

Interesting point, Rick. R

ecall that the first man to translate it into the vernacular met the Inquisition. It would seem that the Church (the holy Roman one, I mean) didn’t like people reading the book for themselves (indeed, I’ve read interesting speculation that this is one of the reasons there are so many contradictions apparent in the bible today; copyists/priests wrote in what they wanted their flocks to believe, and didn’t bother studying to see if there was a conflict anywhere, thinking they’d never get found out).

Consider also the fate of all those, throughout the ages who (1) were born and lived before the NT was written, (2) before the NT was compiled/canonized (so they knew what to follow), (3) on different land masses without access to The Good News and therefore doomed to hell by geographical accident, and (4) prior to our overwhelmingly literate society who had to take someone else’s word for what the bible said on any given subject. Think particularly about the millions of peasants who had no way to “study the scripture daily to see if these things were so", and were stuck relying on the Church (the Roman Catholic one, I mean) to tell them what God wants. Taken from a fundamentalist perspective, the bible condemns all these poor ignorants to hell.

06/27/05 @ 10:47

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The problems with prophecy

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