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Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte by Richard Whately & Skepticism
Have you ever read Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte by ? (view the book online for free here or here; a version you can cut and paste into a document so you can listen to it is here), or get a physical copy:
David Hume, the famous skeptic, employed a variety of skeptical arguments against the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ, and against the possibility of miracles and the rationality of believing in them in Section 10, “Of Miracles,” of Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Whately, an Anglican who believed in the Bible, in miracles, and in Christ and His resurrection, turned Hume’s skeptical arguments against themselves. Whately’s “satiric Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte (1819), … show[ed] that the same methods used to cast doubt on [Biblical] miracles would also leave the existence of Napoleon open to question.” Whately’s book is a short and humerous demonstration that Hume’s hyper-skepticism would not only “prove” that Christ did not do any miracles or rise from the dead, but that Napoleon, who was still alive at the time, did not exist or engage in the Napoleonic wars. Hume’s argument against miracles is still extremely influential–indeed, as the teaching sessions mentioned in my last Friday’s post indicated, the main argument today against the resurrection of Christ is not a specific alternative theory such as the stolen-body, hallucination, or swoon theory, but the argument that miracles are impossible, so, therefore, Christ did not rise–Hume’s argument lives on, although it does not deserve to do so, as the critiques of Hume’s argument on my website demonstrate. For these reasons, the quick and fun read Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte is well worth a read. (As a side note, the spelling “Buonaparte” by the author, instead of Bonaparte, is deliberate–the British “used the foreign sounding ‘Buonaparte’ to undermine his legitimacy as a French ruler. … On St Helena, when the British refused to acknowledge the defeated Emperor’s imperial rights, they insisted everyone call him ‘General Buonaparte.'”
Contemporary Significance
Part of the contemporary significance of Richard Whately’s Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte relates to how we evaluate historical data. We should avoid both the undue skepticism of David Hume and also undue credulity. Whatever God revealed in His Word can, and must, be accepted without question. But outside of Scripture, when evaluating historical arguments, we should employ Biblical principles such as the following:
Have the best arguments both for and against the matter in question been carefully examined?
Is the argument logical?
Are there conflicts of interest in those promoting the argument?
Does the argument produce extraordinary evidence for its extraordinary claims?
Does the argument require me to think more highly of myself than I ought to think?
Is looking into the argument redeeming the time?
Are Biblical patterns of authority followed by those spreading the argument?
(principles are reproduced from my website here, and are also discussed here.)
A failure to properly employ consistent criteria to the evaluation of evidence undermines the case for Scripture. For example, Assyrian records provide as strong a confirmation as one could expect for Hezekiah’s miraculous deliverance from the hand of Assyria by Jehovah’s slaying 185,000 Assyrian soldiers (2 Kings 19). However, Assyrian annals are extremely biased ancient propaganda. Those today who claim that any source showing bias (say, against former President Trump, or against conservative Republicans–of which there are many) should be automatically rejected out of hand would have to deny, if they were consistent, that Assyrian records provide a glorious confirmation of the Biblical miracle. Likewise, Matthew records that the guards at Christ’s tomb claimed that the Lord’s body was stolen as they slept (Matthew 28). Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, intends the reader to be able to see through this biased and false argument to recognize the fact that non-Christians were making it actually provides confirmation for the resurrection of Christ. (If you do not see how it confirms the resurrection, think about it for a while.)
Many claims made today, whether that the population of the USA would catastrophically decline as tens of millions would die from the COVID vaccine, that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams had her election win in Georgia stolen by Republicans, that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had his 2020 election win in Georgia stolen by Democrats, that 9/11 was perpetrated by US intelligence agencies, that Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election, that the miracle cure for cancer has been discovered but is being suppressed by Big Pharma, and many other such claims are rarely advanced by those who follow the Biblical principles listed above for evaluating information. Furthermore, the (dubious) method of argumentation for such claims, if applied to the very strong archaeological evidence for the Bible, would very frequently undermine it, or, indeed, frequently undermine the possibility of any historical investigation at all and destroy the field of historical research.
In conclusion, I would encourage you to read Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Buonaparte, and, as you read it, think about what Scripture teaches about how one evaluates historical information.
–TDR
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Eras of Miracles and Divine Interventionism
Where my wife and I are staying, we have waited at one spot four different times for someone to pick us up and every time there on the top of a short brick wall sat a tiny toy figure. Three different days and four rides the same toy person was there. I guessed it was a Star Wars figure. Looking more closely, it seemed a young woman in a Star Wars-like outfit. In what I know of the Star Wars story, it was probably a jedi and maybe the one the story calls “the last jedi.”
If you don’t know the Star Wars story, because you’ve seen none of it, good for you, but let me explain. In a fictional cosmos, the jedi are warriors with supernatural power, who fight for what is called the light side of the force as opposed to the dark side. This fiction hearkens to God on the light side and Satan on the dark side. According to the fiction, the force connotes to something like a pantheistic view of God in which he is not a person, but some kind of mystical power. The fiction speaks of an existence of God, albeit a false one. This supernaturalism is crucial to the explanation of everything that happens in Star Wars fiction.
In the Star Wars story, only a few characters possess supernatural power to use either for evil or for good. Those without that power find themselves often in need of the abilities or gifts of those special individuals. Over aeons of time, certain ones through the story uniquely, even more greatly tap into the light side or the dark side of this supernatural force. These individuals come along once in a very long time with very special significance and they are usually prophesied. The needy natural ones place their hope in the coming of those to deliver them.
Fictional prophet-like characters predict the coming of the few supernatural characters, very often just one, with very special power. These prophets receive revelations from the same supernatural power, which is apparently God, and they know what will happen in the future. The spread of these prophesies over a fictional cosmos results in its people looking for the coming of these superior, supernatural figures, which will change the course of history.
I write all this to say that in general people who know the Star Wars story accept eras of supernatural intervention in their fictional cosmos. It makes sense to them. They agree both with the existence of supernatural power that works through men and that once in a great while this same supernatural power raises up a prophesied person who can use the power. In other words, they accept eras of miracles. They recognize the continuity of a natural world accompanied by rare times, moments, periods, or ages of supernatural intervention.
In a fictional Star Wars world, the divine always works to maintain and sustain, but also intervenes in a unique way. An unprecedented person comes along, who is not normal. He is far from normal and no one has been seen like him in ages. The maintaining and sustaining are continuity. They are normative. The rare one, however, is not. This is discontinuity.
Scripture gives (see especially 2 Peter) as a major reason for apostasy, a departure from the faith and the truth, the scarcity of evidence of divine intervention. God gives every good thing. He always intervenes in a providential manner, His good graces seen everywhere and at all times. God also though intervenes at times in unique ways. Men say because of the sparsity of the latter, they can’t receive the Lord. He must show Himself more to their liking. I call these showings, crown performances. If God doesn’t bring them a crown performance, they have their excuse for not believing.
God has intervened in a special, unique, and miraculous way throughout history. However, this kind of dealing is far less frequent. The word “miracle” is most often the same Greek word translated “sign.” Something isn’t a sign if it is the same as anything else that occurs on an everyday basis.
Through scripture, you can see eras of miracles. They mark extraordinary times and people, and these occasions, which are very rare through history, make a unique point, one that stands out very much. Certain names are associated in the Bible with these eras, including Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and the Apostles.
One figure stands out above all of those functioning with supernatural power in an era of miracles: the Lord Jesus Christ. If these operations were normal occurrences, they would not stand out, and neither would Jesus. Jesus must stand out and He does stand out. He will show Himself in even greater glory when He comes the second time and in fulfillment of further prophecy. He is the greatest figure in all of world history.
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