Guest Post: Charles Leslie's Criteria for Determining the Truth of a Religion

This post is by philosophy grad student, Dax Bennington. The original blog article can be found here: http://evidencebasedchristianity.blogspot.com/2015/05/charles-leslies-criteria-for.html

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     In his short work, A Short and Easy Method with Deists, Charles Leslie (1841) puts forth a set of rules for determining the truth of a religion. Leslie claims that his method is able to demonstrate that the Christian religion is true and that Islam and Paganism are false. Leslie writes:

I suppose that the truth of the doctrine of Christ will be sufficiently evidenced, if the matters of fact, which are recorded of him in the gospels, be true; for miracles, if true, do vouch the truth of what he delivered (Leslie 5). 

     His method for determining the truth of these religions consists of two steps. First, he will lay out his four rules. Second, he will apply the rules to Christianity, Islam, and Paganism. With his methodology in hand, I will now discuss Leslie's four rules.

The four rules are as follows:

1. The matters of fact be of such a manner that man's outward senses, their eyes and ears may be judges of it. 
2. The matters of fact be performed in public experienced by many witnesses. 
3. The miraculous events should have monuments kept in memory of them and outward actions performed to remember these events. 
4. The monuments and actions that are established are instituted at the time that the matters of fact occurred.

Next, I will discuss Leslie's analysis of Christianity, Islam, and Paganism with respect to these four rules. 

    First Christianity. Christ performed his miracles in such a manner that men and women could see with their own eyes what Christ was doing. Moreover, many of Christ's miracles were done in front of a multitude of witnesses numbering in the thousands. Therefore, we can conclude that Christianity satisfies the first two of Leslie's four rules. 

     Next, Christ instituted the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper as a memorial of the miracles that he performed. Moreover, these sacraments were established not in later ages, but at the time of the matters of fact. In addition to being established at the time of the events, the memorials that were instituted by Christ have been observed since they were instituted up until the present day. Christ also ordained the ministers of these memorials himself. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that since Christianity satisfies all of the Leslie's four rules, the matters of fact that Christianity speaks of, most importantly the resurrection of Christ, is true. 

     Now I will discuss whether Islam is able to satisfy all of Leslie's four rules. With respect to the first two rules, Islam fails. First, Mohammed writes in the Qur'an that he did not perform any miracles. Moreover, the miracles that are attributed to Mohammed are considered by many Muslims to be fables. Let's suppose that the miracles attributed to Mohammed are believed by most Muslims and that Mohammed did claim to have performed miracles, the one's that are recorded still do not satisfy the first two rules. Mohammed's putative conversation with the moon, his single night journey from Mecca to Jerusalem and then to heaven were not performed in front of anyone. Since these miracles were not performed in front of anyone, we have very little reason to trust their reliability. Since Islam fails to satisfy the first two of Leslie's four rules, the matters of fact that is founded on are most probably false. 

     Last I will discuss whether the matters of fact concerning the pagan religions satisfies all of Leslie's four rules. Ancient paganism has many claims of the miraculous. Mercury is said to have stolen sheep and Jupiter is said to have turned himself into a bull. Leslie focuses on the pagan religion's failure to satisfy the fourth rule. The priesthood and feasts that celebrated the putative miracles that the gods performed were done much later than when the matters of fact occurred. Moreover, the priests who ministered at these feasts were not directly ordained by the gods, but by other people. The priests were chosen much later than when the events occurred. It is for these reasons that the pagan religions fail to satisfy Leslie's fourth rule, and hence, are probably false.