Apologetics and the Dalai Lama

I've been reading a book on Tibetan Buddhism as of late, and in the process of doing so I came across a passage about the choosing of the Dalai Lama. Now, I haven't done a whole lot of research into the topic, so what I'm presenting is not a case for why the Dge lugs pa school of Tibetan Buddhism has things right while the Bible is wrong. Why I am doing is bringing up a scenario which would suggest that historical arguments for the veracity of Scripture don't do as much as supposed.

More or less, here is the story given of how the current DL was found. Typically, the DLs, when they die, leave some sort of clues for where their reincarnation will be found, whether directly ("I will be reborn in such-and-such a place"), or through visions, or whatnot. So, in this case, some guy has a vision of the place where the next DL will be born, after following some general indications as to the area. When some monks find a house which matches specific characteristics from the dream, they go inside and find a young boy. This rather precocious child is able to accurately the previous DL's belongings without any coaching. This child is then taken to be trained in the Dge lugs pa (Gelukpa; I hate Tibetan orthography) order, where he studies hard and takes his place. By now, this child who grew up in the cultural backwaters of Tibet, itself not exactly the model of a cosmopolis, has become an internationally recognized world leader who has won the Nobel peace prize, written many books and given many lectures, impressing many with his wisdom.

It would seem that if we look at some of the arguments given for believing that the resurrection of Jesus happened, we would have to, by analogy, apply some of the same reasoning to this case. Since the nearness in time and the preservation of the accounts to the event give evidence for the historcity of even the miraculous events in the gospels, the fact the the present DL was found within the last century (and so the account did not come about any earlier)should be evidence for it. Further, Dge lugs pa monks had pretty strong reasons for taking strict pains to make sure that this boy was the correct reincarnation; not everyone is an incarnation of the Bodhisattava Avalokitesvara, after all, and the order considers this to be rather important.

Next, we have the argument from the improbability of alternative explanations. Just as we say that Jesus must have risen from the dead since nothing else explains the empty tomb adequately, so too must we say that only something along the lines of reincarnation adequately explains this young boy being able to accurately pick out the previous DL's belongings from a set of stuff. The vision of where he lived is a little more iffy, but there were some specific elements which matched the house, and even if the probability of finding a house with those elements was not terribly low, the probability of finding such with this boy would be pretty special.

Finally, we have the argument from effect. Just as the renewed vigour of the apostles is cited as evidence that Jesus really did rise from the dead (how else would they have overcome their funk?), so too does the subsequent life of the DL give evidence that there was something special about him, as the odds of someone from his background taking the place that he has in world events is pretty slim. Further, the book I was reading points that that historically, every DL who has lived until maturity has become a competent leader; looking at other methods of leadership, what are the odds of this happening?

If there is any reason for assuming the DL story to have support, then arguments for the veracity of Christ's resurrection (and hence a vindication of the Christian message) are in trouble. If they work for Christ, they work for the DL; but these two stories aren't terribly compatible (If the Christian story is true, then the DL one is not; if the DL one is, then at least the way the Christians tell their own story is not, though Buddhists could most likely accept Jesus as a Bodhisattva). So, either the DL story is true, and Christian historical evidences are washed away; or it is false, in which case it still would be a problem for apologists that they have not taken the necessary time to deal with these alternative narratives which could falsify their own narrative. As a result, historical apologetic arguments, as they stand, demand incredibly little assent from a knowledgable non-believer.

What is reality?

I've been pondering over what it means for something to be real. We'll talk about things like whether the external world is real, whether an historical event is real, whether God is more real than the world, etc. However, what does real mean in these cases? Here are a couple of my attempts to parse things out:

(1) Publicness: "Reality" can be dispensed with in some circumstances, and we can talk about how public a phenomenon is instead. Dreams are not unreal, they are private. The reality of the external world is, at best, simply a best explanation as to why it is common to multiple subjects, and not anything necessary for its stability or for the success of science.

(2) Consistency: Reality is consistency. Dreams and hallucinations are inconsistent with the rest of our experience, and so we dismiss them as mere appearances.

(3) Effect: History is a bit trickier. I fail to see why we should care about historical events whose reality does not affect the present, though I suppose a complete theory must refer to such. Otherwise, it seems that an even is real if there would be effect A had it happened, and effect B otherwise, and effect A does in fact obtain. So, Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection are real if they implement the effects they are said to effect, which presumably would not be effected otherwise. The question of whether Job and Esther (and IMHO at least the beginning of Genesis) are real seems to be a misleading question; they impact the present through their literary value mainly, and so this is the sphere of their reality.

(4) Actuality: The real is the true and actual in this very moment. This seems to me to be what grounds all of the other senses. Of course, we get into theories of time here. One theory (the block view, or B theory) states that the entire space-time continuum is one big block, which has an ordering of events. So, event A can be before event B, which is after A. However, there is no past, present, or future absolutely speaking; for every event A, A is in the present, everything before is past, everything after is future. However, these past and future events do exist. In contrast, the other main view of time (the presentist, or A theory) states that the present moment is what actually exists; the past and future do not. So, in the first theory, there is a set containing a Cretaceous-era Tyrannosaurus and a 21st century computer, while the second theory denies that this is possible. The former tends to be in vogue amongst the scientistifically minded, while idealists of varying stripes like the second.

If the block view is correct, then we have a way of discussing historical events in a new light; they are actual because they exist (once existent, always existent), and so are real. The publicness and consistency criteria also are expanded, in that what is most real is what is the most public/consistent at the most times. If the presentist view is correct, then there is nothing to be real except the present. Publicness and consistency also apply merely to the present moment, and so dreams, hallucinations, and perhaps even myths may be perfectly real at the present (though not necessarily at any other time).