Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Defending the Resurrection of Christ.

For many people (some Christians as well) the idea of miracles in this age of reason and science is somewhat of a barrier to belief in Christianity. Over the ages well meaning (and some perhaps not so sincere) people that have claimed to be Christians or at least sympathetic to the claims of Christianity have sought to strip out of Christianity any mention of miracles and retain only those ethical and moral imperatives that "seemed good in their sight".

 It has been suggested that mankind have now come of age and no longer need the "hyperbole" of miracles to attract attention or indeed that the very mention or reference to miracles tends to put people off. There have been whole theological movements (largely the liberal camp) that have "rewritten" the scriptures in order to "de-mythologize" Christianity and make it more acceptable to "rational" man. One such proponent of this scheme was Rudolf Bultmann.

He concluded that the gospel records are a collection of myths, which portray truths about man's existence rather than tell about actual historical events. In order to understand the New Testament books it is necessary to“demythologize” them, that is, to strip them of the myth with which the early church had clothed the gospel writings. (Wikipedia)

The most notable miracle event mentioned in the Bible is without doubt the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, not only in terms of the impact of his death and resurrection but also because of the meaning that lay behind the event. In a video post prior to this one Ravi Zacharias mentions a comment by Billy Graham subsequent to a series of meetings held in  the ruins of Germany after the second world war.

Konrad Adenauer, the mayor of Cologne who was imprisoned by Hitler for opposing the Nazi regime and who later became the highly regarded chancellor of West Germany from 1949-1963 once asked Billy Graham if he really believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Billy Graham said, ‘Of course I do.’ and also averred that if the resurrection of Christ were to be left out he would have no Gospel left to preach. Adenauer then replied; “Mr. Graham, outside of the resurrection of Jesus, I do not know of any other hope for this world.”


St. Paul defined how essential to Christianity the resurrection was when he said: 
But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:  And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.  For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:  And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 1 Corinthians 15:13-17


For many this is the inescapable stumbling block to Christianity, to the secular world view which depends largely on a materialist philosophy this is simply a fairy tale on a level with Bobby Henderson's "flying spaghetti monster".

But can the resurrection be rationally defended? 


Yes it can. In fact one can- with good reason- turn the tables and state with confidence that to say "the resurrection is  irrational according to science" is itself an irrational statement. What follows is part of a discussion found on Matt and Madeleine Flannagans Blog with an atheist who made just such a statement.







Jan 16, 2013 at 11:49 pm



Paul B:  “would you agree that the resurrection of Jesus after three days of being clinically dead is, according to the best Scientific knowledge and verifiable evidence available to us to date, impossible?”

I would agree that on the basis of science it is impossible, that’s why it’s called a miracle. And why we don’t believe science is the only way to describe reality. It is very good at describing physical realities but we contend that there is more than physical reality. Just because it is inexplicable to science does not make it irrational any more than a three dimensional object is irrational to one in a “two dimensional world”

Paul Bennett
Jan 17, 2013 at 1:15 pm



@ Kerry

My perspective concerning rational or irrational belief related specifically to myself.

I personally find a belief in the resurrection of Jesus after three days of being clinically dead irrational as according to the best Scientific knowledge and verifiable evidence available to us to date, that would be an impossible event.

Obviously, you and anyone else are completely entitled to hold such a belief as you see it as a miracle.

As I’ve tried to explain previously, my atheistic perspective does not expect to convince others that they should hold the same view, but like Matt’s original post, I’m more than happy to explain why I hold it.

Kerry
Jan 18, 2013 at 9:13 am



Paul B: I personally find a belief in the resurrection of Jesus after three days of being clinically dead irrational …

You seem to have a private interpretation of rationality which you use in a completely arbitrary manner.
To judge whether something is irrational or not means you are applying a universal standard of rationality. You may say the resurrection is unlikely or any number of things, you can even say it is impossible (according to science, which wouldn’t prove much since “impossibilities” are often found to be true, like the particle/wave understanding of light) But to say it is irrational is either misleading by negating an argument on a false basis, or you didn’t realize what irrational means. It follows that if we don’t use language the same way then dialogue becomes useless. If you relativize language to suit yourself then your arguments pro or con become impossible to contradict not because they are right but because it’s like trying to hang on to a slippery eel.

Kerry
Jan 18, 2013 at 9:51 am



Paul, further to this, your veneration of science seems to force you to believe ” Whatever science doesn’t approve as true, cannot be counted as knowledge” The problem with this view is that all science, that is- all good science is under-girded by good philosophy. But philosophy, particularly first principles, not only aren’t proven by science they can’t be proven by science. Rationality is not proved by science. Another problem is that much of the knowledge from science is, in a technical sense, not the result of an unbroken series of purely logical steps. ThePrinciple of the Uniformity of Nature is arrived at, and can only be arrived at by applying an inductive argument, which David Hume, if my memory serves correctly, discounted over two hundred years ago as not strictly rational. 
“Hume’s analysis of induction has shown that induction is not rational, that our knowledge and expectations about the future are not based on the use of reason or logical argument.”- THE EMPIRICISTS: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED by Professor Laurence Carlin.
Therefore to say that the resurrection is irrational on the basis that “dead bodies always stay dead” (the future will be just like the past) is to invoke the principle of the uniformity of nature which is an inductive argument not based on rationality On this basis then, it is your statement of the irrationality of the resurrection that is strictly speaking- irrational.

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As of this date I have seen no more comments from Paul on this subject. While I have respect for Paul's willingness to dialogue with Christians re. the resurrection and defend his right to his own opinion and his right to express it- his view is sadly characteristic of many today whose view of science has more to do with scientism than science.

For those to whom the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature is a mystery a short explanation may suffice. It is simply an expectation on our part that events and causes follow regular patterns. The sun rises every day and therefore it will continue to rise everyday. The tide comes in and recedes and the expectation that this will continue to happen regularly is an example of P.U.N. ( Principle of the Uniformity of Nature). When apples fall off trees in France they do also in New Zealand, as they did in Isaac Newtons time 300 years ago they still do to this day and P.U.N. assures us that they will continue to do so.

Part of David Hume's legacy is that this expectation of future regularity is not proven in a strictly logical sense but if we don't assume this regularity we would be completely unable to do much of science as we know it today. All the laws of physics assume P.U.N. but strictly speaking this is as much a statement of faith as is observed in religious creedal statements. Real scientists, at least those who are aware of the philosophical implications of it, are therefore much more cautious in their assumptions and much less dogmatic about science being purely rational. To be clear no-one is denying or denigrating the efficiency of science to make physical realities explicable, but to say this is done in a perfectly unbroken logical sequence is to venerate science above all other modes of "knowing". Science then becomes a quasi religion in itself. For the Christian, as indeed it was for many of the early scientists, and increasingly so today- it is just such a faith in the logicality of God himself who so ordered the design of the Universe that made science possible. P.U.N. is therefore, to the theist, an expectation that the Universe is accessible and intelligible to the human mind because of his theistic worldview. To the non-theist this assumption of P.U.N. against a background of pure randomness and chance is inexplicable, in a word it is blind faith!    

Some of the compelling evidence for the resurrection of Christ turns up in quite surprising ways. As William Lane Craig has said- Why would the apostles subject themselves to ignominy, insult, torture, and finally martyrdom for a lie? What (in this life) did they have to gain? While some skeptics have countered with examples of others giving their lives for false ideas- like suicide bombers believing in eternal rewards for exterminating the infidel- this counter perspective fails to address the distinction between a belief and an experience. While the religious fervor and zealotry of some groups does "inspire" martyrdom in some groups this does not adequately explain the deaths of the apostles.

Firstly martyrdom is not portrayed in Christianity as a virtue in and of itself to be glorified. Christ died once for all- meaning for a Christian- that her eternal reward is vouchsafed for by the finished work of Christ on the cross. When a Christian gives her life as a personal sacrifice by martyrdom, it is the exception rather than the rule. Secondly what is not taken into consideration is that- far from mere intellectual assent or hyped up religious manipulation, or indeed soporific, mind numbing ritualistic priming by extremists- these apostles were eyewitnesses to the life, death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus, which goes beyond "belief", this was personal experienced  knowledge for them. In 1 John 1:1 the apostle John relates:
"That" (Christ) "which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;"
This apostolic martyrdom is such a contrast for instance to St. Peters earlier denial of Christ, when he refused to suffer the reproach of Christ for his own security, it is quite a different picture to that of religious extremism. Tradition holds Peter to have been crucified under Emperor Nero Augustus Caesar upside down at his own request, since he saw himself unworthy to be crucified in the same way as Jesus Christ. The only appreciable difference that could account for Peter's change of heart between his original triad of denial to his eventual demise could be attributed to his personal experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus and the strengthening of his resolve and witness after the day of Pentecost.

For contemporary Christians then, the resurrection of Christ is not a question of blind faith or fideism, but it is confidence in a historically verified reality by eyewitnesses that have vouchsafed the validity and veracity of its truth with their own blood. For us then, when we avow this as truth- we are bearing witness to a historical reality within a continuous community of faith that has never ceased to exist on this earth for the last two thousand years.

Ravi Zacharias and the Incoherence of Atheism- A presentation hosted on youtube by Religionphilosophy

If Jesus was a charlatan he could easily have made the unfalsifiable claim to rise "spiritually" from the dead. Then even if his body had been found his claim to be the "resurrection and the life" could not have been refuted. But instead his resurrection was vouchsafed as a bodily resurrection by the disappearance from the tomb and his reappearance to many.