Exclusivity Claims Of Major World Religions

Exclusivity Claims Of Major World Religions

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by Rajkumar Richard

You may have encountered and engaged these claims, “Christianity is intolerant!” and “Christianity is exclusive!” The other religions are allegedly tolerant and hence, inclusive. Is it so? No! Every major religion claims exclusivity.

Within the theme of “Religious Diversity,” three relevant theories should be recognized.[1] The “Pluralist theory” believes that one religion is as truthful as another. The “Exclusivist theory” considers only one religion as uniquely valuable – the sole bearer of truth. The “Inclusivist theory” finds merit with both the pluralistic and exclusivistic religions by arguing that while the exclusivistic religion could hold most value, the others still have religious value, for there may be partial truth in the other religions.

A religion proclaims exclusivity if it absolutely contradicts an essential doctrine (Godhead, Sin, Salvation, etc.) of another religion. Since mutually contradictory statements cannot be true at the same time and in the same sense (Law of noncontradiction), the either-or logic (not the both-and) should be applied while determining the truth. When two religions mutually contradict each other, the truth remains with either religion A or religion B (both religion A and religion B cannot be true, in this instance). Therefore, only one religion could be true, but the fact remains that both religions claim exclusivity, for both these religions claim to bear the truth.

Every major religion in the world, either implicitly or explicitly, claims exclusivity. Ravi Zacharias states, “The truth is that every major religion in the world claims exclusivity, and every major religion in the world has a point of exclusion…”[2] Therefore, a preliminary study of the claims of exclusivity of the major world religions is in order.

Exclusivity of Hinduism

Hinduism, one of the world’s oldest religious systems, claims to be inclusive.[3] But it is not so.

Hinduism excludes other religions based on its core doctrines. Consider the doctrine of God in Hinduism. Brahman, the absolute God of Hinduism, is a mysterious being.[4]

Although Brahman is one God, he manifests in innumerable forms, “Hinduism is unique because it is essentially a monotheistic faith which acknowledges polytheism as reflective of the diversity in God’s creation. God is one, but also many. He manifests Himself in innumerable forms and shapes.”[5] But the God of Christianity does not manifest Himself in innumerable forms. Hence, Hinduism should exclude Christianity or Islam on the basis of the Godhead. The same holds true for doctrines such as karma and reincarnation, which absolutely contradict Christianity and other religions.

While Hinduism claims inclusivity, it excludes the exclusivists, “Hinduism does not recognize claims of exclusivity or a clergy. Anyone who claims to by [sic] the exclusive possessor of spiritual truth or the only ‘method’ of reaching God finds no place in Hinduism; a method or a message can only be one among many…Krishna, speaking as God in the Bhagavad-Gita, says, “All paths lead to me,” and also those who worship other gods with devotion worship me….Hinduism does not force itself on others through proselytization…”[6]

Existentially, Hinduism contradicts its own claims for inclusivity. If Hinduism is truly inclusive, it would not proselytize. But Hinduism, in India – the country of its origin, is actively converting people. The recent Ghar Wapsi (Home Coming) program in India is a classic case in point. Ghar Wapsi is, “a series of religious conversion activities, facilitated by Indian Hindu organizations Vishva Hindu Parishad and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, to facilitate the conversion of non-Hindus to Hinduism”[7]

Furthermore, Ravi Zacharias, who was born into a Hindu household, asserts the exclusivity of Hinduism, “Hinduism, for example, is often represented as being the most tolerant and accepting of other faiths. That is just not true. All Hindus believe in two fundamental, uncompromising doctrines—the Law of Karma, and the belief in reincarnation.”[8]

Therefore it is very reasonable to conclude that Hinduism is not an inclusive faith since it claims exclusivity.

Exclusivity of Buddhism

Rejection of Hinduism led to the birth of Buddhism, says Ravi Zacharias, “Buddhism was born out of the rejection of two other very dogmatic claims of Hinduism. Buddha rejected the authority of the vedas and the caste system of Hinduism.”[9]

There are several irreconcilable differences between Buddhism and Historic Christianity. Two such differences are found below:

First, Buddhism rejects the notion of a personal God, which is in stark contrast to Christianity, “There is no almighty God in Buddhism. There is no one to hand out rewards or punishments on a supposedly Judgement Day.”[10] However, Buddha is worshipped by some Buddhists.

Second, Buddhism excludes other religions that believe in sin, for there is no such thing as sin in Buddhism, “Buddhists do not regard man as sinful by nature of ‘in rebellion against god.’ Every human being is a person of great worth who has within himself a vast store of good as well as evil habits…According to Buddhism, there is no such thing as sin as explained by other religions.”[11]

There are many such points of exclusions in Buddhism. Hence, Buddhism is also an exclusive religion.

Exclusivity of Islam

Islam, being strictly monotheistic, rejects every contradicting worldview (Trinitarian monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, etc.). Moreover, Islam, by virtue of rejecting Christ’s divinity, excludes Christianity.

Islam is also a legalistic system. A Muslim must earn his salvation by holding to the “Articles of Faith” (belief in God, Angels, Scripture, Prophets, and Last Days) and following the “Pillars of Faith” (The Creed, Prayer, Almsgiving, Fasting, and Hajj Pilgrimage). This is in absolute contrast to Christianity, which believes that man is not saved by his good deeds but is saved by the grace of God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, Islam stakes claim to exclusivity by excluding the contradicting religions.

Exclusivity of Judaism

It may be an effortless task to prove Judaism’s claim to exclusivity vis-à-vis other religions that are not named Christianity. Judaism and Christianity have much in common. Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, in their work “Handbook of Today’s Religions,” state the fundamental similarity, “It is to historic Judaism, the Judaism of the Old Testament, that Christianity traces its roots. Christianity does not supplant Old Testament Judaism; it is the fruition of Old Testament Judaism. One cannot hold to the Bible, Old and New Testaments, as God’s one divine revelation without also recognizing and honoring the place God has given historic Judaism.”[12]

Given this relationship between Judaism and Christianity, the exclusivity of Judaism would be clearly emphasized if Judaism excludes Christianity. A couple of points of exclusion are highlighted below:

First, Judaism rejects the Christian belief that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, “While Christianity recognizes that the promise of a personal, spiritual savior is the core of biblical revelation, Judaism has long vacillated in the concept of messiahship. That Jesus Christ, the true Messiah predicted in God’s Word, would be rejected by the Jews of the first century shows that even at that time there was a divergence of opinion on the meaning and authority of messianic passages in Scripture. In the course of Jewish history, the meaning of the Messiah had undergone changes. Originally, it was believed that God would send His special messenger, delivering Israel from her oppressors and instituting peace and freedom. However, today any idea of a personal messiah has been all but abandoned by the majority of the Jews. It has been substituted with the hope of a messianic age characterized by truth and justice.”[13]

Second, the salvation of the Jews is predicated on sacrifices, penitence, good deeds and a little of God’s grace, since they reject the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.[14] Salvation in Christianity is absolutely contingent on God’s grace, but not on the performance of good deeds.

Conclusion  

Every major religion of the world remains exclusive, for there are irreconcilable contradictions between these religions. The notion that Historic Christianity is the only religion that claims exclusivity is, therefore, incorrect.

Notes:

[1] http://www.iep.utm.edu/reli-div/

[2] http://rzim.org/a-slice-of-infinity/point-of-exclusion/

[3] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/hinduism-is-more-inclusive-and-not-exclusive-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-2947063/

[4] http://www.hinduwebsite.com/brahmanmain.asp

[5] http://www.hinduwebsite.com/onegod.asp

[6] M. G. Chitkara, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: National Upsurge, A.P.H Publishing Corporation, New Delhi, 2004, p61.

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghar_Wapsi

[8] http://rzim.org/a-slice-of-infinity/point-of-exclusion/

[9] Ibid.

[10] http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/snapshot01.htm

[11] http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/182.htm

[12] Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, “Handbook of Today’s Religions,” Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1983, p364.

[13] Ibid. p372.

[14] Ibid. p373.

 

Rajkumar Richard is passionate to strengthen the faith of fellow Christians, especially the young Christians. He has a Masters in Religion (Southern Evangelical Seminary, NC, USA) and Masters in Biology (School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamaraj University, India). He is a Christian blogger, itinerant speaker, social evangelist, and a mentor to young Christians.

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2l7HkPU

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 9_ Probabilities and Plagarism

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 9: Probabilities and Plagarism

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By Evan Minton

This is part 9 in a blog post series on the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6, we’ve seen powerful historical evidence that (1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion, that (2) His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning, that (3) the twelve disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after His death, that (4) a church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be appearance of the risen Jesus.

In part 7, we looked at various ways that skeptics have tried to account for the minimal facts, and we saw that they all fail. No naturalistic theory can account for all 5 of the minimal facts. The only theory that can account for them is not a naturalistic theory at all, but a supernaturalistic theory: God raised Jesus from the dead. The hypothesis that God The Father miraculous raised Jesus to life explains all of the data perfectly. It explains why Jesus’ tomb was found empty, why His disciples (and Mary Magdalene) believed they saw Him alive after His death. It explains why a hard-headed, hard-hearted terrorist like Saul of Tarsus would become one of the people he sought to destroy virtually overnight, and it would explain why James, despite being skeptical of his brother’s claims, would become such a firm believer that he would be willing to die a martyr’s death. The resurrection explains every piece of data that is in need of explanation, but even the best of the naturalistic theories could explain one of the five facts at most. The majority didn’t even explain that many. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis has exhaustive explanatory scope and power and ergo outshines any other proposed explanation. In part 8 (the previous blog post), we saw that even though some may have some lingering questions about the resurrection (e.g. why didn’t Jesus appear to convince his enemies?), these questions had good answers, but most of them wouldn’t have affected the case for the resurrection even if they went unanswered.

The state of scholarship today regarding the historical Jesus is this; the 5 minimal facts are true, skeptical non-Christian historians can’t come up with a good way to explain them, but they won’t admit a resurrection.

Why is this? It could be (1) they’re on a happiness quest, not a truth quest. They just don’t want it to be true. (2) They have some lingering questions like the ones I addressed in the previous blog post.

I answered some of the more minor lingering questions in the previous blog post, but in this blog post, I’ll address two more. Nine out of ten of the unanswered questions in the previous blog post wouldn’t have affected the case even if left unanswered, but there are a couple of remaining objections that would impact the case if left unrefuted.

Objection 1: The Resurrection Is So Improbable, We Can Never Conclude That It Occurred
Some skeptics will say that we need more evidence for the resurrection than for any other event in history because the probability against a resurrection ever occurring is so extreme. After all, the vast majority of people who have ever lived have remained in their graves. They’ll say “Even though our naturalistic proposals are abysmal failures, they’re still at least more likely than a miraculous resurrection.”  As a result, we can either never have enough evidence to affirm the resurrection, or at the very least we need far more evidence for it than other events. Sometimes skeptics will assert that the experience against miracles (i.e., I’ve never witnessed one, you probably haven’t either) militates against the resurrection hypothesis. The evidence for natural events far outweighs supernatural events by leaps and bounds.

If this objection succeeds, then it would seem that the skeptical scholar’s attitude of “We can’t explain it, but it’s probably not a miraculous resurrection” would be justified. What are we to say to this objection?

1: I’m Not Concerned With Probabilities, But With Explanatory Ability 

I am not arguing here that a miraculous resurrection is the most probable explanation of the data, only that it is the best explanation. The resurrection is the best explanation of the facts no matter what number a person might ascribe to its probability. The resurrection is the best explanation because it explains all of the data, every single fact, while the naturalistic explanations we looked at in part 7 and fail miserably. The resurrection succeeds in explanatory power. Moreover, it also succeeds in explanatory scope. Even the best of the naturalistic explanations explain, at most, one, but most of them don’t even explain that many. Most of them explain 0 of the facts. Every single possible naturalistic theory one could come up with fails, but the resurrection, the supernaturalistic explanation, succeeds. And therefore, we ought to conclude that this hypothesis is the true explanation. Detective Sherlock Holmes would agree with me. Sherlock Holmes once said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” (emphasis mine).[1] The Resurrection is the only explanation that remains, and it’s the only one that adequately accounts for all five facts. Ergo, in Detective Holmes’ reasoning, it must be the truth. If you can think of another explanation, be my guest, but until then, I’m sticking with “He is risen”.

It’s not ad hoc or contrived. It’s plausible in light of the religious-historical context of Jesus’ life and claims (i.e. His claim to be God, see here). It outstrips its rival theories in the aforementioned. It passes all 6 of C.B Mcullah’s tests for a viable historical theory. And therefore, I believe we are epistemologically warranted in affirming that it occurred. It’s the only hypothesis that works! I don’t care about probability. To quote General Han Solo “Don’t tell me the odds,” instead, give me a viable naturalistic theory. If you can’t, and if the best and brightest minds in scholarship haven’t been able to after all this time, then maybe, just maybe, Jesus rose from the dead.

2: If Jesus Did Not Rise From The Dead, Either The Minimal Facts Shouldn’t Exist Or A Naturalistic Theory Should Be Able To Explain Them 

I would argue that if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then it’s extremely improbable that the minimal facts should be facts. I would argue that in light of the hypothesis “Jesus did not rise from the dead,” then His tomb should be occupied, His disciples should never have claimed and come to believe that they had seen him, and Paul and James should have remained skeptical the rest of their lives.

Here’s an analogy; let’s say that a woman is brought before a jury on charges of murder. She’s accused of having killed her young son. Now, at the start, you might think that it’s extremely unlikely that she is guilty. After all, the vast majority of mothers who’ve ever lived do not harm their children. They love and care for them. In light of this background information, the claim that she is guilty is enormously improbable, and you’d be justified in thinking that if that background knowledge was all you had to go on. However, investigators found a bloody knife in the back seat of her car next to a mud-covered shovel. In her house, they found a pair of pants that also had been chemically spot cleaned. They also have several eyewitnesses who said that they heard a child screaming just before seeing the defendant carrying a black garbage bag and a shovel out her house in the middle of the night, the same night as the murder. When investigators found the dead child, he was in a black garbage bag. The defendant also had a history of mental illness and domestic violence. In light of these “minimal facts,” the claim “She is not guilty” becomes improbable. The defendant’s attorney throughout every alternative explanation he could think of, but the Jury all saw the various holes in them and rejected them. They knew that the claim “This woman murdered her child” could explain all of the evidence. Even the best of the defense attorney’s explanations could account for one piece of evidence at the crime scene at most, but the majority of his alternative explanations didn’t even go that far. The only explanation that worked is “This woman murdered her child.”

Now, it would be an invalid move on the part of the defense attorney to argue that the majority of mothers care for their children rather than killing them, and he’s never witnessed a woman murder her child, and so the probability against any mother ever killing her child is so great that they should return with a “not guilty” verdict. Sure, the hypothesis “this woman killed her child” is improbable in light of the background information that mothers usually don’t kill their sons and that we’ve personally never witnessed a mother kill her son, but the guilty verdict is still justified.

In fact, the existence of the evidence is improbable if she is not guilty. If she’s not guilty, the detectives should not have found what they found. If she didn’t do it, what are the odds that “the minimal facts” at the trial (the blood-covered knife in the back of the car, the muddy shovel in the trunk, the dead child being found in a black garbage bag, the eyewitness statements of her leaving the house with a black garbage bag and shovel, and the history of mental illness and domestic violence) should all exist? In the same way, the existence of the minimal facts (2) Jesus’ Empty Tomb, (3) Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples, (4) Postmortem Appearance To The Skeptic James, and (5) the postmortem appearance to Paul, should not exist if Jesus did not rise from the dead. It’s enormously improbable that these five facts would be true if Jesus did not rise from the dead.

At the very least, if the woman didn’t kill her child, there should be a viable alternative theory than “she is guilty.” Likewise, there should at least be a viable explanation for the minimal facts than “He is risen.” Alas, there is no other explanation.

3: The Existence Of God Bolsters The Probability Of A Resurrection 

The objection I’m addressing in this subsection would never be made by Muslims or adherents to Judaism. Why? Because they believe miracles can, do, and have occurred. Why? Because they believe that a God powerful enough to perform miracles exist. They would object to the resurrection on theological grounds, but not on the grounds that an event like this is improbable.

If an omnipotent God exists, then the likelihood of this God raising Jesus from the dead increases. Of course, I think the resurrection can be an argument for the existence of God in and of itself,[2] but nevertheless, if God’s existence can be demonstrated, any improbability of a miraculous resurrection shrinks drastically. I have argued in several articles on CerebralFaith.blogspot.com and in my book Inference To The One True God: Why I Believe In Jesus Instead Of Other Gods that there are several good arguments for the existence of God. And in my book, I argue that only the Christian God matches the attributes that the God that these syllogistic arguments prove exists.

Conclusion
Imagine a scale in your mind’s eye and picture bricks on each side of the scale. On one side of the scale, the bricks are labeled, “The Existence Of God”, “The Five Minimal Facts”, “No Theory Other Than The Resurrection Hypothesis can explain the 5 minimal facts”, “Jesus made claims to divinity prior to being executed”[3], and “Jesus Predicted His Resurrection”[4]. On the other side, there are bricks labeled, “The majority of dead men stay dead,” “I’ve never personally seen a miracle,” “I have a cosmic authority problem.” Okay, I’m joking about that last one.

Which side of the scale is leaning more? The side in favor of Jesus’ miraculous resurrection. In light of the full scope of the evidence, in light of all the scale’s “bricks,” Jesus’ resurrection becomes more probable than not. Now, it’s true that I haven’t demonstrated that all of the aforementioned bricks are there in this series, but they are there, and I talk about one of them in footnote No. 5 and the other in Appendix A (of the e-book adaption of this series). When you take all of the data into consideration, Jesus’ resurrection comes out to be probable.

By the way, William Lane Craig responds to this objection in Part 23 of “The Doctrine Of Christ” section of his Defenders 2 class. But it’s rather technical. I gave a more accessible response, but for those interested in a more technical response, click here. 

Objection 2: Jesus Was Just Plagiarized From Dying And Rising Gods Of Pagan Religions

The irony of this blog post is that I’m addressing two different objections that come from two different groups of people. The first one is made widely by skeptical historians and scholars, but the second one is only reported by lay people, skeptics you encounter in internet chat rooms and on social media. No scholar would ever put forth this objection.

What is the objection? Well, if you surveyed atheist blogs at all, you’ve probably heard that Jesus is just a copy of pagan gods in mythology. Jesus’ story mirrors the story of Horus, Mithras, Krishna, and others. Therefore, Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a historical event, but a plagiarized story. Many skeptics use this argument to go so far as to say Jesus of Nazareth didn’t even exist at all! This argument was popularized by the movie Zeitgeist. There are several problems with this claim.

1: The similarities are so vague, claims of plagiarism are implausible

When you actually compare the gospels’ claims about Jesus with the stories of Horus, Mithras, etc. what you find is that (A) some of these similarities don’t exist at all, and (B) the ones that do are so vague and ambiguous that it’s a stretch to say that the New Testament copied these stories.

Let’s look at just a few examples: One example is that Dionysius is said to have died and risen again like Jesus. But when you examine the stories, you find that Dyonisis wasn’t miraculously raised from the dead by his deity Father, but that his mother pieced him back together. Other stories say that Dionysus was killed by Zeus swallowing his heart and his heart was made into a potion given to Semele. Does this sound like Jesus at all? Dionysis was born on December 25th just like Jesus. This proves plagiarism, right? Well, first of all, it isn’t strange for multiple people to share the same birthday. I share a birthday with actor Zachary Quinto, but that doesn’t mean that if biographies were written about our lives that you could claim one copied the other. Secondly, The Bible never says that Jesus was born on December 25th. That date for Christmas was chosen by The Pope hundreds of years after Jesus was born.[5] Most modern scholars believe Jesus was born in the summer, sometime between June and September. The people behind Zeitgeist were so ignorant of the facts that they didn’t even know The Bible didn’t give us Jesus’ birthday date!

It is said that Mithras was born of a virgin, just like Jesus. Newsflash: Mithras was born out of a rock. Now, I guess technically one could say that since rocks can’t have sex, the rock was a virgin, and therefore you do have a virgin birth. But by that logic, Frosty The Snowman was also born of a virgin since I’m pretty sure that old soot hat of his wasn’t gettin’ any! This is ridiculous. The birth of Mithras was nothing like the birth of Jesus. Jesus was born of a human woman, not a rock.

What about Horus? During his battle with Set, he lost an eye, but he never died. Since he never died, he couldn’t be resurrected. Death is a prerequisite to resurrection.

Osiris was killed by his brother, chopped up into 14 pieces and the pieces were scattered all over Egypt. The goddess Isis retrieved all of these pieces (except for one) and put him back together again. Moreover, Osiris wasn’t resurrected but merely given the status as god of the gloomy underworld.[6] Now, does this sound like Jesus’ death and resurrection? Sure, you have a guy who is killed, and he’s brought back to life in a sense, but Jesus wasn’t chopped up into 14 pieces by one of his brothers and had his body parts scattered all over Israel, He was crucified by the Roman government. Moreover, when Jesus rose from the dead, He had all of his parts (unlike Osiris). The only thing Jesus and Osiris have in common is that they both died and came back to life, but the skeptics aren’t taking the various differences between these two into account.

These are just a few of the not-so-similarities between Jesus and pagan gods.

2: This Logic Would Bring Us To Believe Doctor Who Is Copied From Jesus 

If you want to cherry pick vague similarities to prove plagiarism, then you should believe that the writers of Doctor Who ripped off The New Testament.

Doctor Who — Is 2,000 years old as of season 10 of the modern series. He even said in one episode “I’m old enough to be your messiah!”

Jesus – is 2,000 years old as of the 21st century.

Doctor Who — has an archnemesis called “The Master.”

Jesus — has an archnemesis called “The Devil.”

Doctor Who — Came to Earth from another world (Gallifrey)

Jesus — Came to Earth from another world (Heaven).

Doctor Who — called a Time “Lord.”

Jesus — Called “Lord”

Doctor Who — traveled around with many companions.

Jesus — Traveled around with many companions.

Doctor Who — Regenerates when he is fatally wounded.

Jesus — Rose from the dead.

Doctor Who — Isn’t recognized by people who knew him prior to regenerating (e.g. Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart).

Jesus — wasn’t recognized by the two men on the road to Emaus after rising from the dead.

You can see how ridiculous this line of argumentation is. It’s no wonder why professional historians and scholars of ancient history give this objection no credence. Yes, there are some similarities between The Doctor and Jesus, but they’re vague similarities. The differences between them far outnumber whatever they might have in common. The same goes for the pagan myths and Jesus.

3: This Logic Would Lead Us To Believe The Titanic Sinking Wasn’t A Historical Event

A long time ago, there was an incredible tragedy that occurred. A huge passenger ship, which people said was unsinkable, on a cold night in the North Atlantic about 200 miles off of Newfoundland, struck an iceberg and sank. Many people died because there weren’t enough lifeboats. Now, you believe I’m talking about The Titanic, right? Nope. I’m talking about a ship called Titan, in a novel written in 1898, fourteen years before the wreck of the Titanic, called The Wreck of the Titan written by a person named Morgan Robertson.

Unlike Jesus and the pagan gods, the parallels between the fiction of The Wreck Of The Titan and the historical event of The Titanic actually are striking! However, I don’t know of anyone who would argue that there never really was a ship called The Titanic that sank. Thanks to this silly theory, I now have Celene Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” playing in my mind now. Thanks, atheists who don’t do their research.

4: Most Of These Stories Come After The Rise Of Christianity 

As if the above 3 points weren’t enough to refute this silly objection, most of the pagan myths post-date Christianity. Therefore, if any plagiarizing were being done, it would be done in the opposite direction![7]

5: Jews were committed to an exclusive faith.

Jews were adamantly committed to their religious beliefs and traditions and refused to blend their religious ideas and traditions with that of others (a view known as syncretism). Mystery religions were inclusive. They would adopt any doctrine or theological concept that they wanted to. They were very loose and didn’t have a measure of orthodoxy, but Judaism and Christianity were exclusive. In general, Jewish people adamantly resisted outside religious ideas, most likely due to the fact that they had, by the time of the first century, learned from The Old Testament that God did not tolerate mingling with other nations.
In Antiquity of the Jews, the Jewish historian Josephus talks about an event in which the Romans try to force something on the Jews and how the Jews responded to it.:

“But now Pilate, the procurator of Judea, removed the army from Cesarea to Jerusalem, to take their winter quarters there, in order to abolish the Jewish laws. So he introduced Caesar’s effigies, which were upon the ensigns, and brought them into the city; whereas our law forbids us the very making of images; on which account the former procurators were wont to make their entry into the city with such ensigns as had not those ornaments. Pilate was the first who brought those images to Jerusalem, and set them up there; which was done without the knowledge of the people, because it was done in the nighttime; but as soon as they knew it, they came in multitudes to Cesarea, and interceded with Pilate many days, that he would remove the images; and when he would not grant their requests, because it would tend to the injury of Caesar, while yet they persevered in their request, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to have their weapons privately, while he came and sat upon his judgment seat, which seat was so prepared in the open place of the city, that it concealed the army that lay ready to oppress them; and when the Jews petitioned him again, he gave a signal to the soldiers to encompass them round, and threatened that their punishment should be no less than immediate death, unless they would leave off disturbing him, and go their ways home. But they threw themselves upon the ground, and laid their necks bare, and said they would take their death very willingly, rather than the wisdom of their laws should be transgressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable, and presently commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Cesarea.” (Josephus, Works Of Flavius Josephus, 18:55–59)

It is undeniable that Christianity sprung up out of a thoroughly Jewish culture. The idea that a group of devout Jews would see ideas in other religions and then adopt them into their own religious views is incredibly implausible in light of what we know about ancient Jews.
6:  Even If This Went Unanswered, It Wouldn’t Hurt The Case For The Resurrection 

The 5 minimal facts were true even if the similarities between Jesus and these pagan myths were as strong as the chatroom atheists would have us believe. None of the arguments given in favor of Jesus’ death by crucifixion, his empty tomb, or the apostles claiming and believing to have seen him alive after his death would be affected by this objection even if went unanswered.

As I said in part 8, poorly attested miracles (as the pagan myths certainly are) cannot be used to rule out well-evidenced ones.

Conclusion 

These two last-ditch efforts on the part of skeptics to keep us from being justified in believing in Jesus’ resurrection are failures.

To skeptics: are you convinced yet? If so, what are you going to do about it? Now that you’re convinced, what are you going to do with Jesus? Check out the next and final blog post in this series to know where to go from here.

Notes 

[1] Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four, ch. 6 (1890) Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four (Doubleday p. 111)

[2] My argument goes like this

1 – If Jesus rose from the dead, then a miracle has occurred.

2 – If a miracle has occurred, then there exists a miracle working God.

3 – Jesus rose from the dead.

4 – Therefore, a miracle has occurred.

5 – Therefore, God exists

In order for the conclusion to be true, the three premises have to be true. I think everyone would agree with premises 1 and 2. The only debatable one is premise three. Premise three can be arrived at through The Minimal Facts Approach.

[3] See the article “A Quick Case For Jesus’ Divine Self Understanding” if you’re reading this on Cerebral Faith. If you’re reading the e-book adaption of this blog series, see Appendix A. The blog post will be found copy-pasted there, though it will be edited slightly to avoid repetitiousness (e.g I’ll remove the explanation of historical methodology).

[4] Did Jesus Predict His Resurrection? There are at least four reasons for affirming that He did. First of all, Jesus’ predictions concerning his resurrection are usually denied because the resurrection itself is denied as a historical event. If the resurrection is historical, and we’ve seen in parts 2-7 that it most likely is, then this is not a good reason for rejecting the prediction accounts. Secondly, when Jesus predicted his resurrection from the dead, the gospels depict the disciples as being confused, as not knowing what the heck Jesus is talking about (see Mark 8:31–33;9:31–32; 14:27– 31; Luke 24:13–24). On the basis of the principle of embarrassment, we can conclude that these instances are historical. The gospel authors wouldn’t depict the disciples as dim-witted. If Mark really wrote Mark and got his gospel from Peter (as church tradition says), then it would be especially unreasonable to believe Mark 8:31-33, Mark 9:31-32, and Mark 14:27-31 to be made up. Can you imagine Peter telling Mark “Hey, write this down! Even though Jesus explained his death and resurrection to us over and over, we just didn’t get it.” if it weren’t true? However, even if one wants to attribute these to some early church fathers or something, the principle of embarrassment can still be applied, as the early church had a high respect for the disciples. Thirdly, Jesus’ use of the title “Son of Man” in reference to his resurrection predictions (Mark 8:31; 9:31; 10:33–34) weighs in favor of authenticity. As I point out in Appendix A (of the e-book adaption of this blog post series), this saying of Jesus is multiply attested. And moreover, the principle of dissimilarity applies since Jesus was never called “Son Of Man” anywhere else in The New Testament, and the early church fathers never referred to Jesus by this title. If this saying were made up by the early church and retroactively inserted into the mouth of Jesus, we would expect the early church fathers and NT epistles to use this title of Jesus more frequently. Finally, the principle of multiple attestations applies to Jesus predicting that He would get out of his grave (see Matthew 12:38–40; 16:1–4,21; 17:23; 20:19; Mark 8:31–32; 9:31; 10:33; Luke 9:22; John 2:18–21. Cf. Mark 14:58; Luke 11:29–30).

[5] https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/25th.shtml

[6] My sources for this information: https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=10&article=186, and https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/jesus-and-pagan-mythology/ , and http://i.stack.imgur.com/29UE7.jpg, and “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus” by Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, pages 90-91, Kregle.

[7] I have several sources for this information. (1) – Gary R. Habermas, “Resurrection Claims in Non-Christian Religions,” Journal of Religious Studies 25 (1989): 167–77. (2) – Günter Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1967), 197–201. (3) Gary Habermas and Michael Licona, “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” page 90, Kregle.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2l364c3

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Robin Collins And Atheist Peter Millican Discuss The Fine-Tuning Of The Universe For Life

Robin Collins And Atheist Peter Millican Discuss The Fine-Tuning Of The Universe For Life

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By Wintery Knight

You might remember Peter Millican from the debate he had with William Lane Craig. I ranked that debate as one of the 3 best I have ever seen, along with the first Craig vs. Dacey debate and the second Craig vs. Sinnott-Armstrong debate.

Details:

Science has revealed that the fundamental constants and forces of the cosmos appear to be exquisitely fine-tuned to allow a universe in which life can develop. Is God the best explanation of the incredibly improbable odds of the universe we live in being a life-permitting one?

Robin Collins is a Christian philosopher and a leading advocate of the argument for God from cosmic design. Peter Millican is an atheist philosopher at Oxford University. They debate the issues.

From ‘Unbelievable?’ on ‘Premier Christian Radio,’ Saturday 19th March 2016.

The debate:

As usual, when the atheist is an expert, there is no snark or paraphrasing in the summary.

Summary

Brierley: What is the fine-tuning argument?

Collins: the fine-tuning is the structure of the universe is extremely precisely set to allow the existing of conscious, embodied agents who are capable of moral behavior. There are 3 kinds of fine-tuning: 1) the laws of nature (mathematical formulas), 2) the constants of physics (numbers that are plugged into the equations), 3) the initial conditions of the universe. The fine-tuning exists not just because there are lots of possibilities, but there is something special about the actual state of affairs that we see. Every set of laws, parameters and initial conditions is equally improbable, but the vast majority of permutations do not permit life. The possible explanations: theism or the multiverse.

Brierley: How improbable are the numbers?

Collins: Once case is the cosmological constant (dark energy density), with is 1 part in (10 raised to a 120th power). If larger, the universe expands too rapidly for galaxies and stars to form after the Big Bang. If smaller, the universe collapses in on itself before life could form. Another case is the initial distribution of mass energy to give us the low entropy we have that is necessary for life. The fine-tuning there is 1 part in (10 raised to the 10th power raised to the 123rd power).

Brierley: What do you think of the argument?

Millican: The argument is worth taking very seriously. I am a fan of the argument. The other arguments for God’s existence such as the ontological and cosmological arguments are very weak. But the fine-tuning argument has the right structure to deliver the conclusion that theists want. And it is different from the traditional design argument tended to focus on biological nature, which is not a strong argument. But the fine-tuning argument is strong because it precedes any sort of biological evolution. Although the design is present at the beginning of the universe, it is not visible until much later. The argument points to at least deism, and possibly theism. The argument is not based on ignorance; it is rooted in “the latest results from the frontiers of science” (his phrase).

Brierley: Is this the best argument from natural theology?

Collins: The cosmological argument makes theism viable intuitively, but there are some things that are puzzling, like the concept of the necessary being. But the fine-tuning argument is decisive.

Brierley: What’s are some objections to the fine-tuning argument?

Millican: The argument is based on recent physics, so we should be cautious because we maybe we will discover a natural explanation.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: The cosmological constant has been around since 1980. But the direction that physics is moving in is that there are more constants and quantities being discovered that need to be fine-tuned, not less. Even if you had a grand unified theory, that would have to be the fine-tuning pushed into it.

(BREAK)

Millican: Since we have no experience of other laws and values from other universes, we don’t know whether these values can be other than they are. Psychologically, humans are prone to seeing purpose and patterns where there is none, so maybe that’s happening here.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: It is possible to determine probabilities on a single universe case, for example using multiple ways of calculating Avogadro’s number all converging on the same number makes it more probable.

Millican: Yes, I willing to accept that these constants can take on other values, (“principle of indifference”). But maybe this principle be applied if the improbability were pushed up into the theory?

Collins: Even if you had a grand theory, selecting the grand theory from others would retain the improbability.

Brierley: What about the multiverse?

Millican: What if there are many, many different universes, and we happen to be in the one that is finely-tuned, then we should not be surprised to observe fine-tuning. Maybe a multiverse theory will be discovered in the future that would allow us to have these many universes with randomized constants and quantities. “I do think that it is a little bit of a promissory note.” I don’t think physics is pointing to this right now.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Collins: I agree it’s a promissory note. This is the strongest objection to the fine-tuning argument. But there are objections to the multiverse: 1) the fine-tuning is kicked back up to the multiverse generator has to be set just right to produce universes with different constants, 2) the multiverse is more likely to produce a small universe with Boltzmann brains that pop into existence and then out again, rather than a universe that contains conscious, embodied intelligent agents. I am working on a third response now that would show that the same constants that allow complex embodied life ALSO allow the universe to be discoverable. This would negate the observer-selection effect required by the multiverse objection.

Brierley: Respond to that.

Millican: I don’t see why the multiverse generator has to be fine-tuned since we don’t know what the multiverse generator is. I’m not impressed by the Boltzmann brains but won’t discuss. We should be cautious about inferring design because maybe this is a case where we are seeing purpose and design where there is none.

Brierley: Can you negate the discoverability of the universe by saying that it might be psychological?

Collins: These things are not psychological. The selected value for the cosmic microwave background radiation is fine-tuned for life and discoverability. It’s not merely a discoverability selection effect; it’s optimal for discoverability. If baryon-photon value were much smaller, we would have known that it was not optimal. So that judgment cannot be explained by

Millican: That’s a very interesting new twist.

Brierley: Give us your best objection.

Millican: I have two. 1) Even if you admit to the fine-tuning, this doesn’t show a being who is omnipotent and omniscient. What the fine-tuning shows is that the designer is doing the best it can given the constraints from nature. If I were God, I would not have made the universe so big, and I wouldn’t have made it last 14 billion years, just to make one small area that supports life. An all-powerful God would have made the universe much smaller, and much younger. 2) The fine-tuning allows life to exist in other solar systems in other galaxies. What does this alien life elsewhere mean for traditional Christian theology? The existence of other alien civilizations argues against the truth of any one religion.

Brierley: Respond to those.

Collins: First objection: with a finite Creator, you run into the problem of having to push the design of that creature up one level, so you don’t really solve the fine-tuning problem. An unlimited being (non-material, not composed of parts) does not require fine-tuning. The fine-tuning is more compatible with theism than atheism. Second objection: I actually do think that it is likely that are other universes, and life in other galaxies and stars, and the doctrine of the Incarnation is easily adaptable to that because God can take on multiple natures to appear to different alien civilizations.

Other resources (from WK)

If you liked this discussion, be sure and check out a full-length lecture by Robin Collins on the fine-tuning, and a shorter lecture on his very latest work. And also this the Common Sense Atheism podcast, featuring cosmologist Luke Barnes, who answers about a dozen objections to the fine-tuning argument.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2kN27rF

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Your Kids Will Likely Have No Idea How to Choose Their Own Christian Church as Adults… and That’s a Problem

Your Kids Will Likely Have No Idea How to Choose Their Own Christian Church as Adults… and That’s a Problem

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by Natasha Crain 

I grew up mostly in non-denominational churches, with a Baptist church or two thrown in. For all intents and purposes, my understanding of the world was that there were two types of churches: Christian and non-Christian.

Easy peasy.

If you gave me a label maker, I could have visited every church in town and promptly placed “Christian” or “non-Christian” on each one based on my simplistic understanding.

The church has the word Bible in it? Christian.

The church has the word Christian in it? Of course Christian.

The church has the name of one of the major denominations in it? Christian.

The church has the name of one of the cults from my mom’s giant Kingdom of the Cults book? Definitely not Christian.

The church has a generic name like “[Town] Community Church” that doesn’t seem to be affiliated with any of the aforementioned cults? Probably Christian.

I’d venture to say that this is the understanding of churches that many, if not most, kids leave home with. And that’s a very dangerous thing.

Searching for a “Christian” Church

Like many kids who leave home with a nominal faith, I went off to college and didn’t bother to attend church at all. But after college, my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) and I decided we should find a church to attend together.

For us, picking a church was as arbitrary as picking a marble out of a jar. In retrospect, I think we had just two criteria: close and “Christian.” There was a beautiful old mainline denominational church down the street that seemed to qualify. We went, and eventually became members.

Over the next three years, I noticed a few teachings here and there that didn’t seem to be the same as what was taught in the churches I grew up in. But my husband and I didn’t realize it wasn’t a biblically sound church until the pastor told us one Easter that it didn’t really matter if Jesus was raised from the dead (you can read more about that problem here).

That was my first experience learning that “Christian” doesn’t always mean what I thought it meant. In many churches today, “Christian” means accepting a lowered view of the Bible, dismissing central tenets of the faith, minimizing the gravity of sin, questioning the need for the atonement, and even rejecting the divinity of Jesus.

My mental label maker was revealed to be naïve.

We moved soon after and again found a “close, Christian” church. We eventually realized that this was another church teaching liberal theology.

After a third move, we tried again and visited a church down the street. We only went once because there were no other young families there, but looking at their website today, it’s clear that this church was no different from the other two we attended.

By God’s grace, we then followed a recommendation for a large non-denominational church in our area. This time, the church had biblically sound teaching, and it was in that church that our faith really grew. We attended there for 10 years before moving to our current (biblically sound) church closer to home.

Here’s what I want you to take from this story: Without even trying, I landed in three churches in a row that weren’t teaching the historic Christian faith.

This isn’t a warning about the existence of one or two extreme churches out there. This is a warning that there are numerous churches today that veer from the historic Christian faith. And if we don’t raise our kids to have discernment in church selection, they can easily fall into dangerous teachings—some of which can be a matter of salvation.

Here’s what you can do.

  1. Have a conversation about the importance of thoughtful church selection.

This is basic, but I think it just doesn’t occur to most parents to have a conversation about discernment in choosing a church. This isn’t just for kids ready to move out on their own—kids of all ages should understand the importance of choosing a biblically sound church and how to do so (more on that in the next point). They should know that in today’s world, “Christian” can mean all kinds of things, and we must be vigilant about choosing a place to worship.

  1. Explain what to look for when selecting a church.

As a fun way to get kids thinking about this, ask them to list as many things as they can that would be important to consider when choosing a church. This will probably include factors like proximity, size of the youth group, the pastor, and so on. Then ask them to rank those things in importance. Use that as an opportunity to discuss what matters most and how selecting a church that adheres to biblically sound teaching should always be our first criteria.

If a church isn’t solid in doctrine, none of the other factors matter.

Finish your conversation by looking at a thorough statement of faith online from a trusted church so kids can see what they should consider.

  1. Teach them about warning signs to watch for when evaluating churches.

A lot could be covered here, but some big red flags include:

  • No statement of faith. This isn’t always true, but in my research, churches which veer from the historic Christian faith tend to not have a statement of faith on their website. Biblically sound churches usually have a menu item for “What We Believe” where you can clearly see their doctrine outlined.
  • A statement of faith that doesn’t clearly identify Jesus as part of the Trinity. Many liberal churches skirt around identifying Jesus as God. They may not come out and say they don’t believe in the Trinity, but if the language doesn’t clearly state as much, there is a good chance they don’t. For example, one church says, “We believe that God’s will and way were revealed in Jesus of Nazareth” and then goes on to explain how they live as followers today. But there’s nothing about his deity, and it’s clear from the rest of the site that this is a church which has abandoned biblical teaching.
  • A statement of faith that implies a lowered view of the Bible. One church, for example, says, “We believe that the Bible is a collection of books, letters, poetry, and other writings written by human beings in order to share their experience of God.” Yes, the Bible was written by humans, but if all a church can say about the Bible is that these writings shared people’s experience of God, they probably have a lowered view of the Bible’s divine inspiration (this is certainly true of this particular church).
  • A list of “core values” that could be found in any organization—religious or secular. In lieu of a statement of faith, one church we attended features a “core values” list on their website that includes things like dedication to a nurturing community, accepting diversity, and service to others. If a church doesn’t explicitly tie their core values to who Jesus was, what the Bible says, and how we should live accordingly, it’s likely a bad sign.
  • Any verbiage that indicates a belief such as, “The Christian faith is our way of being faithful to God, but it’s not the only way.”I took that wording directly from the statement of faith on one church’s website (a church with a very traditional sounding name). This is full-blown religious pluralism—the idea that all roads lead to God—and is not consistent with biblical teaching.

The churches our kids attend as adults will have a major impact on their faith. If we’re not intentional in guiding them in this area, there’s a very real possibility they’ll end up a church that can actually harm their faith.

I know how easy it is…it happened to me three times.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2JheOpk

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The Case For Miracles Book Review

The Case For Miracles Book Review

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by Ryan Leasure

I can still hear Al Michael’s voice in the background, “Do you believe in miracles?!?!” The United States victory over the heavily favored Russian hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics defied the odds. But as improbable as it was, should the “Miracle on Ice” really be dubbed a miracle? Unlikely? Yes. Coincidence? Perhaps. Miracle? No.

We often use the word miracle in vain to describe coincidental events. For example, we say things like “it’s a miracle we got to church on time,” or “it’s a miracle we found a parking spot!” The statements reflect hyperbole rather than a bona fide miracle. Even extremely improbable events like a hole in one or winning the lottery can’t properly classify as a miracle. Which leads us to the question, what classifies as a miracle? And perhaps an even more important question, do miracles still happen today?

Lee Strobel contributes another great work to his growing list of “Case For” books with his newest “The Case For Miracles.” I must confess, I’m a skeptic as far as Christians go. When I hear of supernatural occurrences, I doubt them by default. I like to think of myself as a level-headed Christian who doesn’t fall for fanciful claims. Yet, this “level-headed” Christian wept as he read The Case for Miracles.

BOOK SUMMARY

True to his journalistic form, Strobel interviews eight leading experts in their respective fields to get an answer to his question, “do miracles happen?” While several define the word miracle in different ways, Strobel prefers Richard Purtill’s definition which states, “A miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history” (27).

With the definition in place, Strobel asks the question, “do miracles happen?” To find out, he turns to the experts.

Michael Shermer, The Skeptic

Counterintuitively, Strobel’s first interview is with a prominent skeptic to hear his best case against miracles. A Christian in his younger days, Michael Shermer admits that his interest in science caused him to stray away from Christianity.  He doesn’t shy away from asserting, “science became my belief system, and evolution my doctrine” (43). Even though Shermer had already transitioned away from Christianity, he recalls that the final straw occurred much later when he prayed to God — as a last-ditch effort — to heal his then college sweetheart who had become paralyzed. God didn’t answer, which confirmed Shermer’s suspicion that God must not exist.

Shermer admits that he can’t say for sure that God doesn’t exist; rather, he simply lacks belief in God. In that sense, God could be real if he performed an unequivocal miracle so blatantly obvious, that no other explanation could explain what happened. Shermer, therefore, chalks up highly unusual events to anomalies, e.g., cured cancer after prayer, immediate recovery to years-long struggle with M.S., etc. Oddly, he suggests that if someone’s limb grew back, then God would have his attention.

Circular Reasoning

As with most skeptics, Shermer subscribes to eighteenth-century philosopher David Hume’s argument against the possibility of miracles. Hume argued that “miracles were a violation of natural law, yet the natural law is always unalterably uniform. Therefore, no amount of evidence would convince him that God had intervened.” That is to say; miracles are impossible; therefore, a miracle didn’t happen — circular reasoning at its finest.

Due to Shermer’s methodological naturalism, he shrugged off Jesus’ miracles presented in the gospels as pure legend passed down decade after decade — a lot like the children’s telephone game. Furthermore, despite not having a good explanation for the initial cause of the universe or it’s precisely fine-tuned laws of physics, he predicts that natural causes will eventually offer good explanations. One could call this a “naturalism of the gaps” argument.

Craig Keener,  The Miracle Reporter

Ben Witherington III declared that Craig Keener’s book Miracles is “perhaps the best book ever written on miracles in this or any age” (73), so it makes sense that Strobel interviewed him next. Keener didn’t set out to become an expert on miracles, but a two hundred page footnote in his Acts commentary led him to pursue the topic further.

Opposite Shermer, Keener believes Jesus performed real miracles. He bases this claim on the multiple, independent sources that report Jesus’ miracles within the lifetime of eye-witnesses. More than that, non-Christian sources such as the Greek philosopher Celsus and Jewish Talmud refer to Jesus as a miracle worker — although they attribute his acts to sorcery and magic. The first-century Jewish historian even states that Jesus “worked startling deeds.”

Keener believes the biblical miracles are historical. But do they still happen? Keener thinks so, though he suggests we should approach miracle claims with caution. He says we should ask, “Are there eyewitnesses? When we have multiple, independent, and reliable witnesses, this increases the probability that their testimony is accurate. Do they have a reputation for honesty? Do they have something to gain or lose? … Are there any medical records? … Are there alternative naturalistic explanations for what happened?” (92). Keener argues that if you, like Hume, give miracles zero chance of occurring, then you will never find a miracle. If you keep an open mind, however, and follow the evidence, you might be surprised by what you find.

The Deaf Healed

With that in mind, Keener provides several miracle claims that are difficult to explain naturalistically. In his own research, hundreds of cases have stunned him. He describes a nine-year-old British girl who was deaf. The child’s medical chart reports that she had “untreatable bilateral sensorineural deafness” (100). Family and friends prayed fervently that she would regain her hearing. Then one evening, her hearing suddenly returned to her. The following day she visited the audiologist who was dumbfounded by her recovery, so much so that he exclaimed, “I have never seen anything like it in my life.” The ENT surgeon used the word “inexplicable.” The well-credentialed physician Dr. R. F. R Gardner documented this case (101).

The Lame Walk

Barbara is another miracle story. Dr. Harold Adolph admitted, “Barbara was one of the most hopelessly ill patients I ever saw” (101). Barbara’s diagnosis was progressive multiple sclerosis. For sixteen years, her conditioned worsened — she suffered from pneumonia, a paralyzed diaphragm, lung malfunctioning, loss of urinary and bowels control, blindness, contracted joints and muscles, the need for a tracheostomy tube, and the inability to walk for several years.

Then one day, one of Barbara’s friends called into a radio station asking for prayer for Barbara. She received about 450 letters from people saying they were praying for her. Her aunt kindly read these letters to her along with two other friends. While she read these letters, suddenly Barbara heard a voice behind her — even though no one was there — that said to get up and walk. At that moment, she literally jumped out of her bed and removed her oxygen. She had received her sight again, her muscles were fully functional, and her body was completely healed. The next day, Barbara went to the doctor’s office for an examination. The x-rays showed that she was perfectly healthy. The doctor exclaimed, “This is medically impossible” (104).

The Dead Raised

Keener listed several others including a newly broken ankle that miraculously wasn’t broken the next day. Two separate x-rays confirm that one day it was broken, and the next day it wasn’t. Another example was a fifty-three-year-old man who flatlined for forty minutes, had turned black from lack of oxygen, and was clinically dead. But then a doctor prompted to pray for the man’s soul and give it one more shot, used the defibrillator to shock the man back to life. Instantly, the dead man came back to life with a normal heartbeat and vital signs with no signs of brain damage. There was even one instance of a man’s small intestines growing back in length after having them severed from a terrible accident — something similar to what Shermer said he needed to see to believe in miracles.

Michael Strauss, The Physicist

The late Stephen Hawking once admitted, “So long as the universe had a beginning, we could suppose it had a creator” (169). In Strobel’s next interview, he turns his attention to physicist Michael Strauss to find out if God created our universe. Of course, the Bible declares that God created the world out of nothing, but Strobel was interested in what science says. Strauss unequivocally states that science points toward a creator.

In 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that the universe is expanding based on a “red shift” in the light coming from distant galaxies. Based on this discovery and others, three prominent cosmologists — Borde, Guth, and Vilenkin — concluded, “any universe that is expanding, on average, throughout its history, cannot be infinite in the past but must have a beginning” (171).

Cosmological Argument

Based on the evidence, Strauss suggests that the cosmological argument strongly points toward a creator. The argument proposes:

  1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
  2. The universe began to exist.
  3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

Since the universe began to exist, which the scientific data suggests, the universe must have a cause — namely a creator.

Teleological Argument

Strauss turned his attention to the fine-tuning of the universe. Several physical laws are so incredibly precise, he asserts, that it’s unreasonable to think that they are that perfect by chance. For example, the expansion rate of our universe is fine-tuned to one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion (176). If this law was altered by a fraction, life as we know it could not exist.

Additionally, the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force is fine-tuned to one part in ten thousand trillion trillion trillion. To understand how precise that is, astrophysicist Hugh Ross says that if we were to cover a billion North American continents with dimes that reached all the way to the moon, painted one of the dimes red, and chose that one red dime at random, that would be the equivalence of one in ten thousand trillion trillion trillion.

Strauss’ conclusion leads to an obvious conclusion. If God created the world out of nothing with physical laws, he could easily overpower those laws to perform miracles.

J. Warner Wallace, The Detective

  1. Warner Wallace knows how to evaluate evidence. He’s a cold-case detective who has used those same skills to evaluate evidence for Jesus’ miracles. He makes the case that not only are the gospels eyewitness accounts, they were written within 25-30 years of Jesus’ life. When you consider that the most credible biography for Alexander the Great comes 400 years after his life, 25-30 years doesn’t sound so bad.

Moreover, the disciples would have remembered Jesus’ teachings and miracles quite well even after a few decades. The reason is that we tend to remember important events, especially if we are personally involved in them. Additionally, the disciples taught these stories about Jesus hundreds of times so they would have cemented in their brains. If only one eyewitness existed, you could argue that their story could have changed over time. But because dozens of people knew the facts, when someone began to teach something wrong, others would have immediately corrected them. For these reasons, we can be confident that we have an accurate testimony of Jesus’s miracles.

Passion Narrative

When it comes to Jesus’ crucifixion, almost nobody disagrees that it happened — skeptics included. While some have tried to say that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross — he merely passed out, we have no historical record of anyone ever surviving a crucifixion. Furthermore, the “crucifixion was humiliating — it’s not something the early church would have invented” (204).

Skeptics have doubted his burial as well. But Jewish archaeologist Jodi Magness suggests otherwise. She affirms, “the Gospel accounts describing Jesus’ removal from the cross and burial are consistent with the archaeological evidence and with Jewish law” (205).

Not only is there substantial evidence for his crucifixion and burial, there is strong evidence for Jesus’ postmortem appearances. The disciples were so convinced of his resurrection that they were willing to die for their belief. People don’t typically die for anything they know to be false. This is different from a modern-day Islamic extremist who kills themselves in the name of Allah. They die on the basis of faith alone. The disciples knew for certain and yet they were still willing to die. They would have known if it was false. It’s hard to imagine that they wouldn’t have caved under the threat of death if they were making it up.

MY CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

While I only mentioned four interviews, Strobel interacted with eight experts in all. Hopefully, my description of the four gives you a feel for the entire book.

Miracles Have Happened

I read this book in less than a day, and it’s not because I’m an exceptional reader. I couldn’t put it down. For someone who is generally skeptical of modern miracle claims, I find myself second guessing that position. As a Christian, I have long believed that the miracles contained in the Bible are historical. For me, it makes sense to think that God works miracles to authenticate his revelation. Miracles authenticated Moses, as he gave God’s Law. Likewise, miracles validated the era of the prophets as they authoritatively proclaimed God’s word. And miracles confirmed the life and ministry of Jesus and his apostles.

I appreciate that Strobel interviewed the physicist Michael Strauss. At first glance, this might seem like an odd interview in a book on miracles. After all, Strauss is a scientist who deals with the natural world. Miracles, it would seem, fall outside his expertise. His interview, however, gives strong evidence for the possibility of miracles. After all, if God can create the world out of nothing, then healing somebody or even raising the dead would not be difficult for him. If you can establish that God created this universe, then miracles are definitely possible.

Miracles Still Happen

Of all the interviews, Craig Keener’s was my favorite. When I first flipped through the table of contents, I knew I would enjoy his the best, and I was right. After all, Keener’s work on miracles is considered by many to be the definitive work on the topic. As I read through his interview, I was especially enthralled with the modern-day miracle claims because this was the issue I was most interested in. As I mentioned earlier, I already believed the biblical miracles; it was the modern miracle claims that were a stumbling block for me.

I must confess that these stories were fascinating and convincing. And these weren’t ordinary claims with no medical evidence or credible eyewitness testimony to back them up either. These accounts captivated my full attention and had me scratching my head repeatedly. I kept asking myself, how could these things have happened? How could someone’s intestines grow back? Intestines aren’t like fingernails. They don’t just grow back like that.

My one complaint was that this section was too short. I know Strobel devoted a significant part of his book to Keener, but I found myself wanting more of the modern miracle stories.

Highly Recommend

Whether you are a skeptic who doesn’t believe in the possibility of miracles or a lifelong Christian who believes every miracle claim, I highly recommend this book. As a Christian who is skeptical of modern miracle claims, The Case for Miracles challenged my faith.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2LitGo2

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God Is Not A Moral Being and the Moral Argument Is Often Wrongheaded

God Is Not A Moral Being and the Moral Argument Is Often Wrongheaded

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By J. Brian Huffling

God is not a moral being and often the way the moral argument is used is just wrong. What I mean by the former is that God does not abide by moral commands, nor does he fulfill obligations or virtues in the way that humans do. I am also denying that God is his own standard of goodness in the moral sense. To be one’s own standard would be equivalent to being arbitrary since whatever he did would be in accordance with his standard. To say he can’t violate his nature is also unhelpful as nothing can violate its nature. (What does that even mean? If something did something that supposedly “went against its nature,” then it obviously wasn’t against its nature or the action couldn’t have been done.) In this article, I am going to explain what it means for a human to be moral, demonstrate why that doesn’t apply to God, and then show why the moral argument usually doesn’t work but how it could work.

What Does It Mean for A Being to Be Moral?

There are many theories that try to explain what it means for a human to be moral. Hopefully, a Christian would want to maintain a theory that upholds an objective standard of morality and thus deny moral relativism. Divine command theory is one popular approach in Christian circles to argue for an objective basis for morality. Even if this theory were true, it could not account for why God would be moral. It would also not demonstrate any real basis for an action being moral or immoral other than God just stating it as so. However, if divine command theory were true, it would not demonstrate that God is moral since he does not follow commands from another being. (Saying he follows his own commands reduces to being arbitrary and is probably incoherent.)

Other ethical systems that in my opinion are more rationally acceptable and biblical are virtue theory and natural law ethics. The latter comports well with Romans 2:15 which says that the “law is written” on people’s hearts. In other words, we have a built-in conscience. Natural law teaches that humans have a nature and actions that promote the good of that nature are good actions. Conversely, actions that prohibit the good of our human nature are bad. So, a human killing another human to eat him for dinner is evil because of the nature of being a human (he is made in God’s image). However, it is not morally wrong for a human, or other animal, to kill a deer in order to eat it.

In accordance with this human nature are virtues that are cultivated and actualized. Natural law can imbibe Aristotle’s virtue ethics very will, with certain necessary tweaks. One could argue that being sanctified through trials is one way our virtues are realized. The Sermon on the Mount seems to fit very well with virtue theory, that is, on becoming a person of good character.

In short, humans are moral beings because we have a certain nature. We have a law written on our hearts that reflects this moral aspect of our being that God gave us.

God Transcends Moral Categories

But God has no such nature. He has no moral law written on his heart. He does not become more virtuous. He does not live up to some standard of goodness. He is not even his own standard—whatever that even means. To say that he would not do something that would be considered wrong since his character is in accordance with goodness is still to subordinate his character to something else, or to compare it to something “external” to him. Is this not the point of Job? When Job wants to take God to court the obvious question is raised, “Who would be the judge?” God’s answer to Job as to why God allowed such evil to befall Job is basically, “I’m God and you are not.”

But Doesn’t the Bible Say God Is Good?

Because God is not a human he does not have human virtues. God is simply not morally good in the sense of possessing virtues like humans. But the Bible does say that God is good, praiseworthy, loving, etc. And there is a sense in which he is good, but I don’t think this is moral goodness. The Bible often uses various figures of speech and metaphor to talk about God. In fact, the Bible more often than not uses physical terms to describe God. However, orthodox Christians do not think that God is physical, even though there are probably more descriptions of God that seem to indicate him having a material body than being merely a spirit. Until recently, at least for the most part, orthodox Christians have not held that God has emotions like humans; although, the Bible says that God gets angry, jealous, etc. These descriptions of God are anthropomorphic, meaning that they are just ways of describing God in a human language without really being literal.

God is not a human and is not bound by a human body, does not have changing passions/emotions, and is not constrained or bound by human morality. He cannot be moral or immoral since there is no standard that he measures up to or virtues to fulfill. If there were a standard that was not part of him, then he would not be God. And again, to be his own standard borders on incoherence. It wouldn’t matter what he did, he would be completely “in the right.” We only say things like, “God would never do so and so” because we have a notion of what a morally good action looks like on the human level. However, God is not a human. We have a horrible habit as humans of making God like us rather than recognizing that he is not like us. He is infinite, unlimited being. We are finite beings that he has given a particular nature that allows us to change for the better or worse depending on our actions. He cannot change. As Brian Davies says,

The notion of God as subject to duties or obligations (and as acting in accordance with them) would, I think, have been thought of by [Aquinas] as an unfortunate lapse into anthropomorphism, as reducing God to the level of a human creature.

—Davies, Brian. Thomas Aquinas on God and Evil (Kindle Locations 1253-1255). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. (By the way, this is an excellent book that deals with God not being a moral being.)

God Is Good

God is good, in fact, he’s perfect. But he’s not morally perfect as perfection in that sense has the notion of actualizing some moral potential (or being his own perfect standard which I have already criticized as being incoherent and arbitrary). He is metaphysically good and perfect. He is perfect in the sense that he is complete being and lacks nothing. Further, all other perfections that are found in creatures as effects pre-exist in a way in him as the cause. This even includes goodness in the area of morality and virtues, but without making him moral in the way that we are. Matter pre-exists in God as its cause without God being material. But there is a sense in which that God can be said to have virtues, but in a very analogous kind of way.

In Summa Theologiae I. 21. 1 and Summa Contra Gentiles 1.92, 1.93, and 1.94 Aquinas talks about how certain virtues can be said of God. For example, God is said to be just because he gives to people what they deserve. This is because for a man to be just is to give people what they deserve, so we analogously say that God is just. However, he does not owe us anything. Rather, he has constituted us in such a way that we require certain goods to fulfill what God wants us to be. Thus, since God has made us in such a way, he gives us what is required to fulfill this goal. But this does not demonstrate that God is a moral being in the sense of having to act in a certain way lest he be in violation of a moral law. The moral law that we talk about for humans is part of our nature. God has no such nature that is constituted of a moral law and there is no law he is subservient to. He does what he wills and that is as far as it goes. He is not judged by any standard.

The Moral Argument

So how does this relate to the moral argument? Arguments that depend on some reasoning that we are moral because we share in God’s moral goodness are on the wrong track. We are not moral because we are somehow tethered to God’s morality. We are also not moral because we are made in his image. We are made in his image, but as already argued, he is not moral in the sense that we are. We shouldn’t attribute characteristics to God because we have them and are said to be in his image. We should look to him to see how we are in his image, not make him into our image. So the moral argument needs to say something different than our morality needs to be accounted for in a being who is also moral.

But the moral argument can be successful, but probably as part of a cosmological argument. Since we are beings with an objective nature that nature needs accounting for. The objective goodness that we have and are obligated to also needs accounting for. It can’t be accounted for by us since the cause for such a nature with objective moral obligations needs an “external” grounding. The conclusion of such reasoning would be a demonstration of God’s existence.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Christians today need to be very careful how we talk about God’s morality. There is an analogous way in which we can talk about God has having virtues, as Aquinas says. However, this does not translate into God being moral in the way that we are. God is not a human and is thus not bound by human morality. He transcends humanity and our morality. Our perfections do pre-exist in him, but so do all good perfections. We need to recognize that God is not in the image of man. We are in his image. He is not a cosmic superman. He is the transcendent Creator and Sustainer of all finite being.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2kMK9Wf

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God’s Origin Story

God’s Origin Story

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By Timothy Fox

In my last article, I compared superhero origin stories to the beginning of the universe. Every superhero needs an origin story, and so does the universe. We need a reason why it exists. I argued the best explanation is a God who caused the universe to come into existence. But doesn’t that just push the origins problem back one step? What is God’s origin story? Why is he here? That’s the focus of this article.

Whenever cosmic origins is discussed and God is offered as the explanation for the beginning of the universe, the skeptic is near certain to object “Yeah, well, who created God?” as the ultimate refutation. But this just shows the skeptic doesn’t understand who God is.

God’s Superpowers

When Billy Batson, an ordinary boy, says the word SHAZAM! he is transformed into the superhero Shazam (formerly Captain Marvel – it’s complicated). Shazam has the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the willpower of Atlas, the lightning blasts of Zeus, the invulnerability of Achilles, and the speed of Mercury. (An alliteration of all of their names spells Shazam.) That’s a pretty awesome list of superpowers, isn’t it? But even with all that, Shazam still isn’t God.

In fact, superheroes aren’t even in the same league as God. God isn’t just really strong; he is infinitely powerful. God isn’t just smart; he has infinite knowledge. God isn’t just good; he’s morally perfect. Take everything that makes superheroes great and crank it up to infinity. That’s God. God isn’t just great; he’s a Maximally Great Being. God can’t be beaten; he can’t be killed; he can’t not exist. He lacks nothing, needs nothing. God is the standard of goodness.

Maximally Great

Now look at how silly the question “Who created God?” is. If something created God, that thing would be greater than God. But nothing could be greater than a Maximally Great Being; therefore, nothing could have created God.

But couldn’t there be two Maximally Great Beings? No, as then neither one would be maximally great; it would be a tie. Which one would win an arm wrestling contest? Which would beat the other in a race? Which one would win at chess? Each might be a great being, but neither would be maximally great. Thus, there can only be one Maximally Great Being.

Last time we saw there were only two options for the existence of the universe: either it has always been here or it came into existence at some finite point in the past. If it came into existence, it needed a cause. God never came into existence; therefore, he doesn’t need a cause. He is what Aristotle called the First Cause, or Unmoved Mover. God set the universe into motion.

God’s Origin Story

I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you, but God has no origin story. He simply is. God is eternal. As the Bible describes: “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psalm 90:2). God is a Maximally Great Being, having every great-making property to the maximum.

Superheroes are strong. They’re brave. They’re fun to read about and watch. But God is no mere superhero. God is the greatest being in the universe, and as such he is the only one worthy of our worship.

“Who among the gods

     is like you, Lord?

Who is like you—

    majestic in holiness,

awesome in glory,

     working wonders?” – Exodus 15:10

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2LEWYOJ

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Comics and Cosmic Origins

Comics and Cosmic Origins

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By Timothy Fox

Every superhero has an origin story. Spider-man was bitten by a radioactive spider. Batman’s parents were murdered before his very eyes as a child. Superman’s parents sent him on a rocket to earth where he was discovered and raised by the Kents. Origin stories tell the tale of how a superhero gained his powers or what event drove him to fight for truth and justice.

However, we don’t just like origin stories. We need to know how these heroes were created. Why did the Avengers first assemble? How did Wolverine get those awesome claws? We won’t accept a superhero has powers just because. There needs to be a reason why.

And it isn’t just superheroes. We need an origin story as well. Why are we here? How did the universe begin? But while you get to pick your favorite superhero – or even your favorite version of that superhero – that doesn’t work for reality. The universe can have only one true origin story.

Origin of the Universe

So what are our options? One story may start with a God (or gods) who created the universe. Another story may tell that the universe – or at least the materials that formed into the universe as we know it – has always been here. A third option is that there was absolutely nothing in the beginning – no matter, no deities, nothing – but that it still somehow came into existence at some time in the past.

Those are our three options for the universe’s origin story: the universe is eternal, it was created by some deity, or it simply came into existence. How do we know which is the true origin story of reality? Let’s look at the facts:

Big Bang cosmology teaches us that the universe came into existence at some finite point in the past. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states the universe is running out of usable energy, so if the universe were here forever, it would have run out of energy by now. It hasn’t; therefore, the universe must have a starting point. From a logical standpoint, the impossibility of an infinite regress also makes it impossible for the universe to be past-eternal. Thus, our universe must have a definite time of origin.

Now, we would never accept a superhero simply having powers for no reason. Something had to cause The Flash to gain super speed. Something must cause Bruce Banner to become The Hulk. We need some kind of explanation, no matter how bizarre or farfetched. Likewise, would you accept the universe coming into existence without a cause? I should hope not!

The Best Explanation

So then what would be an adequate explanation for the universe coming into existence? It would have to be pretty powerful to create a universe. It must be pretty smart too. It wouldn’t be made up of any of the same stuff of the universe, so it must be immaterial. Since the beginning of the universe is also the beginning of time, the cause of the universe must also be timeless. It must also have a mind to be able to willingly create something. If you put all of these properties (superpowers?) together, it becomes clear that the universe must have a personal creator, one that we would simply call “God.”

The same way that superheroes must have an origin story to explain how they got their powers and decided to battle the forces of evil, the universe must also have an origin story. But unlike fictional stories, there can be only one true origin story for the universe. If we look at the facts of reality and understand that all effects – and superpowers – need causes, the origin story of our universe becomes clear: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).

…

But wait!

If every superhero needs an origin story, if the universe needs an origin story, what about God? Doesn’t God need an origin story too?!

To be continued…

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2kzbjQB

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Are You Good Enough For Heaven

Are You Good Enough For Heaven?

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by Al Serrato

“Avast yer jabberin, ya bunch a bilge rats!”

The voice sounded strange as it reached into the hallway. The speaker was apparently trying to make a point. “Yer division a booty must be… “he paused to consider his words, “more equitable if ye be wanting to sail with me.”

He had my attention. I was at a work conference in a hotel, wandering the halls during a break when I happened across this conference room. I peeked inside. It could have been a scene from the latest Pirates movie. Men of various ages with lots of facial hair, many dressed in striped pants, with the occasional peg leg and hook hand. Yes, I had stumbled across a pirates’ convention, the 350th annual, it seemed, from the schedule which I found posted outside.

The speaker’s topic was ethics. He went on to explain what an equitable share of booty amounted to, in his view, using a very modern looking PowerPoint presentation to punctuate his points.

I caught up with him at the break and asked if he had time for a few questions. He seemed a bit suspicious, what with my business casual attire, but nonetheless willing.

“Seriously,” I began. “Ethics for pirates? I mean, for centuries you guys have been boarding and capturing and enslaving people without much regard for ethics. You’ve been known to rape, pillage, and plunder, and your personal hygiene is … not the best.” I quickly ended, seeing that I was crossing a line.

A hurt look crossed his face. “Yer words be stingin,” he began, but my words were nothing compared to his breath. I took a step back and tried not to stare at the parrot on his shoulder. “I don’t suppose ye know bout all the good that we do. Why ar ann’l ball raises thousands for the widows n’orphns fund, and we do lots of behind the scenes work ye never be aware of. Last year alone, we returned almost 30 percent of our captured booty to charitable organizations.”

“Is that a fact?” I asked. “I had no idea. But,” I persisted, “this is stuff that you’re stealing.”

“We make no excuses for that, m’lad. But we’ve been pretty transparent about that from the beginning, ain’t we? After all, ye had no trouble spotting us for who we are. If ye want the real thievin’ ones, it’s the bankers and lawyers ye want to be houndin…” He pointed down the hall to the lawyers’ convention I had been attending.

Yes, of course, I’m making this up. But I think there is a valid point here to be made. Human beings have an amazing capacity to judge themselves on a curve. Pirates no doubt convince themselves that they are somehow justified in doing what they do. They may think of the harm they suffered when younger or may feel that life dealt them the hand that they play. And they no doubt have a set of ethics that they follow, however uncivilized it may seem to us. And many, if pressed, would seek to justify their behavior by reference to all the things they don’t do. “Sure, we kill on occasion. But only those who don’t surrender, or those who for whatever reason need killing.” This is the human condition, whether in a high school, at the office, on a pirate ship, or in a prison. We don’t seem to have the capacity to see ourselves for what we truly are.

What does any of this have to do with Christian apologetics? Just this: the number one response of nonbelievers as to why they don’t worry about the afterlife goes something like this. “I don’t know if there is a God, but if there is, he will see all the good that I do and accept me. So, I’m not worried. A good God will see that I am living a good life.”

But holding this view is not that different than the pirates in the analogy above. Compared to others of that ilk, an individual pirate might seem like a good guy. But that hardly would qualify him for life in a peaceful and civilized society. His problem isn’t how he compares to his fellows, but how he measures up to the place he’s trying to get to. He may think himself “good” when in an objective sense he is anything but. Similarly, many people today believe they have a proper sense of what “good” human behavior is, but how can they know for sure when they are mired in the corruption of their nature? And more importantly, have they given any thought to what “perfect” behavior requires? What a perfect being might use to measure admission to His realm?

It’s easy for us to pat ourselves on the back for our goodness. But perhaps we are a bit too smug. Our persistent feelings of guilt serve as a guide – a reminder – that all is not well. They serve to call us to account to the One who left us here, and who expects something of us if we are to be in a relationship with Him. These feelings of guilt provide the backdrop of bad news, the kind of news from which we naturally shy away. The kind of bad news that sets the stage for the ultimate Good News of the gospel.

So, next time you encounter this response, you might suggest that the nonbeliever consider his frame of reference. Immersed in a sinful culture, inhabiting flesh and blood bodies whose weakness overcomes the willingness of the spirit, we may be as unable to see ourselves for what we truly are as the fictional pirates above would be. In short, we may not be in the best position to know if we are as “good” as we pretend.

Fortunately, there is a better answer, one that does not require us to earn our way back to God’s presence. But until we see our need for a Savior, we’re not likely to find the answer that is waiting to set us free.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2IQpnDE

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The Evidence For Jesus' Resurrection, Part 8_ Some Unanswered Questions

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 8: Some Unanswered Questions

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by Evan Minton 

This is part 8 in a blog post series on the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 of this series, we’ve seen powerful historical evidence that (1) Jesus died by Roman crucifixion, that (2) His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning, that (3) the twelve disciples believed they saw Jesus alive after His death, that (4) a church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be appearance of the risen Jesus.

In part 7, we looked at various ways that skeptics have tried to account for the minimal facts, and we saw that they all fail. No naturalistic theory can account for all 5 of the minimal facts. The only theory that can account for them is not a naturalistic theory at all, but a supernaturalistic theory: God raised Jesus from the dead. The hypothesis that God The Father miraculous raised Jesus to life explains all of the data perfectly. It explains why Jesus’ tomb was found empty, why His disciples (and Mary Magdalene) believed they saw Him alive after His death. It explains why a hard-headed, hard-hearted terrorist like Saul of Tarsus would become one of the people he sought to destroy virtually overnight, and it would explain why James, despite being skeptical of his brother’s claims, would become such a firm believer that he would be willing to die a martyr’s death. The resurrection explains every piece of data that is in need of explanation, but even the best of the naturalistic theories could explain one of the five facts at most. The majority didn’t even explain that many. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis has exhaustive explanatory scope and power and ergo outshines any other proposed explanation.

So Why Do People Still Deny It?

In fact, In a lecture titled “Evidence For The Minimal Facts” given on October 14th, 2017 at The National Conference On Christian Apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina,[1] Dr. Gary Habermas said that in scholarship today, the vast majority of non-Christian historians affirm the 5 minimal facts as true, and they also will admit that they can come up with no naturalistic explanation to account for them. Their attitude can basically be summed up in this sentence: “We admit these 5 facts are true, and we admit that we cannot come up with a good alternative to explain them, but we will not conclude that Jesus rose from the dead.”

Why is that? If you have an empty tomb, and various people claiming and believing that they saw Jesus alive after his death, and every single naturalistic theory that can be posed is an abject failure, why would you not conclude that the best explanation is that Jesus rose from the dead? I mean, it has the ability to explain all of the data, it meets C.B Mcullah’s 6 tests for being a good historical theory[2], why would you just dig in your heels and say “I don’t know how to account for this data, but I know Jesus didn’t rise from the dead”?

*It’s A Heart Issue, Not A Head Issue

Well, one reason could be what I said in Part 1 of this series; namely that this is not merely a matter of whether the evidence is sufficient, this is a moral and/or emotional issue for them. As I point out in my blog post “What Is The Significance Of Jesus’ Resurrection”, if Jesus rose from the dead, the entire Christian worldview is vindicated. For some non-Christians (scholars and laypeople alike), they just don’t want Christianity to be true. If Christianity is true, then they know that they’ll either have to change the way they’re living so they can have a nice afterlife or else face God’s judgment for living in rebellion against him. Atheism is a crutch for these people; if they can make themselves believe there’s no God, then they can live however they want and not have to worry. If there’s no God, there’s no soul. If there’s no soul, there’s no afterlife. If there’s no afterlife, there’s no Hell. If there’s no Hell, then they can sin, sin, sin away and have a perfectly clear conscience about it. It may also be that they had family or friends die who weren’t Christians, and they know that if Christianity is true, those people are in Hell now, so it’s more comforting for these people to just continue believing it isn’t true.[3]

Read this candid statement from a famous atheist, for example:

“[A fear of religion] has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life. […] I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact… that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.” – Thomas Nagel[4]

Of course, this applies to atheists and agnostics. For other non-Christians, like Muslims or Mormons, their non-intellectual aversion is slightly different. Ask any Christian who has been converted out of Islam and he or she will tell you that it’s hard. Your family turns your back on you, perhaps they’ll try to murder you in an honor killing, your friends will leave you, every loved one you had who was also a Muslim will shun you and maybe even try to kill you.

Let me just quickly say something to those of you who may fall into the above category; having a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth more than anything you could ever have in this world. The apostle Paul, who, as we saw in part 6, endured severe hardships for being a Christian, wrote; “But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8). According to Paul, having a relationship with Jesus Christ is worth so much, that everything else is garbage by comparison! Nabeel Qureshi, whose family turned his back on him when he converted to Christianity wrote; “All suffering is worth it to follow Jesus. He is that amazing.”[5]

Speaking as a Christian myself, I wholeheartedly agree with Paul’s and Nabeel’s statements. My relationship with God means more to me than anything this world has to offer.

*Unanswered Questions May Linger

Of course, for others, it may be the case that unanswered questions still linger. Some readers may be thinking “Gosh, there sure is a lot of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, but I still have unanswered questions. Why didn’t Jesus appear to any of His enemies after He rose, such as Pontius Pilate or Caiaphas? This would have convinced them that they were wrong to crucify Him, they would repent and become Christians? Also, why is it that Mark’s gospel records no appearances? If Mark’s gospel is the earliest gospel as most scholars say, does this imply that the appearances were legendary embellishments? I don’t think I can commit my life to Christ when there are still so many answered questions.”

Dealing With Unanswered Questions 

First of all, you shouldn’t need to have all of your questions answered before you can make a decision for Christ. We will never have every question answered in this life. What you should do is weigh the evidence. Imagine a scale with the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection on one side and your unanswered questions on the other. Does the totality of the evidence tip in favor of Jesus’ resurrection? If so, then you should conclude that Jesus rose from the dead, despite there being a few unsolved mysteries about it. Would your question, if left unanswered, affect the weight of the arguments in any way? If not, then you should be comfortable with it being left unanswered.

  1. Warner Wallace, cold case homicide detective, and Christian Apologist said this about unanswered questions:

“After a long career as a cold-case detective, I’ve learned to get comfortable with unanswered questions. In fact, I’ve never investigated or presented a case to a jury that wasn’t plagued with a number of mysteries. As much as I wish it wasn’t so, there is no such thing as a perfect case; every case has unanswered questions. In fact, when we seat a jury for a criminal trial, we often ask the prospective jurors if they are going to be comfortable making a decision without complete information. If potential jurors can’t envision themselves making a decision unless they can remove every possible doubt (and answer every possible question), we’ll do our best to make sure they don’t serve on our panel. Every case is imperfect; there are no cases devoid of unanswered questions. Every juror is asked to make a decision, even though the evidential case will be less than complete. As detectives and prosecutors, we do our best to be thorough and present enough evidence so jurors can arrive at the most reasonable inference. But, if you need ‘beyond a possible doubt,’ rather than ‘beyond a reasonable doubt,’ you’re not ready to sit on a jury. The standard of proof is ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ for a good reason; no case is evidentially complete; no case maker can eliminate every possible reservation.”[6]

I think the evidence is sufficient to warrant the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead and Christianity is true, even in spite of some unanswered questions. Think about it for a moment; would the absence of an answer as to why Jesus’ didn’t appear to Pilate and the Pharisees undermine the powerful historical evidence that He did appear to the disciples, Paul, and James? How would an inability to answer that question undermine the evidence for those 3 minimal facts? Would it undermine the evidence for the empty tomb? Would it mean that the resurrection isn’t the best explanation for the 5 minimal facts? Certainly not. I think we could say “Why didn’t He appear to his enemies? It’s kind of weird that he didn’t do that. But the evidence that he did appear to the disciples, Paul, and James is strong enough, and since no naturalistic theory can account for them, I’m still justified in concluding that Jesus rose from the dead.”

Answering The Unanswered Questions 

But do answers to these questions exist? I think they do. Let me take the time address these one by one.

Question 1: Why Didn’t Jesus Appear To Pilate And The Pharisees? 

This is a common question that skeptics and believer alike have asked. If Jesus really rose from the dead, then why didn’t he appear to Pontius Pilate, the Pharisees, and all who doubted him? Surely He would have done this for scripture teaches that God wants all people to be saved (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4) and that Christ died for the entire world (John 3:16, 1 John 2:2), and that confession of Jesus’ lordship and in His resurrection are requirements for salvation (Romans 10:9), so then why didn’t Jesus appear to Pilate and the Pharisees so that they could believe in Him so that they could be saved? I propose several answers.

1: Who Says He Didn’t Appear To Them? 

This is often overlooked, but there’s a passage in the book of Acts that suggests that Jesus did appear to at least a few of the religious leaders, resulting in their conversions. Acts 6:7 says  “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.” (Emphasis mine). Now, granted, it could be that these might not be the same Pharisees who were constantly trying to trip him up and voted to condemn him to death, but they could be. It’s possible that some of the people who ridiculed Jesus, opposed him throughout his ministry, and voted for his death were among the 500 individuals whom Jesus appeared to in 1 Corinthians 15, and that these are the priests Acts 6:7 referred to. So, while this verse isn’t irrefutable proof that Jesus appeared to those who opposed him throughout his ministry, it does at least open to the door.

2: It’s Possible That It May Have Done No Good

If the skeptics of today are any indication, it doesn’t matter how good the evidence is; they will always find a way to avoid following it where it leads. People who don’t want to believe something, won’t believe it, no matter how strong the evidence is. It could have been the case that had Jesus appeared to Caiaphas; he would have said that Satan was trying to deceive him. After all, the religious leaders appealed to demonic forces to try to explain away his other miracles, like his exorcism in Mark 3:20-30, for example. Pilate might have explained his appearance away as a hallucination or a vision, and blamed it on a guilty conscience. Only God knows how these people would have responded to a postmortem appearance of Jesus. If it would have done no good, then Jesus would have just been wasting his time appearing to them. In the book of Exodus, Pharoah had more than enough evidence to know that Yahweh existed and wanted him to let the Israelites go free. Yet, it took about a dozen plagues over a period of time before he finally consented. But even after consenting, Pharoah changed his mind again and chased after the Israelites who were on their way to The Red Sea. People who truly desire not to believe and repent, won’t.

Question 2: Why Are There No Appearances In Mark’s Gospel? 

According to most scholars, Mark’s gospel is the earliest gospel to have been written. Matthew and Luke were written sometime later, and John’s gospel was written last. However, Mark’s gospel contains no appearances. There is a longer ending to Mark which does include appearances, but most scholars agree that these were added by a scribe later on. Most are in agreement that Mark’s gospel ends at verse 8. If this is true, then the earliest gospel contains no appearances while the later ones do. Is this a sign of theological embellishment over time?

1: Mark Doesn’t Include Appearances, But He Does Predict Them 

While it’s true that the ending to Mark’s gospel includes no narrative where Jesus shows up and says “Hi, Y’all. I’m back!”, Mark includes predictions that there will be appearances. The young man told the women “Don’t be alarmed; You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” (Mark 16:4-5, emphasis mine).

So, certainly, Mark believed there would be appearances. He just didn’t record any interactions between the risen Jesus and his apostles.

2: The 1 Corinthians 15 Creed Predates Mark 

Secondly, remember that in part 5 of this series, we saw that the earliest tradition of Jesus’ postmortem appearances is the creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15. This creed contains several appearances, including appearances to the twelve disciples, and this creed dates to within 5 years of Jesus’ death. Moreover, all scholars, Christian and non-Christian alike affirm that all of Paul’s letters predate the gospels. So, if any embellishment went on, it was going in the opposite direction; appearances to non-appearances!

3: The Evidence From Paul and The Church Fathers Let Us Trace The Claims Of Resurrection Back To The Disciples 

Even if we threw out the gospels entirely, we could affirm that the disciples claimed they saw Jesus alive and that they really believed it through the writings of Paul and the church fathers. I talked about this in part 5 of this blog post series. Paul says that the disciples were claiming that Jesus appeared to him since he took two trips to Jerusalem to meet with them. One of these trips is recorded in Galatians 1, the other in Galatians 2. In Galatians 1, Paul says he spent 15 days with the apostles Peter and James. Don’t you think that the resurrection would have come up once in that conversation? Indeed, in Galatians 2, he specifically says that that’s why he went to Jerusalem; to compare the gospels that he and the other apostles were preaching. He wanted to make sure that the gospel he was preaching was the same gospel the twelve disciples were preaching, and he said: “They added nothing to my teaching.” After citing the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, he says in verse 11 “Whether it is they or I, this is what we preach” (i.e., Jesus’ postmortem appearances). Paul gives us a direct link to what the disciples were claiming. Moreover, the early church fathers Irenaeus and Tertullian said that Polycarp and Clement were students of the apostle John. Polycarp and Clement wrote in their writings that the disciples claimed that Jesus rose from the dead. Polycarp and Clement are a direct link to what John and the other disciples believed. They say that the disciples were preaching Jesus’ resurrection.

Additionally, church history is unanimous that all of the disciples were brutally killed for making this claim. No one would ever die for something they consciously believed is a lie. The fact that they died for preaching that Jesus rose from the dead, proves they really believed it. Why did they believe it? Because they saw him.

In conclusion, the faith that Mark doesn’t report any postmortem appearances doesn’t hurt my case one iota.

Question 3: Don’t Miracle Stories In Other Religions Discredit The Resurrection? 

It has been argued by skeptics, both scholars, and layman, that miracle stories in other religions disprove or cast doubt on the resurrection of Jesus and the other miracles reported in The Bible. Sometimes this is posed in the form of this question “You reject all of these other miracles as being credible or true, so why do you accept the resurrection of Jesus as being a fact of history? Aren’t you being inconsistent? Aren’t you cherry-picking which miracles you want to believe and which you want to disbelieve? Moreover, if you’re going to accept the miracles of The Bible, you should accept the miracles of Islam and Buddhism, and Mormonism.”

What should the Christian Apologist say in response to this objection? I can give 3 reasons why this objection doesn’t carry any weight.

1: The Historical Evidence Establishes That Jesus Rose From The Dead

Most people who make this objection don’t even realize that there is any evidence of the resurrection of Jesus. But as we saw in parts 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 of this blog series, there is excellent evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Just using the standard criteria of authenticity that historians use, we’ve determined that (1) Jesus rose from the dead, (2) His tomb was empty, (3) his twelve disciples believed they saw him alive after his death, (4) that a church persecutor named Paul converted on the basis of what he perceived to be a postmortem appearance of Jesus, and (5) a skeptic named James became a Christian because of what he perceived to be a postmortem appearance of the risen Jesus. In part 7, we saw that no theory can account for these 5 facts other than that Jesus rose from the dead, and therefore we are within our rational rights in coming to this conclusion.

Now, by contrast, other miracle claims in other religions tend to be rather poorly attested. Sometimes the sources come centuries after the event is alleged to describe (such as the miracles of Buddha and Krishna)[7], and/or is found in only one source (like Islam’s Hadith, which report the miracles of Muhammad). This isn’t the case with The New Testament records. Even the most skeptical liberal scholars date all of them to within the first century, only mere decades after the event.[8]

The fact that other miracles are poorly attested or are made up cannot be used as an argument that the resurrection of Jesus is likewise poorly attested and made up. In fact, each miracle claim has to be examined on an individual, case-by-case basis.

2: If Christianity Is True, We Need Not Necessarily Explain Away Or Reject Other Miracle Claims 
If the Christian worldview is true (and we’ve seen good evidence throughout this series to believe that it is), then we should expect to find at least a few miracle claims in other cultures at different points in time. Even in Scripture, God acted supernaturally among unbelievers, such as healing Naaman’s leprosy (see 2 Kings 5). According to The Bible, demons can perform actual supernatural wonders or counterfeit miracles intended to confound people, such as the magi of Pharoah (in Exodus 7-8), the Anti-Christ (see 2 Thessalonians 2:9, Matthew 24:24), and the fortune teller who harassed the apostle Paul (in Acts 16:16-18), for examples.

Thus, Christians have no obligation to disprove miracle claims in other religious traditions and writings. In fact, I’ve sometimes conjectured whether an actual angel appeared to Muhammad, but that it was a demon. This would be plausible given the fact that The Bible says that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

3: Miracle Claims In Other Religions Can Usually Be Explained By A Naturalistic Theory

Often times, these supposed miracles can be explained by a natural explanation. For example, legendary embellishment can account for the miracles of Muhammad and Buddha. But this explanation fails for Jesus since (1) The epistles of Paul which mention the resurrection only dates to within a few decades after Jesus’ death (1 Corinthians being dated to A.D 55), (2) There’s good evidence, as we saw in part 5 of this series, that the creed contained in 1 Corinthians 15 dates to within only 5 years after the death of Jesus (WAY too early for legend to develop), and (3) through the apostle Paul, and the church fathers Clement and Polycarp, we can trace the claim that Jesus rose from the dead back to the very lips of the apostles, as explained above and in part 5. Since the claim that Jesus rose from the dead can be traced to the very lips of the apostles, the resurrection of Jesus isn’t a legend that developed over time.

Question 4: Isn’t This Whole Approach Dishonoring To God’s Word? I Mean, You’re Scrutinizing It and cross-examining The New Testament documents like a witness on trial. 
This objection comes, not from skeptics or seekers, but Christians. Isn’t The Minimal Fact Approach Dishonoring to God’s Word? Isn’t it sacrilege to subject the inspired text to the same historical scrutinizing that we subject secular texts to? Aren’t we expressing that we doubt God’s word when we need some criterion of authenticity to tell us whether an event mentioned in it is true?

It’s important to realize that The Minimal Facts Approach is trying to reach people who don’t believe The Bible is the inspired word of God, and maybe believers who are doubting. It’s not meant to reach people who already believe its claims. The Minimal Facts Approach reaches unbelievers where they are epistemologically. It’s not that I personally doubt or am skeptical of what The Bible says, but the people I’m trying to reach are. This approach is entirely biblical. The Apostle Paul was a skilled apologist. Acts 17 records two occasions on which Paul argued with people, trying to convince them of Christianity’s truth. The first occasion was with Jews in a synagogue and the second occasion was with the Greeks on the hill in Athens. In the first occasion, Paul appealed to Old Testament prophesies to convince his fellow Jews that Jesus truly is the Messiah. But when speaking to the Greeks, he didn’t use the New Testament. He appealed to general revelation (i.e. the natural world), he quoted their Greek poets, and he used philosophical arguments to reach his gentile hearers. He knew that the Athenians didn’t care about The Old Testament or what it had to say, so he changed his tactics. His message didn’t change, and neither did his goal. But his method did change.

To help you get in their shoes: imagine if a Muslim tried to convince you of Islam by citing from the Quran. You wouldn’t be persuaded, would you? Why? Obviously, because you don’t think the Quran is inspired! You think it’s a fabrication by Muhammad. Well, atheists, agnostics, Muslims, and other non-Christians see The Bible the same way. If a Muslim were to convince me of Islam, he would have to take an approach to proving his religion that didn’t presuppose the inspiration of his holy book.

The Minimal Facts Approach does this. When we Christian Apologists argue for the 5 minimal facts undergirding the inference to the resurrection, we don’t quote from The New Testament as inspired scripture. We do use The New Testament, but not as scripture. We use it as we would any other ancient document that claims to tell of historical events.

Question 5: Why Did The Women Go Down To The Tomb To Anoint The Body Of Jesus If They Knew That It Was Sealed? Do Their Actions Really Make Sense?

This is a question Lee Strobel posed to William Lane Craig in their interview in the book The Case For Christ. Craig responded to Strobel with the following:

“Lee, I strongly feel that scholars who have not known the love and devotion that these women felt for Jesus have no right to pronounce cool judgments upon the feasibility of what they wanted to do. “For people who are grieving, who have lost someone they desperately loved and followed, to want to go to the tomb in a forlorn hope of anointing the body— I just don’t think some later critic can treat them like robots and say, ‘They shouldn’t have gone.’ … Maybe they thought there would be men around who could move the stone. If there were guards, maybe they thought they would. I don’t know. Certainly, the notion of visiting a tomb to pour oils over a body is a historical Jewish practice; the only question is the feasibility of who would move the stone for them.”[9]

I find Craig’s response to Strobel to be intellectually satisfying. Also, notice that even if this question went unanswered, it wouldn’t have altered our case. It wouldn’t have undermined any of the arguments for the 5 minimal facts nor would it have given us a non-supernatural way to account for them. This question, like the others in this blog post, have answers to them. But even if they went unanswered, it wouldn’t affect the case for the resurrection.

Question 6: You Said In Part 3 That Jesus’ Death By Crucifixion Was Multiply Attested in 7 Independent Sources. But Why Aren’t There More Sources?

For one thing, very few documents from ancient history have survived up to the present time. As Ryan Turner, author for CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry) wrote in an article on Carm.org:  “There are a number of ancient writings that have been lost, including 50% of the Roman historian Tacitus’ works, all of the writings of Thallus and Asclepiades of Mendes.  In fact, Herod the Great’s secretary named Nicolas of Damascus wrote a Universal History of Roman history which comprised nearly 144 books, and none of them have survived. Based on the textual evidence, there is no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus of Nazareth.”[10]

The fact of the matter is; there may have been more sources that spoke about Jesus and his death by crucifixion for all we know. But they most likely decayed away or they simply haven’t been discovered yet by archeologists. If documents aren’t copied over and over again at a quick enough pace, they aren’t likely to survive for 2,000 years.

Moreover, the evidence we have for Jesus’ death by crucifixion is still overwhelmingly strong. Four secular sources and 3 biblical sources attest to His death by crucifixion, which adds up to a total of 7. As I said in part 3, it is statistically impossible for 7 independent sources to all make up the same fiction and then proceed to treat it as a historical event. The principle of multiple attestations applies here. Secondly, Jesus’ death is attested in two enemy sources (sources which are ridiculing Christianity in the very passage they mention Jesus’ death by crucifixion, those sources would be Tacitus and Lucian. So this minimal fact is likely to be true on the basis of the principle of enemy attestation. Also, the principle of embarrassment verifies Jesus’ death by crucifixion in 3 different ways; (1) Crucifixion was not only a painful death but a shameful one. If the gospels fabricated a tale of Jesus’ death, they would have had him die in a more dignified way, such as death by stoning. (2) All of the disciples except John abandon Jesus, and only the women stand before the cross to be with Him in His final moments (save for John). Why the author of John’s gospel paint the disciples in such a bad light if that didn’t actually happen? (3) Jesus said on the cross “My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me!” Although an explanation for this saying exists, it’s still extremely awkward as it makes Jesus look like He’s doubting the Father and forgot his mission. It’s unlikely this saying of Jesus is made up, but this saying is in the context of Jesus dying by crucifixion.

You can ask “Why aren’t there more sources?” but it’s foolishness to say that the evidence we do have is insufficient.

Question 7: Aren’t Jesus’ Postmortem Appearances Like Elvis Sightings? 

Several years ago, when I was debating the evidence for the resurrection with an atheist on Twitter (Twitlonger to be precise), he compared the postmortem appearances of Jesus to alleged sightings of Elvis. People have claimed to have seen Evil after he died, yet we don’t give these claims any credibility. In fact, we have a tendency to dismiss them out of hand. Why don’t we do the same with sightings of Jesus?

First of all, Jesus left an empty tomb behind (see part 4 of this series), Elvis didn’t. Anyone interested in disproving any resurrection of Elvis could go down to his tomb, exhume the corpse and prove that Elvis didn’t re-enter the building. Had the opponents of Christianity did this back in the first century, they would have persuaded everyone that Jesus was still dead. Christianity would have died before it even began. Since it’s still around, we can conclude that they didn’t exhume Jesus’ corpse, and they didn’t exhume Jesus’ corpse because there was no corpse in the tomb to be exhumed.

Secondly, Elvis sightings can be explained naturalistically. If only one person saw him at one time, that might have been a hallucination. Certainly, we know that Elvis impersonators are about, so maybe what these people are seeing are just these impersonators. Thirdly, it’s possible that Elvis never died, but faked his death. While this is somewhat unlikely, it’s still possible. But we saw in part 7 that multiple people on multiple different occasions (including 2 skeptics) saw the risen Jesus, and group hallucinations (especially ones that occur over and over) are impossible. We also know based on medical evidence, that Jesus was dead when they took him down from the cross. There’s no way Jesus could have faked his death. So while there are plenty of plausible non-supernatural explanations for Elvis, none exist for Jesus.

Thirdly, Elvis never claimed to be divine or performed any miracles. Jesus did. Jesus’ resurrection occurred in what scholars call “A religious-historical context.”

Conclusion
We’ve seen that the lingering questions some of my readers may have had up until this point have good answers to them. Most of them wouldn’t affect the case for the resurrection of Jesus even if they went unanswered.

So, at this point, if you’re an unbeliever, let me ask you a question: are you convinced yet? If so, what are you going to do about it?

Notes 

[1] This lecture can be purchased as an MP3 file at http://www.catapes.com/viewresults.cfm?cid=363

[2] See the previous blog post in this series.

[3] I tackle this issue in chapter 9 of my book A Hellacious Doctrine: A Defense Of The Doctrine Of Hell. Losing a loved one who wasn’t saved can be hard, but that’s no reason why you should shake your fist at God and end up there yourself.

[4] Thomas Nagel, The Last Word, Oxford, 1997

[5] Nabeel Qureshi, “Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity”, February 11th 2014, Zondervan, page

[6] J. Warner Wallace, from the article “How Can You Trust Christianity When There Are So Many Unanswered Questions?”, March 26, 2014, http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/how-can-you-trust-christianity-is-true-when-there-are-so-many-unanswered-questions/

[7] See Edwin Yamauchi, Jesus, Zoroaster, Buddha, Socrates, Mohammad, Revised Edition (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1972), esp. 4– 7, 18, 38– 41.

[8] This is because the early church fathers quote from The New Testament very frequently in their writings. These church fathers, like Polycarp, Irenaeus, Ignatius, Tertullian, etc. are writing in the second, third, and fourth centuries. Obviously, the books they’re quoting from had to pre-exist their own writings. I can’t quote from a book in a book of my own unless the former had already been written and published. This is why all scholars from all theological perspectives agree that the entirety of The New Testament had been completed before the end of the first century. Most scholars date Mark in the 60s, Matthew and Luke in the 70s, and John in the 80s, with Paul’s epistles being completed between 50 and 60 A.D. More conservative scholars, like Craig Blomberg, have given very compelling arguments for gospel dates between 50 and 62. And I happen to agree with these arguments for more conservative dating.

[9] Strobel, Lee; Strobel, Lee. Case for Christ Movie Edition: Solving the Biggest Mystery of All Time (Case for … Series) (Kindle Locations 4436-4443). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

[10] Ryan Turner, “Did Jesus Ever Exist?”, CARM – Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, https://carm.org/jesus-exist

 

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