How Does Christianity Differ From Other Religions On Homosexuality

How Does Christianity Differ From Other Religions On Homosexuality?

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By Terrell Clemmons

It’s probably not what you think.

Saving Truth on Human Sexuality

“Sorry if this is off topic,” the young woman stammered into the microphone, “but, um, I’ve searched for answers, and I can’t seem to find any, so I thought I’d come tonight and ask you guys. Where does Christianity, if it does at all, differ on homosexuality as opposed to other religions, and if so, how?” Her quivering lips and trembling hands revealed the magnitude of struggle it had taken just to voice the question.

The auditorium fell silent as all eyes turned to Abdu Murray, who had just taken part in a university open forum on major world religions.

Abdu was silent for a moment. He could tell she was not just looking for another opinion. She needed an answer that would validate her as a human being. What could he say that would not compromise biblical sexuality yet would show her that God cares for her beyond measure?

“There are only so many worldviews to choose from,” he began. And none of them would provide an answer that unconditionally validates her humanity. None, that is, except for one. But before getting to that one, he surveyed the others.

Consider naturalistic atheism, the worldview driving progressive secularism. According to naturalistic secularism, human beings are highly evolved animal life. This worldview is doubly dehumanizing in regard to homosexuality. First, according to the Darwinian evolutionary narrative, there is nothing especially significant about human beings at all. “A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy,” in the words of Ingrid Newkirk, founder of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), such that the only thing distinguishing us from the flies in our windowpane is that we’re above them on the food chain. Second, if, as we are told, Darwinian evolution proceeds via the evolutionary process, then homosexuality fails evolutionarily because same-sex sex does not reproduce. So, in a naturalistic worldview, people practicing same-sex sex are, just like everyone else, nothing special, and Darwinian failures to boot.

What about the Eastern pantheistic systems, such as Hinduism or Buddhism or a Deepak Chopra-esque spirituality? Well, the ethical foundations of these worldviews are ambiguous at best, as they teach that morality is relative. And so, none of them provide any objective grounding for human value or identity. Worse for the struggler looking for solid answers, they hold that suffering is an illusion, which is flat out insulting to a person in pain. They offer nothing beyond self-referential psychobabble for the one struggling with his or her identity.

What about Islam? While it does offer solidity, with its monotheistic foundation and clear rules circumscribing sexual behavior, Islam is openly hostile to homosexuality. In some Islamic countries, homosexual acts are punishable by prison, flogging, and in some cases death.

Finally, then, Abdu came around to Christianity. He made two points about it. First, we all intuitively know there is something about sex that makes it more than just a physical act. Why is sexual assault treated differently from a mere physical assault? Because he said, there is something sacredly fragile about sexuality, and sacred things are so special, they are worthy of protection. God wants to protect the sacredness of sexuality from becoming common, and the boundaries given through the biblical sexual ethic guard the sacred specialness of sexuality.

But, he conceded, that doesn’t explain the proscription limiting sex to opposite-sex marriage. That was the subject of his second point. To address the principle of male-female marriage, he referred to the biblical creation account in Genesis, where we are told that God created man and woman in the image of God. Man and woman being created in the image of God is a blasphemous concept to Islam, a foreign concept in any pantheism, and an absurdity in any naturalistic secularism. Only the biblical worldview, which holds that all men and all women bear God’s divine image, gives any objective grounding for inherent human dignity and value.

And this leads to the reason why human sexuality is worth limiting to male-female marriage: It’s because sex is the way human life comes into the world. “Sex between a man and a woman is the only means by which such a precious being comes into this world,” he said. “And because a human being is the sacred product of sex, the sexual process by which that person is made is also sacred.” The biblical ethic limits sexual expression to monogamous, male-female marriage because “God is protecting something sacred and beautiful.” As we submit ourselves to the creational guideline, “We are given the honor of reflecting an aspect of the divine splendor.”

He wrapped up his response to the troubled young woman by telling her that God anchors all human dignity, including hers, and sacredness in his unchanging, eternal nature. We are granted the supremely high dignity of reflecting the glory of God in the world.

So, where does Christianity differ from other religions when it comes to homosexuality? As it turns out, it differs quite profoundly from all others, but not in the way the dominant cultural voices say it does. Abdu relates this scene in his recently released book, Saving Truth: Finding Meaning and Clarity in a Post-Truth World. Although he had much more to say about the uniquely sublime nature of sexuality within natural marriage, Saving Truth is not just about sexuality. That’s only the subject of one chapter, but I hope it will give you an idea of the beauty biblical clarity can bring to an area rife with confusion.

Saving Truth surveys a whole landscape of cultural confusion, offering refreshing doses of clarity so that we may make sense of many other confusions:

  • What does “post-truth” even mean?
  • What is the difference between autonomy and liberating freedom?
  • How does one navigate the alleged conflict between science and faith?
  • And what about religious pluralism? Can all religions really coexist?

Abdu never gave the name of the young woman asking the profound question about sexuality, but he did conclude the story by noting that after he answered her question, “she seemed to know she was ‘understood.’ The tears began to flow, and she afforded me the honor of praying with her.” Truth has a way of quieting clamor and provoking profound moments. I hope you will check out Abdu’s new book Saving Truth, and even more that, I hope that you will seek truth right where you are. Whatever it may cost you, whatever tears it may provoke, seek clarity, seek the truth. There is where you will find your meaning.

 

Terrell Clemmons is a freelance writer and blogger on apologetics and matters of faith.

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Reasoning To The Resurrection

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 7: Reasoning To The Resurrection

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by Evan Minton

This is part 6 in a blog post series (and eventually, free Kindle book) on the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In parts 3, 4, 5, and 6 we saw that powerful historical evidence exists for the following 5 facts

1: Jesus died by Roman crucifixion.

2: His tomb was found empty by a group of His women followers the following Sunday Morning.

3: The 12 Disciples believed they saw Jesus alive shortly after His death.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. 

5: A skeptic named James converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. 

These are the 5 facts that are granted by nearly every historian and scholar who studies the subject, even the non-Christian ones (e.g., Ehrman, Ludemann, Sanders). These are the minimal facts. In part 1 of this series, I said that the case for Jesus’ resurrection involved two steps. The first step is figuring out what the facts are, and the second step is discerning what the best explanation of those facts are. We accomplished the first step in parts 3-6 of this blog series. Now we come to the second step; what is the best explanation for the 5 aforementioned facts. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Maybe. But let’s see if there’s any other explanation that can account for them first.

Over the two millennia, skeptics have proposed dozens of naturalistic theories to try to account for the resurrection of Jesus. Let’s look at them and see if any of them work. Keep in mind that any acceptable theory must be able to explain all of the evidence, all of the 5 minimal facts. If it fails to explain all 5 facts, then it will be rejected on the basis of lacking explanatory scope.

Theory 1: The Stolen Body Theory (Disciples Edition)

If you recall from part 4, the enemies of Christianity claimed that the disciples came in the middle of the night and stole Jesus’ body (Matthew 28). Then the disciples went out and proclaimed that Jesus rose from the dead. On this theory, the resurrection is nothing but a hoax, a sham. The disciples do a heckin’ bamboozle on the people.[1] Does this naturalistic theory adequately account for the evidence? I don’t think so.

In fact, this is the WEAKEST naturalistic theory there is. Recall from part 5 that church history is unanimous in that all 12 disciples died horrible, gruesome deaths for proclaiming that Jesus rose from the dead. James, the brother of John, was beheaded by decree of King Herod Agrippa, Peter was crucified upside down, Thomas was speared to death in India, Matthew died by being dragged by a horse, and Phillip was crucified on an X shaped cross.[2] They could have saved themselves simply by recanting, yet they proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus despite agonizing, brutal torture, despite forfeiting their lives. Why would they do that? Why would they die for a lie?

Now, again, when you bring this point up to skeptics, they’ll say “But that doesn’t prove the resurrection is true any more than Muslims giving up their lives in acts of Jihad proves that Islam is true.” And they’re right. I totally agree with them. But, they’re missing the point. I’m not saying the disciples’ martyrdoms prove that Jesus rose from the dead. I’m saying it proves that they believed he rose from the dead. Martyrdom doesn’t prove the disciples were right; it just proves they sincerely believed what they were saying. To put it another way: while people will die for a lie they think is true, no one will die for a lie they know is false.
And that is the fatal flaw is the Stolen Body Theory. It posits that the disciples stole Jesus’ body and deliberately tried to deceive the masses, and then they willingly endured beatings, torture, and executions for preaching what they consciously believed wasn’t true.

The late Charles Colson, who did prison time for being an accomplice in Watergate but who later became a Christian, wrote:

“Watergate involved a conspiracy to cover up, perpetuated by the closest aids to the President of the United States—the most powerful men in America, who were intensely loyal to their president. But one of them, John Dean, turned states evidence, that is, testified against Nixon, as he put it, “to save his own skin”—and he did so only two weeks after informing the president about what was really going on—two weeks! The real cover-up, the lie, could only be held together for two weeks, and then everybody else jumped ship in order to save themselves. Now, the fact is that all that those around the President were facing was an embarrassment, maybe prison. Nobody’s life was at stake. But what about the disciples? Twelve powerless men, peasants really, were facing not just embarrassment or political disgrace, but beatings, stonings, execution. Every single one of the disciples insisted, to their dying breaths, that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead. Don’t you think that one of those apostles would have cracked before being beheaded or stoned? That one of them would have made a deal with the authorities? None did.”[3]

As if the unreasonableness of positing that the disciples willingly suffered and died for a lie wasn’t bad enough, this theory has other issues. For one, we’ve seen that Paul and James converted to Christianity because they believed they saw the risen Jesus. This theory cannot account for their conversion experiences.

This theory fails because

1: The disciples died for preaching the resurrection. Liars make poor martyrs.

2: It doesn’t explain why Paul believed he saw Jesus post-crucifixion.

3: It doesn’t explain why James believed he saw Jesus post-crucifixion.

Theory 2: Stolen Body Theory (Other Person Edition)

There’s a variation of the theory above which says while the disciples didn’t steal the body, perhaps someone else came along and stole the body. Then, when the disciples came and found that the tomb was empty, they concluded that Jesus rose from the dead. The disciples aren’t hoaxers; they were just as fooled as the people they preached to.

There are several problems with this theory. First of all, in part 5 of this series, we saw that the disciples believed that they had seen Jesus with their own eyes. They weren’t convinced on the basis of the empty tomb alone, but by seeing Jesus alive and well. Secondly, this theory doesn’t account for the conversion of Paul. Theft of the body is probably the first thing that would have come to Paul’s mind. We saw in chapter 4 that Paul went from Christian Persecutor to Christian Missionary because he, like the disciples, believed he saw Jesus appear to him. James likewise went from skepticism to belief on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

This variation of the stolen body theory cannot account for any of the postmortem appearances. The only minimal fact that it can adequately explain is the empty tomb, nothing else.

Finally, this theory is implausible on its face. Who exactly would have had a motivation to steal Jesus’ body anyway? The Pharisees wouldn’t have stolen Jesus’ body. They were well aware that removal of the body might create an appearance of resurrection, which is what they feared, which is why they had guards placed at the tomb (Matthew 27-28). The Romans don’t appear to have any motivation to take Jesus’ body out of the tomb. And we already know the disciples wouldn’t have stolen the body. If they did, they would have known the resurrection was a lie, and people don’t die for what they know is a lie. Who exactly is supposed to be the culprit here?

This theory fails because

1: The disciples were convinced on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

2: Paul was convinced on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

3: James was convinced on the basis of a postmortem appearance.

4: There’s no plausible candidate for corpse thievery.

Theory 3: Hallucination Theory

In parts 5 and 6, we saw that the disciples, Paul, and James, believed that they saw the risen Jesus. They truly believed the risen Jesus appeared to them. Skeptical scholars have tried to explain this belief in the appearances as a result of hallucination. Perhaps they all hallucinated the risen Jesus.

Ask any psychologist you come across and they’ll tell you that hallucinations are occurrences that happen in the minds of individuals. They’re like dreams in this way. Imagine a group of your friends came up to you one day and said: “Boy, we all had one nice dream last night, didn’t we?” You would probably think that they were pulling a practical joke on you. You would never take seriously their claim that they all simultaneously had the exact same dream. This is because dreams are individual occurrences. By the very nature of the case, they cannot be shared experiences. Hallucinations are the same way.

Now, the extremely early creed that I told you about in part 5 of this series tells us that Jesus appeared to several groups of people. He appeared to all of the original disciples, then to James, then 500 individuals at the same time, and finally to Paul. Do you honestly expect me to believe that they all hallucinated? They all had the exact same hallucination!? Impossible! It’s impossible for 500 individuals to have the same hallucination at exactly the same time. This would be just as likely as the entire city of New York having the same dream on the same night! But not only did Jesus appear to 500 people at the same time, but he also appeared to multiple groups on different occasions. Do you expect me to believe that multiple groups of people on multiple different occasions all had the exact same hallucination?
Lee Strobel, during his investigation of the historical evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, asked a medical expert on the possibility of 500 people hallucinating the risen Jesus. This expert said that for a group of 500 people to witness the exact same hallucination of a raised Jesus would “be a bigger miracle than the resurrection itself!”[4]

Moreover, not only are group hallucinations statistically impossible, but hallucinations of any kind are uncommon. Hallucinations are usually induced by sleep deprivation, drugs, a high fever, or mental instability. If none of these 3 factors are present, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to have a hallucination. As far as we know, none of the disciples, Paul, or James were insomniacs, sick, or druggies.

In their book “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus”[5], Gary Habermas and Mike Licona tell of Navy Seals who were enduring through Hell week. At one point, the seals reported starting having hallucinations one night while they were paddling in a raft at night. They all hallucinated at the same time, BUT they did not have the same hallucination. They had different hallucinations. One of them said he saw an octopus come out of the water and wave at him. Another said he saw a train coming towards them on the water. Another said he saw a wall that they would crash into if they persisted in paddling. When the octopus, the train, and the wall were pointed out to the rest of the group, no one saw any of the things except the one who pointed the thing out. They were all hallucinating, but they were having different hallucinations. So, even if on the off chance, all of the disciples, Paul, and James were in the frame of mind to hallucinate, it’s still unlikely that they’d have the same hallucination. Like the Navy Seals, they’d likely all have different hallucinations, perhaps only one of them being Jesus.

Moreover, even if the impossible did occur, and the minds of all these different groups of people produced hallucinations of Jesus, that would still leave the empty tomb unaccounted for. What happened to Jesus’ body? Why is it gone?

This theory fails because

1: Jesus appeared to The Twelve Disciples, Paul, James, and 500 individuals. There were multiple group appearances. It is statistically impossible that all of these people would have the exact same hallucination, even if they were in the frame of mind to hallucinate.

2: It doesn’t account for the empty tomb.

Theory 4: Group Think 

Some skeptics have considered that perhaps the disciples were so in anticipation of Jesus’ return from the dead that they talked themselves into believing that He rose from the dead. One day they went to the tomb and John was like “Peter, I think I see Jesus, over there! Do you see him?” and Peter was like “Oh, yeah! I think I see him too!” and they kind of talked themselves into it. Well, this couldn’t be the case either. Why? Because you have to be in anticipation that you’re going to experience something like that. You have to be primed for it. They weren’t! There are four reasons why the groupthink theory is untenable.

1: Jesus died. Jews weren’t expecting a dying messiah, but a messiah who would be a conquering warrior king, one who would throw off the yoke of Rome.[6]

2: According to the Old Testament (which Jews call the “Tanakh”), anyone hung on a tree was under God’s curse. This is mentioned in Deuteronomy 21:23. Since Roman crosses were made out of wood, they were technically trees, so people would often times speak of the crucified as “being hung on a tree.” And since this was in the minds of Jews, the way in which Jesus died would have only served to convince the disciples that Caiaphas and the others were right in condemning Jesus as a blasphemer and a heretic.

3: Given what the Jews believed about the bodily resurrection, no one would have been anticipating Jesus’ return. Jews believed that all people would rise from the dead at the end of the world, but they never expected any isolated person to get out of their grave right smack dab in the middle of human history.

4: And if that weren’t enough, consider that some of the people who experienced a sighting of Jesus were skeptics… such as James the half-brother of Jesus. We know based on the historical evidence cited in the previous blog post that James did not believe in Jesus during Jesus’ lifetime Saul Of Tarsus was killing Christians because he considered them to be the worst of heretics! He experienced a sighting of Jesus risen from the dead, and he became The Apostle Paul. These former skeptics were not in any way living in anticipation of Jesus’ return.

As you can see, the disciples were not in the expectation that Jesus would rise from the dead. In fact, they had every predisposition to the contrary. And yet, they all believed they saw Jesus alive after His death!

Theory 5: The Swoon Theory 

Some skeptics have tried to adequately account for the 5 minimal facts by saying that maybe Jesus didn’t really die in the first place. Maybe he merely fainted on the cross and then the cool, damp air of the tomb sort of roused him around into consciousness. Jesus then left the tomb, came to his disciples and presented Himself to them. Since they presumed he was dead, it’s only natural that they should infer that Jesus came back to life, right? So, we don’t have a miraculous resurrection, simply a fortuitous resuscitation. This would explain the empty tomb and the postmortem appearances. This theory is known in the literature as “The Swoon Theory,” and there are several problems with it.

The following descriptions are very graphic; reader’s discretion is advised.

First of all, given the nature of pre-crucifixion scourging, and of the crucifixion itself, it is extremely unlikely that a crucifixion victim could walk away alive.

When a to-be-crucified person was scourged, they would be given 40 lashes. History tells us that the Roman 40 lashes were from a whip of braided leather thongs, with metal balls, broken pieces of sheep bone, broken glass, and basically anything sharp that would cut a person. These sharp pieces of sheep bone, metal, and broken glass were woven into the braided leather thongs. When the whip would strike the flesh, these would cause deep bruises, and the flesh would be cut severely. You can easily imagine how shredded a person’s back would be after being cut in 40 different places with multiple blades!

According to Dr. Alexander Methrell, the cuts and force of the beating could shred the back so much that the spine of the victim was sometimes exposed![7] The whipping would have gone all the way down the shoulders to the back, and the back of the legs. One physician who has studied Roman beatings said: “As the flogging continued the lacerations would tear into the underlying skeletal muscles and produce quivering ribbons of bleeding flesh.”[8]

Eusebius, a third-century historian, described scourging with the following words: “The sufferer’s veins were laid bare, and the very muscles, sinews, and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.”

The pre-crucifixion scourging was so horrific that the white of the spine was sometimes exposed (according to both Dr. Alexander Methrell and The Journal Of American Medical Association, March edition from 1986), and that the condemned victim’s veins, muscles, sinews, and bowels would become visible from the outside! This is the type of horrific beating that Jesus endured!

The result of such a hellish beating would mean that Jesus would very likely go into Hypovolemic shock.[9] Hypovolemic shock is caused by severe blood loss. It causes four symptoms to occur. First, the heart races in a desperate attempt to replace all the blood that was lost, second, the blood pressure plummets bringing about fainting or collapsing, third, urine production in the kidneys comes to an end to preserve what little liquid is left in the body, and fourth, the person has an overwhelming thirst come over them.

When you read the gospel accounts of Jesus’ execution, these symptoms are evident in Jesus. At one point, Jesus falls while carrying his cross, and Simon of Cyrene is forced to help Jesus carry his cross the rest of the way. Later, when Jesus was on the cross, He said “I thirst,” and then a Roman soldier dipped a sponge in vinegar and stuck it up to Jesus’ mouth for him to drink (see John 19:28-29). Jesus was in critical condition even before He was crucified!

Jesus then carried His cross to the site of the crucifixion, and the Romans nailed Him to it.

Now, how does crucifixion kill its victims? Scientific experiments have been done on volunteers to test what the effects of hanging on a cross would have. These were controlled circumstances, so there was no real danger of these people being harmed. While these volunteers were hanging on the cross, they would mention having difficulty breathing. They would have to push up and down in order to breathe. Eventually, they’d get too exhausted to push up and down anymore, so the scientist would take the person down off the cross at the volunteer’s request.

What these experiments showed was that crucifixion victim die from suffocation. Once Jesus was hanging vertically, the weight of his body and the position of his arms put great stress on the diaphragm, and would put his chest in an inhaled position. So in order to exhale, Jesus would have had to push up on his feet and take a breath, but each time he did this he’d be pushing on the nail in his feet tearing the muscle until it locked against the tarsal bones in his feet (not to mention he’d be scraping his back against the coarse wood of the cross). Finally, with the pressure on his chest eased he’d be able to exhale. He would push up to exhale and then come back down to inhale. Then go up to exhale, and then come back down to inhale. Over, and over, and over. But eventually, exhaustion would take over, and he could no longer push himself up to breathe. He would just sag there and die of asphyxiation. The Roman soldiers would have noticed when a person was dead once he stopped pushing up. And look, you can’t fake the inability to breathe for very long.

In fact, when the Romans wanted to speed up death, they’d break the legs of the people on the crosses with a massive club. Then they wouldn’t be able to push up to breathe, and death would come quickly. However, they didn’t do this to Jesus because they saw that He was already dead, but just to make sure, they drove a spear through him. It punctured both his heart and his lung. The gospel of John tells us that when he did that, blood and water gushed out (John 19:34). This single fact proves that not only was Jesus dead, but it also tells us what He died of; heart failure, due to shock and constriction of the heart detected by the presence of fluid in the pericardium. In this instance, the heart has ceased beating. This brought about an accumulation of fluid in Jesus’ heart, which is called “pericardial effusion.” In addition to this, it also brought about a collection of fluid in the lungs, which is called “pleural effusion.” These two fluids cannot be present if the person’s heart is still beating.

By the way, for those who want to doubt John’s description of the blood and water, I have this to say to you: we have excellent reason to believe that John is telling the truth here. For one thing, John was an uneducated fisherman. Do you think he would know about “pericardial effusion” and “pleural effusion”? Of course not! While anyone would expect to see a pierced body gush blood, not many even today would expect clear fluid to come out. Yet, that’s exactly what occurs in the case of heart failure due to shock and constriction of the heart. I didn’t even know about this phenomenon until I read about it in Lee Strobel’s The Case For Christ. Moreover, this isn’t something John is likely to make up either. Given his lack of medical knowledge, having water come out of Jesus’ side would make as much sense to him as having Skittles pour out. So, despite being mentioned in only one source, we still have reason to believe this description is true.

This theory fails because:

It was impossible for Jesus to survive this whole ordeal.

1: Jesus was in hypovolemic shock from the pre-crucifixion scourging alone! Jesus was in critical condition even on his way to the cross (hypovolemic shock), so he would have bled out quickly.

2: But if bleeding out didn’t kill him, He would have eventually died of suffocation.

3: If neither of those two things got him, we can be sure Jesus’ was dead because (A) you can’t survive a spear jab to the heart and (B) that spear jab revealed Jesus’ heart and lungs collected pericardial effusion and pleural effusion, which isn’t possible if the heart is still beating.

Theory 6: The Wrong Tomb Theory 

There’s another theory that states that on that first Easter morning, the women went down to the wrong tomb and concluded based on that that Jesus had risen from the dead. The whole thing was really a simple misunderstanding! Jesus’ tomb wasn’t empty! They just went to the wrong tomb. This tomb never had a body in it at all.

There are a quite a few problems with this view. First off, I think the burial story in the gospels is historically reliable. Number 1: It’s multiply attested in all four gospel sources plus the 1 Corinthians 15 creed. And number 2: It’s unlikely to be a Christian invention. The gospel authors were unlikely to make up a member of the very group who had Jesus killed and then portray him as the one to give Jesus an honorable burial while all of the disciples (except John) abandon Jesus in his final hours in order to cower in their homes for fear of the Jews. So by the principle of embarrassment, I conclude that the burial story is reliable, but in this case, that means that the tomb of Jesus was known to both Christian and non-Christian alike. As a result, it’s very unlikely that anybody would have accidentally gone to an unused tomb, thinking it was Jesus’ tomb.

The Wrong Tomb Theory expects us to believe that everyone who would have been interested in the tomb totally forgot where it was! Not only did the women go to the wrong tomb, but later John and Peter went to the wrong tomb, and then the Pharisees also went to the wrong tomb, followed by the Romans who also went to the wrong tomb, and of course Joseph of Arimathea went to the wrong tomb. He must have forgotten where the tomb that he himself owned was located.

This is beyond implausible. But even more, devastating to the theory is that it doesn’t explain the beliefs of the disciples, James, or Paul that they had seen the risen Jesus. We’ve already seen in parts 5 and 6 that there’s good evidence that the disciples, James, and Paul believed that they saw the risen Jesus appear to them!

This theory fails because;

1: Tomb’s location was well known. Extremely unlikely everyone interested in the tomb forgot where it was.

2: The disciples didn’t believe because the tomb was empty, but because they believed Jesus appeared to them.

3: Paul was convinced on the basis of an appearance.

4: James was convinced on the basis of an appearance.

Theory 7: The Legend Theory 

Could the resurrection have been a legend? No. Why? Because, as we saw in part 5 of this blog post series, we can trace the claims of the resurrection to the lips of the original disciples! In Paul’s letters, he says he had access to the original disciples and had fellowshipped with them. I’m sure Peter told Paul whether or not he had seen Jesus when he visited them in Galatians 1 and 2. And of course, the creedal tradition dates to within five years after the death of Jesus (as argued in part 5 of this series, it’s likely he got the creed from Peter and James when he visited them three years after his conversion), this is well within the lifetimes of the twelve disciples who could have corrected this oral tradition if He really hadn’t appeared to them. Moreover, the early church fathers Tertullian and Irenaeus attest that the church fathers Polycarp and Clement were students of the apostle John and that they knew several other apostles as well. This is significant because Polycarp and Clement said that the original disciples were claiming that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them. Since they knew and fellowshipped with Jesus’ twelve disciples, they would certainly be in the position to know what the disciples believed.

The above comprise nine ancient sources that attest to the original disciples’ claims to have seen Jesus. And with the seven independent sources that attest to their martyrdom, we can conclude that they didn’t just merely claim that Jesus appeared to them, they really believed it.

We saw earlier in this series that the 1 Corinthians 15 creed dates to within five years after the crucifixion! A.N Sherwin White of Oxford University did a study of the rates at which legend develops in the ancient world, and he discovered that two generations weren’t even enough time for legend to build up and eliminate a core of historical truth.[10] But we don’t have two generations of time here; we don’t even have an entire decade! We only have five years!

Theory 8: The Pauline Conversion Disorder Theory 

This theory is one I found out about in Habermas and Licona’s “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” and this theory argues that Paul’s conversion from skepticism was a result of conversion disorder. Conversion Disorder is a neurological malfunction that occurs whenever a major change comes into someone’s life. Habermas and Licona write: “Let us suppose that the year is 1968. A young American named Rick has been drafted into the U.S. Army for a tour in Vietnam. Shortly after he receives his letter from the Department of Defense, Rick begins to feel a sharp pain all the way down his right leg. The pain worsens, and by the time he goes for his military physical, he is limping severely. In this case, Rick is not faking the pain in order to get out of going to Vietnam. He may have conversion disorder. Typical symptoms of conversion disorder are blindness, paralysis, loss of voice, pain, uncontrolled vomiting, tics, and seizures.”[11]

All of these are temporary of course, as conversion disorder does not last forever. Could Paul have experienced something like this? He experienced temporary blindness at the moment he saw a bright light and thought he saw Jesus (see Acts 9). Could Paul have experienced a neurological malfunction?

This theory is plagued with problems. Not the least of which is that it only addresses Paul’s conversion and nothing else. It doesn’t explain the empty tomb, the appearance to the disciples, or the appearance to James. The resurrection hypothesis explains all of these.

But moreover, Paul is unlikely to have experienced conversion disorder anyway. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV,  women are more likely to have conversion disorder than men by as much as a 5-1 ratio. Adolescents, military combatants, and those with a low IQ are also more likely to experience the disorder. Paul doesn’t fall into any of these categories. Paul is not a woman, teenager, warrior, or dummy. This doesn’t mean he couldn’t have experienced the disorder. It just means it’s unlikely. However, when you look at the other problems associated with The Pauline Conversion Disorder theory, it makes it even more unlikely.

Not only must we employ conversion disorder to explain Paul’s experience, but we must also say that Paul experienced an auditory hallucination, as well as a Messiah Complex. Why? Because Paul not only saw a bright light and went blind, but he also heard a voice that told Him to spread the gospel message. Now, it is possible to find people who have experienced conversion disorder, people who have had auditory hallucinations, as well as people who have a messiah complex, but it’s extremely rare to find people who have simultaneously experienced all 3.

This theory fails because

1: It has an inadequate explanatory scope. At best, it gives a natural explanation for Paul’s conversion. But it doesn’t account for the postmortem appearances to the disciples or James.

2: Paul isn’t a likely candidate for conversion disorder.

3: It’s extremely rare to find someone who has conversion disorder, has experienced an audible hallucination and has a messiah complex all at the exact same moment.

Theory 9: The Twin Theory

This theory says that Jesus had an unknown identical twin brother who saw Jesus hanging on the cross one day and decided to prank the disciples by stealing the body, hiding it somewhere, and then appearing before the disciples telling them that He was the risen Lord.

This theory is kind of silly, to be frank… Turek. It’s obviously ad-hoc as there’s no reason to believe it other than a desire to avoid declaring with the Christians “He is risen!”. Aside from the blatant ad-hoc nature of this hypothesis, it has several problems.

For one thing, are we expected to believe that no one was smart enough to figure out that this person was not Jesus?  The twin would not have known the disciples very well. As a result of that, he would not have been able to copy Jesus’ mannerisms and personality. The disciples would very likely have gotten suspicious. “Jesus, you okay? You’re not acting like yourself”. Moreover, the twin would not have been able to walk through walls, nor could the twin have been able to ascend to Heaven.

Theory 10: The Alien Theory

And now for the alien theory. When I first heard of this theory, I literally burst out laughing. This theory simply shows the desperate lengths people will go to in order to avoid declaring Jesus Christ is Lord. The Alien Theory suggests that Jesus was really an alien from outer space and that Jesus was able to do things that were natural for him, but that seemed supernatural for everyone else around him. Jesus’ special alien powers are what caused him to heal from his crucifixion wounds and appear before the disciples.

1: We have absolutely no evidence that aliens even exist. 

Astronomers have not yet located a planet that can sustain life other than our own. Even if we did discover life forms on other planets, it’s still unlikely that they would have the exact same abilities that Jesus has in The Bible.

2: The amount of time spent by the Jesus alien convincing people that he was their Messiah is absurd. 

What alien would spend three years just to pull a prank on some unsuspecting Earthlings? Three years? This is like the longest episode of Punk’d ever! Do you honestly expect me to believe that this Jesus Alien would waste three years of his life fooling these Earthlings into thinking that He was their promised Messiah? Why not just put some whoopee cushions under peoples’ seats, or put some fake snakes in peoples’ cabinets? Why such a long-lasting prank? I know of no prankster who is that dedicated to his hoaxes.

3: There is no motivation for the Jesus alien to endure the suffering of being scourged and crucified.

Forget the fact that there’s absolutely no evidence to support this theory at all, what I’m wondering is why this alien would go through all the trouble in convincing a bunch of Earthlings that he was the messiah of their Jewish religion and then end up being tortured horribly for such a scam. Jesus is either the intelligent designer or a stupid alien. He had many chances to escape his horrible fate, such as when Caiaphas asked him point blank “Are you the messiah? Son of the living God?” By then he should have known he was in deep doo-doo. He should have said “Me? Messiah? No no no no no.” and then he would take off running, be beamed up to his spaceship and got the heck outta dodge. But no, instead, he dug his grave even further by saying “I am and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Father and coming with the clouds of Heaven.” Again, liars make bad martyrs…even if that liar is an alien.

Part of me can’t help but wonder if this theory was posed as a joke. I only addressed it because I wanted to cover all the bases.

The Best Explanation: He Is Risen! 

In his book “Justifying Historical Descriptions,” CB McCullagh[12]  puts forth several criteria which historians use for assessing historical theories. These criteria are (1) explanatory scope, (2) explanatory power, (3) plausibility, (4) not being ad hoc/contrived, (5) being in agreement with established beliefs, and (6) outstripping its’ rival theories. The “He Is Risen” hypothesis passes every single one of these tests with flying colors. The same cannot be said about the various naturalistic theories we looked at.

Explanatory Scope: It explains why the body of Jesus was not in His tomb, why hundreds of people on different occasions believed they saw Jesus alive after His crucifixion, and it also explains the conversion of the church persecutor Saul Of Tarsus (i.e., Paul). It also explains the conversion of the skeptic James. It explains every single piece of data that requires an explanation. The best of the naturalistic theories explain only one minimal fact at most. But the majority don’t even explain that many.

Explanatory Power: It explains why the tomb of Jesus was vacant, why folks kept seeing Jesus alive on numerous occasions, in spite of the fact that He was killed days before on a Roman cross.

Plausibility: Given the background of Jesus’ life and claims, the resurrection is an authentication of those claims.

Ad Hoc: You know a theory is ad hoc if it requires the making of quite a few other theories to save itself from being proven to be erroneous. The resurrection hypothesis is not that kind of explanation. It only requires the subsequent declaration to be true: it is possible that God exists.

In accord with accepted beliefs: I can hear the voice of the skeptic now screaming “People who die stay dead, stupid! Science has proven that dead people don’t come back to life!”, This is not a valid objection. The hypothesis isn’t that Jesus rose from the dead by natural causes, but that God raised Jesus from the dead via a miracle. This does not conflict with the conventional belief that people cannot and do not rise from the dead, naturally.

Outstripping Rival Theories: We’ve seen that none of the naturalistic theories can adequately explain all of the data. Only the resurrection hypothesis succeeds in criteria 1-4 above, and should, therefore, be preferred.

The best explanation of the five minimal facts is that “He Is Risen”!

There are no naturalistic theories that can explain the 5 minimal facts. The only theory that can explain all of them is a supernaturalistic theory.

Notes 

[1] It appears that I’ve been looking at too many doggo and pupper memes.

[2] To see some of the sources reporting these, check out part 5 of this blog post series.

[3] Charles Colson, “An Unholy Hoax? The Authenticity of Christ,” BreakPoint syndicated column 020329, (29 March 2002).

[4] Strobel, Lee. 1997. God’s Outrageous Claims: Discover What They Mean for You. p. 215, Zondervan

[5] Gary Habermas, Michael Licona, “The Case For The Resurrection Of Jesus,” pages 105-106, Kregel

[6] The Jews of the first century got their prophecies mixed up. Jesus will indeed get rid of all the evil in the world, He will overthrow Israel’s oppressors, but He’ll do this in His second coming. In His first coming, He was to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2 cf. Isaiah 53).

[7]See Dr. Alexander Methrell’s interview with Lee Strobel in “The Case For Christ,” chapter 11, page 195, published by Zondervan

[8] Lumpkin R: The physical suffering of Christ. J Med. Assoc Ala 1978,47:8-10,47.

[9] No, I’m not a trained medical professional. I’m getting all of this information primarily from three sources; Doctor Alexander Methrell, from his interview with Lee Strobel in The Case For Christ, the 1986 edition of The Journal Of American Medical Assosiation, and the documentary “Crucifixion” which I saw on The History Channel a few Good Fridays ago. While I’m not an expert in this field, I’m drawing on the expertise of those who are, so don’t try to argue with me ad hominem. 

[10] A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 188-91.

[11] Habermas, Gary R.; Licona, Michael R.. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (p. 113). Kregel Publications. Kindle Edition.

[12] C. Behan McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 19.

 

Original Blog Source:  http://bit.ly/2KE8GHW

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No Real Jesus Without The Trinity

No Real Jesus Without The Trinity

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By Marcia Montenegro

The Trinity may be a rather neglected doctrine in the church today, even seen as secondary by many. In this article, we’ll consider some of the responses from Christians and non-Christians objecting to the importance of the necessary doctrine of the Trinity and evaluate them.

Non-Trinitarians may seem to be Christian, especially in their avowal for a love for Jesus, but if the Trinity issue is raised, they will usually denounce it as a non-issue, pagan, evil, a man-made doctrine, not a Bible teaching, etc. All non-Trinitarians deny the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

The main question is this: If the Trinity is not true, then where does that leave Jesus?

There are many Christian scholars who have written books on this topic – both on the Trinity and on anti-trinitarian views, giving responses. I have resources listed at the end for those who want to read further.

Objections to the Trinity and Responses

Objection: “Well, nobody really understands the Trinity, so if people don’t adhere to it it’s okay.”

It is true that no one fully understands the Trinity because we are dealing with God’s’ nature. Since God is not created, we as created beings cannot fully grasp the full nature of God. However, he has revealed his attributes in his word, and we can know a lot of things about God.

Since God is uncreated, the Trinity has no counterpart on earth. That is why there is no analogy for it. Most analogies fit modalism (God taking on the roles of three Persons) or tri-theism (three Persons rather than a unity of one), and quickly break down when examined. I do not use an analogy. I say that God is three co-eternal co-equal Persons who are one substance. “Persons,” by the way, does not mean a human person but is the accepted way to describe the three in the Trinity.

Other ways to describe the Trinity:

  • There is one and only one God.
  • God eternally exists in three distinct persons.
  • The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.
  • The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Spirit, etc.[1]

Objection: “As long as they believe in Jesus, that’s all that matters.”

But who is the Jesus they are believing in?

There are two main heresies on the Trinity:

  • Oneness or Modalism (sometimes called Sabellianism, named after the 3rd century heretic Sabellius) teaches that God is one person (a Unitarian view of God) who manifests as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and/or one God who has 3 roles or “workings” as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
  • Arianism (named after the 3rd/4th-century heretic Arius) teaches that Jesus is a created being and is lesser than God.

The modalist view includes:

  • Jesus is God the Father
  • Jesus is the “flesh” of God
  • The Holy Spirit is part of God/Jesus
  • The Father is the “divine nature,” and Jesus is “the human nature” of God

In contrast, the Bible unequivocally gives this information:

  • Jesus is the Son of God, distinct from the Father; Jesus cannot be the Son of God if he is also God the Father
  • Jesus spoke of his Father in many passages
  • Jesus prayed to the Father
  • Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about how God sent him (Jesus) to earth
  • The Holy Spirit is given the same attributes of deity as God[2]

Illustration of The Trinity

The Holy Spirit is given personal traits and spoken of as a Person, not as a mere force, power, or energy.[3]

Some Oneness followers will say that when Jesus prayed to God in heaven, it was the human nature praying to the divine nature. But natures don’t pray, individuals pray. Also, it would be deceptive on God’s part to make it appear as though Jesus is praying to someone else when, in fact, he is not.

The Arian Jesus of the non-Trinity, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Christadelphians, the Way, and other cults, is a created being. He has a beginning and is not equal to the Father. This is clearly a false Jesus and is easier to refute than the modalist/Oneness Jesus, which is arguably more deceptive and more difficult to refute.

Arius (250-336) taught that Jesus was a created, finite being, and he was declared a heretic by the Council of Nicea in 325. So it is not the true Jesus if it is a Modalist/Oneness Jesus or the Arian Jesus, and therefore, belief in such a Jesus is fruitless.

Objection: “We aren’t saved by perfect doctrine.”

No, we are not saved by doctrine but by faith, but that faith must be an informed faith. If our doctrine about who Jesus or God is is wrong, then we don’t have faith in the right Jesus. We can have minor things wrong, but not about who Jesus is, because then we have a wrong Jesus, making him non-salvific.

Doctrine merely means “teaching.” The teachings about who God and Jesus are must be true and based on God’s revelation in Scripture. Otherwise, it’s a counterfeit God or Jesus. This is really quite basic. This objection is a straw man.

Just because the word “Jesus” is used by Oneness followers or by Arians does not mean it is the right Jesus. Pay attention to statements of faith because Oneness statements of faith can be quite tricky in their deception. They may say they believe in the “Triune God” without meaning the biblical Trinity.

Modalists can affirm the Apostles’ Creed without belief in the Trinity. They read their own meaning into who Jesus is. An example is the Statement of Beliefs on the website of Dan Dean’s Oneness church (Phillips, Craig & Dean). It gives the Apostles’ Creed as their beliefs, along with other statements. There is no affirmation of the Trinity and no statement clarifying the personhood of the Holy Spirit (because they are a Oneness church[4]).

Who is Jesus if the Trinity is Not True

If there is no Trinity, where does that leave Jesus? Here are the choices:

  1. He is a lower god
  2. He is another god
  3. He is not really the Son of God but is God the Father
  4. He is just a man and has no deity

These points clearly answer the question, “If the Trinity is not true, then where does that leave Jesus?” It leaves Jesus as a false Jesus. This should establish why the Trinity is an essential of the faith and cannot be denied by anyone who calls him/herself a Christian. It is good to point these out to someone who says the doctrine of the Trinity is not essential or primary.

Well-Known Anti-Trinitarians

There are many well-known people who were/are Anti-Trinitarians, dead and alive; below each name is a link or two exposing their anti-Trinitarian beliefs.

  • William Branham (Modalism), a hugely influential figure on erroneous and cultic movements in the church today; there are Branham teachings and followers around the world [5][6]
  • D. Jakes, Modalism [7][8]
  • Phillips, Craig, & Dean (Modalism) [9][10] [11]
  • Roy Masters, Arianism [12][13]
  • Ron Dart, similar to Arianism, still heard on Christian radio [14][15]
  • The Armstrong cults (Worldwide Church of God), polytheism (the Father and Jesus separate gods) [16] [17][18] [19]
  • The Way (formerly The Way International), Arianism [20][21]

A Few Verses on the Trinity (there are many more)

“And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:16, 17

“Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He [Jesus] has poured forth this which you both see and hear.” Acts 2:33

“You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” (Acts. 10:38)

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My [Jesus’] name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:26)

“When the Helper comes, whom I [Jesus] will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me…” (John 15:26)

“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Hebrews 9:14)

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.” (2 Corinthians 13:14)

Additional Resources on the Trinity

(Selected list, not exhaustive)

  • Arianism [22]
  • Modalism [23]
  • Oneness Pentecostalism [24]
  • What are Sabellianism, Modalism, and Monarchism [25]
  • The Athanasian Creed confessing the Trinity [26]
  • CANA post, Modalism is an Attack on God [27]
  • Why the Trinity Is An Essential Doctrine [28]
  • Jesus Christ Our Creator, A Biblical Defence of the Trinity [29]
  • Oneness Pentecostalism from NAMB (North American Mission Board of the SBC) [30]
  • Oneness Pentecostalism and the Trinity [31]
  • The Biblical Basis for the Doctrine of the Trinity [32]
  • Faith Groups that Reject the Trinity [33]

Books on the Trinity

  • A Definitive Look at Oneness Theology: In the Light of Biblical Trinitarianism by Edward Dalcour
  • Oneness Pentecostals and the Trinity by Gregory Boyd
  • Jesus Only Churches by E. Calvin Beisner
  • Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses by Robert Bowman

References

[1] Theopedia, https://www.theopedia.com/trinity

[2] The Trinity, CARM

[3] See numbers 3 and 4 on https://carm.org/verses-showing-identity-ministry-and-personhood-holy-spirit

[4] http://theheartlandchurch.com/beliefs/

[5] https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/branhamismprofile.pdf

[6] http://www.apologeticsindex.org/5870-william-branham

[7] http://www.equip.org/article/concerns-about-the-teachings-of-t-d-jakes/

[8] CANA article on T. D. Jakes’ slippery language on the Trinity http://www.solasisters.com/2012/01/td-jakes-through-glass-blurrily.html

[9] http://hereiblog.com/modalism-revisted-phillips-craig-dean/

[10] https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2013/01/05/blurring-the-dividing-linethe-legacy-of-phillipscraig-and-dean/

[11] https://rootedinchrist.org/2008/01/01/phillips-craig-dean-and-the-united-pentecostal-church-upci-oneness-pentecostals/

[12] Walter Martin exposes Masters’ heretical beliefs in a debate with Masters https://soundcloud.com/steven-j-aronfeld/roy-masters-debates-walter

[13] CANA post on Masters, https://www.facebook.com/FormerNewAger/posts/10153497822822237

[14] http://www.soundwitness.org/evangel/ronald_dart_anti-trinitarian.htm

[15] http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2015/07/heresy-alert.html

[16] https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/armstrongismprofile.pdf

[17] https://www.gotquestions.org/Worldwide-Church-God-Armstrongism.html

[18] https://www.gotquestions.org/Worldwide-Church-God-Armstrongism.html

[19] https://www.watchman.org/articles/cults-alternative-religions/history-of-armstrongism/

[20] https://www.watchman.org/profiles/pdf/wayprofile.pdf

[21] https://carm.org/way-international

[22] Theopedia goo.gl/HjnvyY

[23] Theopedia goo.gl/ATjpBY

[24] goo.gl/SwZtUU

[25] Got Questions (4 articles) goo.gl/dsANZ6

[26] goo.gl/5m5Axy

[27] goo.gl/GtFbKZ

[28] J. Warner Wallace, http://bit.ly/1L8KRAT

[29] Jonathan Safarti, goo.gl/jXebGb

[30] goo.gl/ug2AQL

[31] Robert Bowman, Jr. goo.gl/5QWmtn

[32] Robert Bowman, Jr., goo.gl/ehfzUU

[33] goo.gl/nRECCC

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2rJ1frd

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Is Christianity useful anymore

Is Christianity useful anymore? The younger generations don’t seem to think so

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By Michael Sherrard

According to recent research, the coming generations have no use for Christianity anymore. I’m sure you’ve seen what these sociological studies have found: the younger the generation, the more post-Christian it is. Young Americans are less inclined to believe in heaven and hell, that scripture is the word of God, that Satan is real, or that God even exists. They pray less, go to church less, and give less money to the church than the older generations.

Many are abandoning Christianity altogether.

One out of five adults considers themselves to be “former Christians.” And to put this in perspective, it means that there are four former Christians for every new convert to Christianity. In fact, the “former Christians” combined with atheists and agnostics now comprise one of the largest religious groups in America, the religiously unaffiliated. And the largest percentage of them are young adults. One out of three young adults claims no religious affiliation.

So why have the younger generations walked away from the faith and what can we do about it? Is it merely that they don’t believe it’s true or useful anymore?

I think an answer is found in Deuteronomy. The sixth chapter teaches us that it is the responsibility of the older generations to pass on the word of God to the younger generations. Particularly, it is the job of parents. Our children must learn from us what it means to follow God.

Have they? Have they learned from us?

Our children have learned many things from us, I’m sure. We have taught them the importance of education. We have paid for tutors and piano lessons. We have plugged them into sports and paid for private athletic training. We have done so much to prepare them for adulthood. But have we passed on to them the thing of greatest importance?

At this point, I can answer with good confidence the question Why have the younger generations abandoned Christianity? The answer is because we have.

Or if we haven’t abandoned it ourselves, we certainly have not passed it on to the next generation. Study after study shows us what we already know to be true. Virtually no young adult knows what the Bible teaches. Young adults simply don’t know anything about Christianity. I’m not sure, then, that it is right to say that young adults are walking away from Christianity. It seems as though they’ve never been introduced to it.

So what are to do? It is simple. Know God’s word yourself and teach it to the next generation. But we must not only teach it. We must use it ourselves. One of the impressive things about the younger generations is that they can spot a phony a mile away. Younger generations need to see Christianity, not just hear about it.

I taught high school for seven years. “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” I’m kidding. I love high school students. Do you know what question students ask more than any other? It’s, “When am I ever going to use this?” And this is precisely the right question for a student to ask.

I wonder. Have our young adults seen an answer to “when they are ever going to use Christianity?” Have they seen it go well for us because we have faithfully obeyed God’s word? Again, if we want the next generation to embrace the goodness of following Jesus Christ they must see it’s goodness in us. Therefore, do not only teach them the word of God but show it to them. Display its power in the way you live.

Finally, along with knowing God’s word and seeing us use it, the next generation must understand God’s word. Deuteronomy 6:20 tells us that we are to give our children an answer when they ask What is the meaning of God’s word? Sadly, far too many children and teenagers are met with a shush and a “just have faith” instead of an answer when they ask a sincere question about Christianity.

But God does not expect us to have blind faith. Moreover, He doesn’t want it. He does not ask us to merely follow because He said so end of story. He expects us and allows us to ask sincere and humble questions. For in asking genuine questions, one is seeking understanding. God wants us to love him with our mind. He wants true, sincere followers, not programmed machines.

So young adults. You should ask Why does God let bad things happen to good people?

You should ask How do you know the bible is the word of God and not some forgery?

You should ask How do you know Jesus actually rose from the dead?

You should ask Why should I follow God’s teachings?

And adult’s, you better get ready to give them an answer. But be encouraged for there are answers. Now, don’t be overwhelmed by this. It’s okay if you don’t have all the answers. Nobody does, well, except Google. You can trust everything you find on google.

Seriously, though, “I don’t know” is a perfectly acceptable answer to a question you don’t have an answer for. But “just have faith” isn’t. Do not tell our younger generations to be quiet, stop asking questions, just believe and fall in line. If you do, they will eventually fall out. And we are seeing precisely this happen every day.

Church, adults, parents- embrace the questions from the younger generations and find answers. They exist! Christianity is reasonable. It is true. It matches reality. It is the best explanation for the way things are. And it is the answer for all that is wrong.

So, may you know God’s word. May you teach God’s word. May you live out God’s word. And may you grow in understanding of God’s word. And may you and your son and your son’s son reap all the blessings that come from faithfully following Jesus Christ.

 

Michael C. Sherrard is a pastor, the director of Ratio Christi College Prep, and the author of Relational Apologetics. Booking info and such can be found at michaelcsherrard.com.

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Theistic Foundation of Science, parte 3

Theistic Foundation of Science, part 3

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By Ken Mann

Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 3

We have been considering five presuppositions of science and how they can be explained by Christian theism. In the previous post we considered first three, here we will address the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.

An Understandable World

We now turn to the significant mystery of why the world is understandable. From the perspective of naturalism, how or why this is the case usually boils down to a story describing how the evolutionary process increased brain capacity which led to a greater ability to survive. The purely physical view says the size and complexity of our brain is the reason we can understand the world.

However, there is a flaw in this argument as described by Alvin Plantinga in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. In short, there is an important distinction between survival and truth. Evolution is a process that favors the capacity to survive, but that does not guarantee that our reasoning processes or our senses can be trusted, merely that they have facilitated our ability to survive. Patricia Churchland, a philosopher who embraces naturalism, made the following observation: “Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four F’s: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems is to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive… Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost.”[1] In other words, what governs survival is behavior, not beliefs. Beliefs do directly cause behaviors. In fact, a combination of beliefs, desires, and other factors lead to behavior. So it is more than conceivable that false beliefs about the world can lend themselves to survival just as well as true ones.

The evolutionary story is in stark contrast to how Christian theism not only explains why

creation is understandable but also the motivated observation as a part of science. Let’s consider three aspects of the intelligibility of creation: the nature of man, the nature of creation, and the transition from reason to observation.

The Nature of Man. The most foundational and misunderstood aspect of the nature of man, as described in the Bible, is that humanity was created in the image of God. I would like to offer three observations about this theologically deep topic.

First, the naturalist’s wooden interpretation of this phrase leads to the idea that God is physical being like us. In truth, God is an immaterial and transcendent being. Therefore whatever “image of God” means it cannot mean something merely physical.

Second, it is helpful to see this phrase in terms of the attributes of God that have been shared with humanity. God is a personal being, meaning He has mind, will, and emotions. In this way, human persons are finite examples of God. We have a mind that allows us to think, to reason.

We have a will that allows us to make decisions, to have intentions and purposes. We have emotions that allow us to experience relationships.

Third, there are attributes of God that cannot be shared with humanity. For example, God is infinite versus humanity being finite. In terms of knowledge, God is omniscient. In terms of time, God is eternal, without beginning or end. God is self-existent while humanity is contingent.

We exist because God created us, but God’s existence is not dependent on anything else.

We have a finite version of God’s rational capacities to reason and have intentions. Humanity and creation are the products of the same rational mind. Therefore, it makes sense we would have the capacity to understand creation.

An Object of Study not Worship. Christianity stands apart from other religions in its perspective toward creation. In contrast to many cultures and religions that believed creation was populated by gods, the Bible de-deifies the world. This allowed humanity to study rather than worship creation. As Nancy Pearcey explains: “The monotheism of the Bible exorcised the gods of nature, freeing humanity to enjoy and investigate it without fear. When the world was no longer an object of worship, then-and only then-could it becomes an object of study.”[2]

From reason to observation. A final observation about how Christian theism explains why creation is understandable can be found in the origins of the theological view know as voluntarism. During the Middle Ages, theologians such as Thomas Aquinas wrestled with reconciling with certain aspects of Aristotle’s views of nature with orthodox views of God and creation. For Aristotle, nature was understood to the extent that the purpose of any object or creature could be discerned. Once the purpose was understood nothing else needed to be known.

Regarding God and the nature of the universe Aristotle believed “that the ultimate rational causes of things in God’s mind could be discovered by the human reason; and that he had in fact discovered those causes, so that the universe must necessarily be constituted as he had described it, and could not be otherwise.”[3]

As various thinkers started proposing views that directly undermined the nature of God, based on an application of Aristotle’s views, the Church reacted. In 1277 the Bishop of Paris published a list of 219 statements condemning any statement that limited God’s freedom of action regarding creation. Some specific examples of physical concepts Aristotle believed clarify the intention of the Bishop’s condemnations. For example, Aristotle believed that a vacuum was physically impossible, heavenly objects can only move in circles, and ballistic motion (e.g. a baseball) was sustained by displaced air pushing the moving object.

The condemnations did not limit the work of natural philosophers (a term that referred to theologians who studied nature). Instead, it freed them from continued adherence to Aristotle’s views on the natural world. A new form of theology, known as voluntarism, was inspired.

According to Pearcey, “Voluntarism insisted that the structure of the universe-indeed, its very existence-is not rationally necessary but is contingent upon the free and transcendent will of God.”[4]

Voluntarism inspired and justified what we would refer to today as an experimental methodology. It established that the nature of creation could not be found via reason alone. We must observe nature to understand what the creator did. The need for observation, a foundational concept within science, was discovered by 13th century Christians attempting to defend the nature of God while thinking about the study of nature.

An Expressible World

Finally, let’s consider the existence of mathematics. As was noted in a previous post, mathematics as a discipline is completely devoted to abstract concepts. These concepts are frequently applied to physical reality as tools of explanation, and description. They sometimes even guide future research in disciplines like physics. Not only is the naturalist viewpoint unable to explain the existence of mathematics, it cannot acknowledge the existence of the abstract objects that make it possible.

The laws of nature, as noted above, are written in the language of mathematics. The character Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, called mathematics the only universal language. According to Christianity, by virtue of sharing aspects of God’s nature, we are given access to that language. By describing nature via theories and mathematics, we are “thinking God’s thoughts.”

This points to an obvious and delightful concept that God created humanity to know Him directly through Jesus and indirectly through creation.

The heavens are telling of the glory of God;

And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.

Day to day pours forth speech,

And night to night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech, nor are there words;

Their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their utterances to the end of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4

We have now completed looking at five presuppositions of science and how they are grounded within Christianity. As I bring this series on foundations of science to a close, I hope I have made it clear that Christianity, far from being hostile or impeding science actually played a significant role in the thinking that made science possible. No matter how many secularists today denigrate Christian theism or the historical role it played, they cannot escape the idea that the study of nature serves two important ends: glorifying God and serving man.

In the next part of this series, we will look at some of the models, which describe how Christianity and science interact.

Biography

Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and

Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.

DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big

Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.

Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo, Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-

Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Notes

[1] Journal of Philosophy 84 [October 87], p. 548

[2] Pearcey, The Soul of Science, Kindle Locations 191–193.

[3] Ibid., Kindle Locations 295–297.

[4] Ibid., Kindle Locations 289–290.

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The Postmortem Appearances To Paul and James

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 6: Facts (4) and (5) The Postmortem Appearances To Paul and James

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by Evan Minton

This is part 6 in a blog post series on the evidence for the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection. The Minimal Facts Case for the resurrection of Jesus is what I’ve been defending the past 5 articles, and in part 2, I explained what a minimal facts approach is. Part of a minimal facts approach is a two-step process: (1) establishing 5 historical facts through the use of “the criteria of authenticity” and (2) discerning what the best explanation is for those 5 facts. In part 3, we saw that the historical evidence that Jesus died by Romans crucifixion is overwhelming, establishing the first of the five minimal facts. In part 4, we examined several pieces of evidence that Jesus’ tomb was found empty by a group of his women followers the following Sunday after His crucifixion. In the previous blog post, we saw that the historical evidence is strong that Jesus’ twelve disciples had visual experiences of Jesus after His death.

There are 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.

3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.
In this blog post, we shall look at the evidence for those last two minimal facts, and then we’ll move on to figuring out what the best explanation of these 5 facts are.

The Church Persecutor Paul

It’s pretty obvious that Paul claimed to be an eyewitness of the resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15:8, immediately after citing the early resurrection creed, he said: “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared to me also.” Earlier in that same letter, he asked rhetorically “Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). So, from Paul’s own pen he tells us that he had a postmortem appearance experience.
However, some skeptics may balk and say “Yeah, he said he saw Jesus raised from the dead. But anyone can claim anything. I can claim I saw Santa Claus leaving toys under my Christmas tree last December. That doesn’t make it true. How do we know Paul isn’t just lying?” This is a fair question. This is why in prior writings, instead of merely pointing to where Paul says he saw Jesus, I made an inferential case for his postmortem appearance. There are several historical facts about Paul which, if you ask me, only make sense if Paul actually had a postmortem appearance experience.

*Before Paul Was A Christian, He Was A Persecutor Of The Church

We have good historical evidence that prior to becoming a Christian, Paul was a persecutor of Christians. How do we know? Because in his epistles, he says he was. In 1 Corinthians 15:9, after citing the creed to the Corinthians, Paul said “For I am the least of the apostles and do not deserve even to be called an apostle because I persecuted the church of God”, likewise in Galatians 1:13-14, Paul said “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” In 1 Timothy 1:13, Paul said: “Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.”
Now, I am inclined to believe that Paul is telling the truth here on the basis of three reasons.

1: The Principle of Embarrassment. The principle of embarrassment states that if an author mentions something that is embarrassing to himself, embarrassing to someone he cares about, hurts an argument he’s trying to make, or is in any way detrimental to him, yet he mentions it anyway, it’s very likely not to be made up. People make up lies to make themselves look good; they don’t makeup lies to make themselves look bad. Paul is mentioning details about himself that cast him in a pretty bad light.

Think it about it for a moment; if you were writing a letter to someone, would you lie about having a drug abuse problem that you don’t actually have? If you were writing a letter to some friends, would you make up lies about how you terrorized your local neighborhood? “Dear Todd, I’m doing well here in my new home in North Carolina. By the way, I became a Christian, but prior to doing so, I went into churches and cut Christians’ heads off en masse. From, Bobby.” Are you going to just make stuff like that up? I don’t think so! You probably wouldn’t even admit something like that even if it were true! But you especially wouldn’t say that if were not true. People don’t makeup lies that make themselves look bad! Paul would never say that he was a persecutor of the church if it wasn’t true. Paul would never say that he purposefully went around terrorizing people if that didn’t actually reflect reality.
2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation. Not only does Paul say that he was a persecutor of the church, but Luke mentions it as well in the book of Acts (8:1-4, 9:1-2). Paul and Luke are independent sources, and therefore, there are multiple attestations to Paul being a persecutor. It is highly unlikely that both Paul and Luke independently fabricated the same lie. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we have good reason to believe that Paul persecuted the church.

3: Paul Had A Reputation

Let’s keep something in mind here: in all of the epistles, Paul is writing to someone. And in Galatians 1:13, Paul said “For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (emphasis mine). Paul says that he had a reputation for being a persecutor of the church, and tells his readers that they knew of that reputation. Now, if Paul wasn’t really a persecutor of the church, his readers would have immediately called him out for lying. You don’t say “You know about that bad stuff I did. You’ve heard about it.” to someone unless you did the thing you’re talking about.

*Paul Became A Christian, And Then Suffered And Died For Preaching The Gospel

Paul obviously became a Christian himself sometime after persecuting Christians. Like with the disciples, we know that Paul actually believed the message he was preaching because he endured terrible suffering throughout his life for the sake of the gospel, and was eventually killed for his Christian faith. Seven Independent sources attest to Paul’s suffering and martyrdom.

Paul himself recounts instances of his suffering. “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have constantly been on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:24-28

Some of the specific sufferings mentioned by Paul in 2 Corinthians are also reported by Luke. One of the shipwrecks was recorded in Acts 27:14-44, Paul was stoned in Acts 14:19, and Acts 16:22-24 records an instance of Paul being scourged. The book of Acts records several other hardships Paul endured for being a Christian, but I won’t mention them here.
Clement of Rome[1], Tertullian[2], and Dionysius of Corinth[3] (cited by Eusebius) mention his martyrdom. Polycarp[4] and Origen[5] record it as well. Paul was beheaded during the harsh persecution of Emperor Nero in the A.D 60s.

In all, we have 7 independent sources that testify that Paul suffered and died for preaching the gospel. On the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we, therefore, have good grounds for affirming that Paul actually did suffer and died for the gospel.

*The Best Explanation: Paul Actually Saw Jesus 

Now, how do we account for Paul’s radical, sudden change from Christian destroyer to Christian leader? From someone who caused martyrs deaths to someone who died a martyr’s death himself? I can think of no other explanation than the one Paul himself gave, “Then he appeared to me also, as to one untimely born.” (1 Corinthians 15:8). I think this is the only logical way to explain why Paul would go from terrorizing Christians to trying to persuade people to become Christians (even to the point of horrid suffering). Again, you can try to explain away Paul’s postmortem appearance experience if you want to, but you have no grounds to deny it altogether.

The Skeptic James 

We now come to our fifth and final minimal fact: the conversion of the skeptic James. The Gospels tell us that Jesus had several siblings. Jesus’ siblings included James, Jude, Simon, plus some sisters whose names were never given. Most skeptics I’ve conversed with love to go after this minimal fact because they say it has the least amount of evidence for it. After all, it’s not mentioned anywhere except in one line, and that line is in the creed cited by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

Nevertheless, I still think we have good grounds for affirming that this appearance occurred. First of all, as I said in the previous blog post, we have good reason to believe Paul got the creed from James himself. Secondly, the creed is extremely early (just 5 years after the death of Jesus) so had James not really experienced a postmortem appearance, he could have publically rebuked Paul for lying. The severe earliness of the creedal tradition and the probability that Paul got the creed from James has to count for something, right?
However, I think that just as with Paul, we can make an inferential argument for the postmortem appearance to James.

*James Was A Skeptic During Jesus’ Lifetime 

James and his other brothers, we are told, were not believers during Jesus’ lifetime. We know this based on:

1: The Principle Of Embarrassment

It was embarrassing for a rabbi’s family to not accept him back in those days. It was embarrassing for a rabbi’s family to be opposed to him in some way or another back in those days. So this isn’t very flattering for Jesus, but it gets worse! In fact, Mark 3:20-35 tells us that Jesus’ family thought he was crazy and that they had come to seize him and take him home! This doesn’t paint Jesus or His family in a very good light, given the stigmatism back then. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that the gospel writers would have invented skepticism on the part of Jesus’ brother James.

In fact, John 7 recounts a rather nasty story where Jesus’ brothers try to goad him into a death trap by showing himself publicly at a feast when they knew that the Jewish leaders were trying to kill him! Jesus’ brothers were trying to sabotage him! Why in the world would John place Jesus’ brothers in such an ugly light if such an event never took place?

2: The Principle Of Multiple Attestation 

Not only does Mark mention it (chapter 3), but John mentions it as well (chapter 7). Mark and John are independent sources, and therefore, James’ skepticism is multiply attested. So, we’ve established that James was a skeptic.

*Just A Short Time After Jesus’ Death, James Came To Believe That Jesus Had Risen From The Dead. 

Even though James was a skeptic, we know that later in the early church, James emerges as one of the pillars of the New Testament church, and one of the leaders of the church.

Moreover, he was eventually martyred.

Multiple Attestation

This is mentioned in both the book of Acts (21:17-20) as well as by Paul in his letter to the Galatians (2:9). Again, Paul and Luke are independently reporting this. Thus, we know this on the principle of multiple attestations.

*James Was Martyred For His Christian Faith

Multiple Attestation 

We have the testimony of Flavius Josephus, Hegesippus, and Clement Of Alexandria[6] that James was martyred for his belief in his brother as the risen Christ. James’ martyrdom is multiply attested in these three sources.

*The Most Likely Explanation For Why James Went From Being A Skeptic To Being A Believer Virtually Overnight Is That The Risen Jesus Appeared To Him As 1 Corinthians 5:7 says. 

I think the best explanation for James’ rapid conversion is that he believed the risen Jesus appeared to him.

New Testament critic Reginald H. Fuller says “Even if there were not an appearance to James mentioned by Paul, we should have to invent one to explain the transformation that occurred in James between the time of his unbelieving days when Jesus was alive and his time of leadership in the early church”[7]

That’s exactly the argument I’m making here. 1 Corinthians 15:7 aside, we have historically established that James was (1) a skeptic prior to Jesus’ death, (2) shortly became a Christian following Jesus’ death, and was willing to die for his Christian faith. How can we explain James’ overnight transformation if not that James had an experience which he perceived to be a visitation of the risen Jesus? I don’t think we can.

Conclusion 
We have come to the end of the first step. We have historically established 5 facts which will undergird our inference to Jesus’ resurrection.

The 5 minimal facts that undergird the inference to the resurrection are:
1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: Jesus’ tomb was empty the following Sunday.

3: The disciples experienced postmortem appearances.

4: A church persecutor named Paul converted to Christianity on the basis of what he perceived to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

5: The skeptic James converted on the basis of what he perceived as a postmortem appearance.

In the next blog post, we’ll see what is the best explanation of these 5 facts. At face value, it seems like The Resurrection Hypothesis is how we should explain them. However, perhaps we should examine other alternatives before we appeal to the supernatural.

Notes 

[1] Clement Of Rome, 1 Clement 5:2-7

[2] Scorpiace, 15, in Roberts, Donaldson, and Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers.

[3] H.E. 2.26;

[4] Polycarp, “To The Philippians,” 9.2

[5] Origen, as cited by Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History

[6] Josephus, Antiquities Book 20, Chapter 9, Hegesippus as cited in “Eusebius. Church History Book II Chapter 23. The Martyrdom of James, who was called the Brother of the Lord”, Clement Of Alexandria, also cited by Eusebius in ibid.

[7] Reginald H. Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives (New York: Macmillan, 1980), 10.

 

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

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Human Nature According to Darwin – A Christian Response

Human Nature According to Darwin – A Christian Response

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By Ken Mann

The following is was delivered as a plenary session at a Biola on the Road conference in April 2017 at Faith Bible Church in Houston Texas.

Introduction

Charles Darwin. Evolution. Perhaps no other man and no other idea have had a wider influence on western culture. Since On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was first published in 1859, how we perceive our world and ourselves has been transformed. For those who have embraced Darwinism, humanity and every other living thing are the end products of a natural process. There is no Creator. There is no purpose. There is just survival. Humanity is a cosmic accident.

Since as early as 1888, scientists and academics have asserted that Darwinian evolution is a fact as certain as gravity. The momentum behind Darwin’s theory strengthened in the 20th century to the point that nearly every aspect of human behavior and culture has been subjected to an evolutionary explanation. Today, scientists who are merely skeptical about evolution risk losing their jobs if their views become known.

In the face of such an onslaught, what should a Christian think? In my own experience, I was always convinced that evolution was false. Not because I knew anything about it. Rather, I was certain of the existence of God and the reliability of the New Testament. I believed I had adequate justification to believe in a literal Adam and Eve, in the Fall, and in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

But for many years I was plagued by an internal conflict. Setting aside evolution, I have always loved science. Since studying physics in college, I have adhered to the adage that science is “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.” Despite the myriad of apparent conflicts between science and religion, I suspected that Psalm 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God, meant that the study of creation was compatible with the Christian worldview.

Then in 2010, I enrolled in the Science and Religion program at Biola. During my first year, I took a class that focused on Darwin. At the time, Darwin seemed like the Mt. Everest of a “Science and Religion” program. Looking back on it now, this subject embodied everything that made the program so valuable. The tools I learned and the confidence I gained have transformed my Faith.

I always rejected evolution not because I understood the science, philosophy or history that surrounds it, but because I trusted God more. Today, I know the reasons why Darwinian evolution is not fact, and I should emphasize, none of them are based on Christian doctrine.

That might alarm some of you so let me explain. There are many myths and distortions about the relationship between science and Christianity. Perhaps the worst is that science and Christianity are in hopeless conflict, that the Christian church has been an impediment to science since Galileo. In reality, the foundations of modern science, the assumptions that made science possible, come from the Christian worldview. The pioneers of modern science were all committed Christians, most of whom saw science, in the words of Kepler as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”

In other words, science and Scripture are merely two sources of revelation. There is the “book of nature” and the “book of Scripture.” These two “books” cannot contradict each other because they have the same author, God. When they seem to contradict, something has gone wrong with our understanding of Scripture, nature or both.

Since Galileo’s confrontation with the Catholic Church in the 17th century, there have been conflicts between doctrines promoted by the Church and the conclusions of science. In Galileo’s time, almost everyone accepted an earth-centered view of the cosmos that originated with the Greeks and had later become sanctified using certain passages from the Old Testament. Galileo questioned the conventional wisdom of his time and advocated an idea that would not be widely accepted for another century.

In the 19th century, Charles Darwin also challenged widely accepted ideas about God’s role in creating the world. Since then Christianity has been challenged by variety conclusions based on his writings.

How should we deal with these challenges? The first and more important step is to understand them. We shouldn’t run away from something that attacks our Christian worldview. We should run toward it. Engage, learn, and trust that God is sovereign.

As we engage with Evolution today, I want to reassure you that we are not going to wander off into the tall grass of the biological sciences. We are not going to talk about the Prevalence of Functionally Significant Glutathione S-Transferase Genetic Polymorphisms in Dogs. (That is the subject of a research project my daughter, a biochemistry, cell, and molecular biology major, has been working on since last summer.) Not because the science isn’t important, but because it takes a lot more time than we have available today. Further, there are far more obvious problems with Darwinian evolution.

It is assumed that Darwin’s theory was the triumph of science over the myths of religion. It is claimed Darwin was not influenced by religion; he studied nature and “discovered” how it really worked. Based on his empirical observations he proposed an idea that explained how life developed via natural processes without the direct intervention of a creator. In reality, Darwin had certain assumptions about God and how He would create that was inconsistent with what he found in the natural world. In short, Darwin was convinced his theory was true because his God would not have created the world as we find it.

My highest priority this morning is to be understood; therefore I want to be clear what I am talking about. I also want to inform, which means some of what I share might be challenging and new to some of you. I would ask for your patience as we go along. I will be around to answer questions and the substance of this talk, along with a list of some relevant books, can be found on my website under “resources.”

I am going to cover two things this morning. First, I am going to discuss some terminology that is foundational to this subject. Next, we will consider the theological ideas that were at work in the 19th century and still influence public perception of the relationship between science and Christianity.

Terminology

Whether you are engaging with someone with a different worldview or simply trying to learn more about a subject, navigating terminology is a crucial task. You have to be aware of words you haven’t heard or seen before. Whether I am reading or in conversation, I am always alert to such words. If I am reading, I will stop and look up the word. In conversation, it is difficult but still just as important to interrupt and ask the other person what a word means. If they can define the term for you, your conversation has been enhanced. If they can’t, you may or may not be able to continue. Regardless, it is important to prevent either side of a conversation from assuming what certain words mean.

Evolution

So what does the word evolution mean? That depends on the context and the intention of the author. Just on this subject, there are actually six different definitions that are routinely used. Only one definition is in view this morning, but if you read articles or blogs on evolution, you may encounter one or more of these definitions. You may even find authors who use the word in one sense, then later switch to a different meaning later in the same article.

  • Change over time. To quote the Screwtape letters, “…to be in time means to change.” The study of nature frequently entails discerning what has happened in the past from the evidence we can examine today. Clearly, no one is going to disagree with this definition.
  • Change in the distribution of different physical traits within a population. This refers to a field within biology known as population genetics. It studies the genetic composition of biological populations, and the changes in genetic composition that result from the operation of various factors, including natural selection.
  • Limited Common Descent. “The idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor.” The best-known example of this is the finches encountered on the Galapagos Islands. Today there are many examples of different species that probably have a common ancestor.
  • The mechanism of limited common descent, natural selection acting on genetic mutations. Darwin’s theory had three premises: organisms varied, variations could be inherited, and all organisms were under pressure to survive. Those variations that enhanced survival were passed on to other generations. Again, in a limited sense, such variation is observed, and it is plausible that survival could select certain traits over others.

None of the definitions so far are controversial. However, the next two are where most of the disagreements occur.

  • Universal Common Descent. This definition of evolution asserts that every organism is descended from a single original organism. As controversial as this may sound, it is not the final word on what most scientists believe is meant by evolution.
  • “Blind Watchmaker” thesis.
    The term “blind watchmaker” was coined by Richard Dawkins in the title of his 1986 book, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence for Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design. Dawkins was ridiculing an argument made by William Paley published in 1802. Paley argued that the existence of a watch implies the existence of a watchmaker. Whereas a rock merely implies the processes of geology over time.
    This definition of evolution is that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material process. This process is completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms.
    Or more succinctly, “Molecules to men by way of chemistry and physics.”

This final definition is what really drives the conflict of worldviews between materialism and Christianity. It goes by a couple of other names: “Darwinism” or “neo-Darwinism.” (The later term is a more technical and specific in that it refers to the integration of Darwinism and the science of population genetics in the middle of the 20th century.)

While you should always press for definitions, when you hear Darwin’s name or evolution invoked in a discussion about human origins or the development of life, you can be confident that the “molecules to men” idea is usually what is meant.

Science

The term science needs not so much a definition as a lot of warning labels. Being that it is in the title of my major, it will come as no surprise that I have developed some opinions on the subject. I am going to limit myself to two ideas.

First, science cannot be constrained by a specific detailed definition. There is no definitive list of criteria that says, “that is science, but this other field is not!” In other words, specific examples of science (e.g., physics, biology, and paleoanthropology) seem obvious, however, coming up with a list of criteria that separates astrology from astronomy, for example, is harder to do. Most everyone is going to agree that simply studying the movement of the stars and planets does not make astrology a science.

Second, beware of an inflated view of science as a source of knowledge. The view known as “scientism” asserts that the only things that can be known are from the natural sciences. It is a tactic designed to give the guy in a lab coat, as opposed to a theologian or a philosopher, a privileged status that ends the discussion. It is also a self-refuting concept because there is nothing we can learn from science. However you define science, that demonstrates scientism.

Theology

Theology is the study of the nature of God. I believe that the Bible is the best source for theology. But we can also learn something about the nature of God from other disciplines, such as science and philosophy.

Human Nature

Now that I’ve defined Darwinism, I should also touch on the term human nature.  Obviously, this is a subject as vast human experience. An entire conference could be devoted to addressing this subject. How you define, human nature is determined by your worldview. One may approach this question from a scientific, philosophical, or theological perspective. For my purposes this morning I simply want to address the crucial differences between human nature according to Darwinism and human nature according to Christian theism.

From the perspective of Darwinism, human beings and every living thing is simply the end result of a blind, unguided physical process. In other words, we are merely animals. The process of natural selection has been invoked to explain nearly every aspect of human culture and behavior. Many of these explanations are simply unsubstantiated stories, but they have captured the imagination of many. From religion to sexual infidelity, to altruism there is an evolutionary story for everything about human nature.

Darwinism denies the possibility of the soul; it makes no room for the existence of the immaterial. As a consequence, one must come to grips with the idea that everything we do, everything we think, everything we feel is not evidence of our soul, but is merely the output of a physical process.

According to Darwinism, the difference between human beings and every other animal is a matter of degree, not kind. Let me illustrate what I mean by these two words with an example.

Steph Curry and Russell Westbrook are reputed to be among the best point guards playing in the NBA right now. The difference between them is a matter of degree.  However, if we were to compare Curry or Westbrook to a basketball, we would have to say the basketball is a different kind of thing.

Since we are just animals, it shouldn’t surprise you that ethical decisions about humans and animals are a bit different for the Darwinist. Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, popularized the term speciesism, which refers to privileging members of a particular species over others. In other words, it is not always wrong to kill human beings under circumstances such as severe mental or physical handicaps. Some environmentalists have seized upon this idea to argue that the death of a logger or the economic destruction of a community are acceptable when weighed against the safety of a type of animal.

The Christian view of human nature is radically different. In addition to being grounded in Scripture, it is also consistent with our experience and deepest intuitions.

According to Christianity, human beings are unique in creation, a completely different kind of creature from every other animal. We are physical creatures. We are similar to other animals in many ways. Yet we also have an immaterial nature, a soul if you will. I have always been fond of this passage from the Screwtape Letters:

Humans are amphibians— half spirit and half animal… As spirits, they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. (p. 37).

I would quibble with Screwtape to the extent that we are not “half spirit and half animal” rather we are embodied souls. Our soul completely occupies and animates our bodies. Our soul can also exist apart from our bodies, but a human body cannot continue without a soul.

The most essential aspect of human nature, what makes us unique, is found in the phrase the “image of God” first mentioned in Genesis 1:26-27.

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

To briefly unpack this phrase, if we consider the Hebrew words used here for “image” and “likeness” and Greek word (eikōn), it would seem that God created us to be similar but not identical to Himself.

Consider just three ways we are similar to God.

  • We are spiritual. Part of our nature is an immaterial soul or spirit united with a physical body.
  • We are personal, that is to say, we are self-conscious and rational beings. We have a mind, will, and emotions.
  • We have the power to choose. Sometimes referred to as free agency, we have the capacity to deliberate and make choices.

Finally, no discussion of the Christian view of human nature would be complete without considering the Fall. As unique as we are, as much as we were created to be in fellowship with God and with each other, the most certain and painful fact is that something is horribly wrong.

Darwinism and the materialist worldview it supports must deny our daily awareness of evil. In ourselves, in our culture, even to some extent in creation itself, we are constantly confronted with the results of human rebellion.

Christianity explains the existence of evil, our embrace of and revulsion from it; and it offers a solution in the person and work Jesus Christ.

Theological Foundations of Darwinism

In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” This is the most important question anyone will ever answer. Understanding who Jesus is and what He did is an essential step to trusting Him as your personal savior.

That question is just as relevant if God the Father asked it. What you believe about God has a profound effect on every aspect of your life. Our perception of reality, how we choose to live, how we choose to solve our problems, everything about us is ultimately effected by our view of God.

This is no less true in science. For as long as people have tried to understand nature, their beliefs about what or who created the world has impacted how they comprehend nature.

In the 19th century, there were several trends in theology that set the stage for Darwinism. Consider one example. It was argued that it would demean God to believe every animal species was a unique act of creation. Rather, God would be a wiser and more capable creator if the capacity to create species by some natural process was built into creation. This view also downplayed or dismissed other things God did like miracles in the New Testament. This was sometimes referred to as “Greater God Theology.” Ideas like this and others we will now consider motivated Darwin to reconcile what was observed in nature with the theology of his day.

Natural theology and the ‘theory of creation’

The idea that God created is not really controversial in Christianity. It’s right there in the first verse, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Now a tremendous amount of words have been written about this verse and all that it means, however, no one doubts that central phrase, “God created.”

In the 18th and 19th century the perspective of creation was that from the motion of the heavens down to the myriad of animals and plants that occupy the earth, all of creation was a perfect, harmonious system that reflected God’s wisdom and benevolence. Starting in the 17th century a variety of theologians and scientists advanced the idea that evidence for God could be found in the study of nature. Known as “Natural Theology,” this field reached its peak in the works of William Paley at the beginning of 19th century. Natural theology argued, some would say brilliantly, that evidence for design could be found in nature.

However, there was a significant flaw in Paley’s perspective. Paley believed that God’s purpose in creation was the happiness of His creatures. Creation was idealized in such a way that God’s benevolence, wisdom were seen everywhere. Allow me to read a quote from Paley’s book Natural Theology:

It is a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a Spring noon or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. The insect youth are on the wing. Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the most cheerful objects that can be looked upon. lts life appears to be all enjoyment, so busy, and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect life.

In short, the Natural theologians claimed nature demonstrated God’s wisdom and goodness but they ignored His providence, judgment or use of evil.

The problem of Natural Evil

The problem of evil is something that has harassed Christian belief for a long time. If you haven’t heard that phrase before, it refers to the tension that exists between the obvious instances of evil we find in the world and the characteristics typically attributed to God. It is sometimes put as a question: “How can God be benevolent and omnipotent and yet allow the evil we experience in the world?”

Most discussions of this topic make a distinction between moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is simply what people have been doing since Adam and Eve rebelled in the Garden. Natural evil, broadly speaking, is anything in nature that causes death or suffering. This could include everything from earthquakes, to disease, to all the horrible things animals do to each other.

Darwin, like other naturalists, did not see happiness and joy in creation. He saw death, suffering, and waste that he could not reconcile with Paley’s “happy” creation. He was particularly bothered by the suffering and death found in the animal kingdom. One particular example was a type of wasp that lays its eggs into the body of a caterpillar. After hatching, the larva starts consuming the host while it is still alive.

Darwin’s solution, consistent with greater God theology, was that God did not create the parasitic wasp or any of the other natural evil in the world. Rather, God created a system of natural laws which resulted in the world he studied. In a letter to Asa Gray (an American botanist) Darwin summarized his view this way. “I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance.”

To put it another way, God directly acting in creation was rejected in order to make the existence of natural evil comprehensible to human beings. If God did not directly create each individual species but merely created the natural system that resulted in the species we have today, then God is not directly responsible for natural evil.

“Nature is not perfect.”

A second aspect of natural theology to which Darwin objected is that all of the creation reflected God’s perfection. Of course, what is meant by perfection was apparently open to a wide variety of interpretations. For Darwin and many others since it has been the claim that many things found in nature are poorly designed.

Perhaps the most popular example of bad design in nature is the vestigial organ. When an organ or structures are no longer needed, it is “vestige” of the evolutionary process. It was needed in an ancestor species, but evolution has yet to remove it. In 1895 a German anatomist published a list of 86 vestigial organs in the human body. I am not aware of a single credible example today. Vestigial organs are not evidence of evolution. They are a combination of assuming evolution is true and ignorance of a particular organ’s function.

A more modern example of a claim of bad design is known as “Junk DNA.” This term was originally coined in 1972. When research first began into how DNA worked, the first thing discovered was the correlation between certain sequences of DNA bases (“rungs” on the DNA ladder) and the production of certain amino acids (20 different organic molecules that makeup proteins). The function of vast regions of DNA outside of these “protein coding,” upwards of 98% of the human genome was dismissed as “junk” until about five years ago. The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project began publishing results demonstrating that vast regions of the “junk DNA” in the human genome are being used.

Similar to vestigial organs, ignorance combined with an acceptance of evolution, resulted in the conclusion that subsequent research has proven wrong. In short, the existence of “Junk DNA” something that was once dogma is now becoming another failed prediction of Darwinism.

Theological Naturalism

A third theological idea that motivated Darwin and many others in the 19th century has to do with how God acts in creation. In order to make this clear I have to make a distinction between primary causes and secondary causes. An event which is caused by God and impossible by any other means, a miracle, is an example of primary causation. Something that occurs in accordance with natural law is an example of secondary causation. For example, the parting of the Red Sea as the Jews fled from Egypt was primary causation, the deaths of the Egyptian army caught when the water was released was secondary causation.

For many theologians and scientists since before Darwin down to the present day, science is not possible if God acts in the world. If primary causation is possible, then it is impossible to know the difference between an event caused by natural law and an event caused by God. In order to study nature, to understand the structure of “laws” that govern it, we must assume that God never acts in creation.

The net effect of this view does not deny that God was the creator of the universe, it simply means there is no evidence that He did. Of course, that is not the worst of it. If God has not done anything since the moment of creation, the incarnation and the resurrection of Jesus could not have happened.

Perhaps the simplest way to sum up this view is that God cannot be trusted. If He is capable of acting in creation, He is capable of tricking us. Science would become the “study” of the whims and unpredictable behavior of an omnipotent being.

Naturalism asserts that everything arises from natural properties and causes; supernatural or spiritual explanations are excluded or discounted. For theologians in the 19th century, this meant that God acted in creation through the laws he created. They argued God was greater, glorified more if He did not intervene in creation. Dr. Cornelius Hunter refers to this as theological naturalism because theological reasoning motivated it.

Today the default position of science is a view known as methodological naturalism. This is the idea that when you are doing science, you can only consider natural causes. The actions of an intelligent agent cannot be considered. God does not act in creation. From there, it is a short trip to atheism, where God does not exist.

But let me emphasize this point–the origins of naturalism that motivated Darwin and have become dogma within science today were philosophical. Naturalism was not a conclusion of science; it was a starting point.

Conclusion

Human nature according to Darwin, how should the Christian respond? First and foremost, when confronting an opposing worldview, you must understand what it believes and why. By exploring some terminology and its theological foundations, I’ve given you an introduction into the worldview of Darwinism.

I provided a summary of some of the ideas about God and his role in creation that motivated Darwin. Since On the Origin of Species was published down to the present day, Darwinism has relied on a perception of God that cannot be found in Scripture. Either God is absent from creation and cannot intervene, or He is incompetent because nature is full of “bad design.” Evolution is accepted as true because a distorted view of God and creation seems to be false.

This is not merely about science. It is not merely about religion. It is an example of how assumptions about God, religion if you will drive the process of science. Darwinism is not fact. Darwinism is less of a science than it is a theological viewpoint that claims empirical support from science.

Human nature according to Darwinism, including its denial of the soul and denial of human uniqueness, is not learned from various scientific disciplines. It is implied by the science and therefore it is accepted because Darwinism is accepted. However, if Darwinism is false, then whatever it claims about human nature is also false.

Time did not permit addressing the evidence used to support and critique Darwinism. What I can say in terms of a summary is that the evidence for Darwinism is only compelling if you are already convinced it is true. On the resources page on my website, today’s talk is available along with a list several books that cover today’s material in more depth. I would also encourage you to check out the books that focus on the scientific critiques of Darwinism.

I would like to leave you with some questions to ask someone who believes “molecules to men by way of physics and chemistry” is the best explanation for the vast diversity of life we find.

  1. What is the evidence for evolution?
  2. What is the Christian view of creation?
  3. How did life originate?

Each of these questions, depending on the responses you get, could be followed up with two questions. (1) What do you mean by that? (2) How did you come to that conclusion? These two questions from Greg Koukl’s Columbo technique seek clarification and evidence that will help you understand the other person’s perspective better.

It has been my prayer preparing for today that the summary I would offer here would encourage believers. It is also my prayer that you would leave today motivated to learn more about this subject and others that will be discussed today. As Christians, we are heirs to a tremendous heritage of thought that I fear has been abandoned. We worship a Being that created all things, sustains all things, and knows all things. Our trust in God should not be limited to our salvation. God is sovereign over everything. He is sovereign over every domain of human knowledge. He is sovereign over every lie that could deceive.

Don’t run away from a challenge. Engage, learn, and trust that God is sovereign.

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Gotham City And Nazareth Are Not In The Same Category

Gotham City And Nazareth Are Not In The Same Category

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by Ryan Leasure

As a child, Batman held the ranks as my favorite superhero. Unlike other superheroes who could fly, see through walls, or turn into green giants, Batman fought crime in Gotham City by more conventional means. He was a great fighter, used cool gadgets, had a killer suit, and drove a sweet car. In this way, Batman was more realistic than his superhero counterparts. Now suppose I truly believed Batman was a real person. After all, I had seen him on the movie screen and at the occasional Halloween party. My friends, however, thought I was ridiculous and tried to dispel this notion from my brain. Yet, no matter what they said, I remained convinced of his existence.

Until one day, my friend suggested to me that we go visit Batman in Gotham City. This sounded like a grand plan to me. I wasted no time packing my bags — with all my Batman t-shirts — and began daydreaming about hanging out with Batman. One final step remained. I needed to purchase plane tickets to Gotham City. So I pulled out my laptop, and began searching for the next plane ticket to Gotham City, except, I couldn’t find any! I searched vigorously for hours, but alas I came up empty.

My friend, who was sneakier than I thought, used this opportunity to explain to me why I couldn’t find a plane ticket — Gotham City doesn’t exist. In order to prove him wrong, I quickly googled Gotham City’s location, only to find that it was nowhere to be found. After all these years of thinking Gotham City was where New York City is located, I became dejected. The writing was on the wall. If Gotham City isn’t real, then Batman probably isn’t real either.

IS NAZARETH A REAL PLACE?

For years, Jesus mythicists have argued that Nazareth — like Gotham City — was fictitious. The argument goes, if Nazareth didn’t exist, then Jesus didn’t exist either. After all, the gospels repeatedly claim that Jesus came from Nazareth (Mk 1:24; Jn 1:45). Prove Nazareth didn’t exist, and you can prove Jesus didn’t exist either. Skeptics make this claim based on the fact that the Old Testament, Jewish historian Josephus, and the Jewish Talmud never mention Nazareth. Surely, the argument goes, these three major sources would have mentioned Nazareth if it was a real place. What are we to make of this claim? Was Nazareth a real place? Yes, and there’s proof.

ARCHAEOLOGY

In 1962, archaeologists discovered an Aramaic tablet in Israel which listed twenty-four different priest families and their locations. One priest family’s location was, you guessed it, Nazareth.1The traditional dating of this list goes back to the year AD 70, thus indicating that Nazareth was a real place in the first century.

Furthermore, more archaeological discoveries provide further evidence for Nazareth’s existence. Within the town itself, archaeologists excavated two houses in 2006 and 2009 — homes that match a typical home in first-century Rome. Inside the homes, they found doors, windows, a spindle, and cooking pottery.

Additionally, archaeologists uncovered first-century tombs right outside the town. This fits with Jewish customs which forbade burying dead bodies inside the town. Also, within the tombs, archaeologists discovered pottery which they date to the first century. The evidence is so conclusive, that expert archaeologist Jack Finegan states, “From the tombs… it can be concluded that Nazareth was a strongly Jewish settlement in the Roman period.”2

NAZARETH! CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME FROM THERE?

Based upon the digs, scholars suggest that ancient Nazareth was a small hillside village of about sixty acres, with a maximum population of  500 people. This fits nicely with Nathanael’s derogatory comment in John 1:46 when he asked, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?” One would think that if you were inventing a religious hero, you would give him a more prominent hometown. The gospel writers had no motivation to make up this detail about Jesus.

DECREE FROM CAESAR

Perhaps the most important discovery from ancient Nazareth is a marble slab measuring 24 inches by 15 inches. Archaeologists date this slab to the first half of the first century — probably during the reign of Emperor Claudius (AD 41-54). On this tablet is a decree from Caesar himself stating that if anyone steals a body from any of the tombs, they will suffer capital punishment. Bear in mind; we’re talking about Caesar, the most powerful man in the world, and a small rural village of 500 people thousands of miles away. What would compel Caesar to care about grave robbers in Nazareth? This would be the equivalent of the President of the United States addressing a grave robber in a small rural town in North Dakota.

It appears Caesar had heard stories about Jesus of Nazareth rising again from the dead. He had also probably heard that Jesus’ disciples stole his body from the tomb. Lost in the shuffle were the exact details that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead in Jerusalem.

We know for certain that Claudius was aware of Christianity because he expelled all Christians from Rome in AD 49. Suetonius — a second-century Roman historian —  writes that Claudius “expelled from Rome the Jews constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.” Luke also reports this event in Acts 18:2. Apparently, the Christian preaching that Jesus was the promised Messiah caused an uproar among the Jewish community. Think of how this radical claim would have caused dissension. The Jews had held to a strict monotheistic faith for thousands of years, and now suddenly, some of their own were claiming that Jesus of Nazareth is Lord! Perhaps violence was involved. It’s difficult to know for certain, but it was significant enough to cause Claudius to remove them all from his city.

WHAT DOES THIS PROVE?

Unlike Gotham City, Nazareth was a real town in the region of Galilee in first-century Rome. Archaeology confirms its existence several times over. Not only have we found ancient homes, pottery, and tombs, we also know that Caesar wrote a special decree to the people of Nazareth not take bodies from tombs lest they be put to death. It’s probable that he wrote this proclamation in relation to the story that Jesus rose again from the dead.

These archeological finds don’t necessarily prove Jesus’ existence, but they corroborate the gospels’ claims that Jesus came from Nazareth. For more on how we know Jesus was a real person, you can check out an article I wrote here.

Skeptics continue to cast doubt on the gospels, and more specifically, Jesus of Nazareth. Yet, archaeology continues to confirm the accuracy of the biblical narrative. Based on the archaeological finds discussed above, I think we can confidently say that Jesus coming from Nazareth is not fake news.

Tell me what you think in the comments below.

 

Original Blog Source: http://bit.ly/2Iz7AjH

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Theistic Foundation of Science, part 2

Theistic Foundation of Science, part 2

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By Ken Mann

Think Week: The Foundations of Science Found in Christian Theism, 2

Five Explanations

In this post, we will begin to consider how the presuppositions of science described in the previous post can be explained or grounded. Recall that these presuppositions cannot be discovered or defended via any kind of scientific process. Rather they form a foundation that makes science possible.

In order to explore how to explain or ground the presuppositions of science, we necessarily turn to the question of worldviews. For the sake of space, I am going to contrast Christian theism with naturalism. By naturalism, I mean the view that everything that exists is physical. Immaterial things such as souls, consciousness or numbers do not exist. This would also exclude the existence of immaterial minds.

Let’s consider three of the presuppositions.

A Real World

In contrast to other religious systems (e.g., Hinduism or pantheism), Christianity teaches that the creation is real. Human beings were created as both physical and spiritual beings that must interact with the reality of their physical existence.

For the naturalist, this is not a strange idea, in fact, one definition of naturalism is simply that physical reality is the only reality.

An Orderly World

The Christian perspective as to why creation is orderly is based on three things. First, there is a single, transcendent creator. Creation is not filled with multiple, immanent, and competing gods.

Rather, all of reality is the unified and coherent product of a single mind. Second, the order of nature rests on the character of God. Since God is revealed to be reliable and unchanging, it is reasonable to expect creation to be the same. Third, God is the divine legislator. If God were the source and foundation of morality, why wouldn’t He also be the source for the “laws of nature.”

It is important to note that the very idea of “laws of nature” or even that creation should be orderly and predictable was unknown until the Middle Ages. Scholastic thinkers wrestling with how to integrate Aristotle’s views of creation with the Bible concluded that laws govern nature.

Further, they believed while God was the author of such laws, He was not constrained by them.

Nancy Pearcey makes the following observation: “The order of the reasoning here is important.

The early scientists did not argue that the world was lawfully ordered, and therefore there must be a rational God. Instead, they argued that there was a rational God, and therefore the world must be lawfully ordered. They had greater confidence in the existence and character of God than in the lawfulness of nature.”[1]

A Continuing World

The following passage by David Hume is a powerful description of the problem of induction, the process by which we infer that the future will be like the past.

For all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be conjoined with similar sensible qualities. If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless and can give rise to no inference or conclusion. It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.[2]

From the naturalist perspective, there is no answer to this issue other than the mere hope that the world will continue and that the “course of nature” will not change. However, the Christian theist turns to the doctrine that God sustains creation. Everything continues because God chooses for it to continue.

In the next post, we will consider the last two presuppositions, An Understandable World, and An Expressible World.

Biography

Carlson, Richard F., Wayne F. Frair, Gary D. Patterson, Jean Pond, Stephen C. Meyer, and

Howard J. Van Till. Science & Christianity: Four Views. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2000.

Collins, C. John. Science and Faith: Friends or Foes?. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003.

DeWeese, Garrett J. Doing Philosophy as a Christian. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011.

Deweese, Garrett J. Philosophy Made Slightly Less Difficult: A Beginner’s Guide to Life’s Big

Questions. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2005.

Gould, Stephen Jay. Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Hume, David. “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm (accessed April 14, 2015).

Moreland, J. P. Christianity and the Nature of Science: A Philosophical Investigation. 2nd ed.

Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1999.

Moreland, J. P., and William Lane Craig. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. IVP Academic, 2003.

Numbers, Ronald L. Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion. 1st ed.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy. Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994.

Stark, Rodney. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-

Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Notes

[1] Nancy Pearcey, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, IL:

Crossway Books, 1994), Kindle Locations 221–223.

[2] David Hume, “The Project Gutenberg eBook of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,” http://www.gutenberg.org/files/9662/9662-h/9662-h.htm, (accessed April 14, 2015).

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The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples

The Evidence For Jesus’ Resurrection, Part 5: Fact (3) The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples

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by Evan Minton

This is part 5 in a series of blog posts detailing the wealth of historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. In the last 2 parts of this blog post series, we saw that the evidence that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion is overwhelming to the point that even atheist historians say that it’s an indisputable fact. Then, we saw 10 pieces of historical evidence pointing to the reality of Jesus’ empty tomb which was found by a group of His women followers the Sunday following His execution.

However, if we just stopped there, we wouldn’t have enough evidence to justifiably infer that Christ had gloriously returned to life. After all, an empty tomb by itself, says nothing. An empty tomb can be explained in a dozen different ways. But, Jesus’ death by crucifixion and His empty tomb aren’t the only minimal facts in need of explanation. The minimal facts in need of explanation are:

1: Jesus died by crucifixion.

2: His tomb was found empty the following Sunday morning.

3: The 12 Disciples Believed The Risen Jesus Appeared To Them

4: A Church Persecutor named Saul Of Tarsus converted on the basis of what he believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus. And

5: A Skeptic named James converted on the basis of what he believed to be an appearance of the risen Jesus.

In this blog post, we will look at that third minimal fact. There is evidence that Jesus’ 12 disciples had experiences that they perceived as postmortem appearances of the risen Jesus.

Reason 1: The Early Creed Cited In 1 Corinthians 15. 

The first piece of evidence in favor of postmortem appearances I want to look at is Paul’s list of appearances in 1 Corinthians 15. Most scholars of all theological stripes agree that Paul is citing an early creed in verses 3-8 and that this creed dates to within five years of the crucifixion of Jesus. They also believe that Paul received this creed from the apostles Peter and James just a few years after his conversion. If these scholars are right, this provides us with powerful evidence that the disciples experienced postmortem appearances of Jesus. But what does the creed say? How do we know it’s a creed? How do we know it dates to within five years of the crucifixion and how do we know Paul got it from Peter and James? Let’s look at the reasons why historians have reached these conclusions.

This is what the creed says: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.  Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last, of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.” – 1 Corinthians 15:3-8

How do we know that this a creed? Maybe this just doctrine that Paul is teaching in his own words. Scholars have come to believe that this is a creed on the basis of the following reasons:

1: Paul Alerts Us That He’s Not Writing In His Own Hand Here.

In verse 3, Paul says outright that his words are not his own. He writes “For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance.” Paul essentially says “I received this information from someone else. I received it from someone else. It’s not a list of things I came up with. Now, I’m going to pass on what I’ve received to you.” So, he’s outright telling us that the information he’s about to cite is something he himself received and is about to pass on to his readers. Additionally, “received” and “passed on” were typical terms used by rabbis who were passing along holy tradition.

2: The Language In Verses 4-7 Are Non-Pauline

Scholars have pointed out that wording of verses 6-7 of 1 Corinthians 15 is not characteristic of Paul. It’s not the way he usually writes. The word choice and grammatical style in this passage are unique to the Pauline epistles. “The Twelve,” “The Third Day,” “He was raised,” and the calling of Peter by his Aramaic name, “Cephas.” These are not phrases Paul is known to use. This implies that Paul is quoting something rather than teaching resurrection facts in his own words.

3: Parallelism Is Apparent In The Text.

Parallelism is a type of wording that was commonly found in oral traditions. The purpose of parallelism was to aid memorization. Parallelism involves writing several lines that go by the pattern of the first line being long followed by a short line followed by another long line and then another short line. Long sentence, short sentence, long sentence, short sentence. When you examine 1 Corinthians 15, this is exactly what you find.

“Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,” (long)

“and that He was buried” (short)

“and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures” (long)

“and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve…” (short)

“After that, he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at the same time, most of

whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.” (long)

4: The Repeated Use Of The Phrase “And That” Suggests This Is A Creed

Just as Parallelism was a wording style to make memorization of creeds easier, putting a common repetitive phrase in creeds also helped aid memorization. In this case, the repetitive phrase is “and that.” Depending on the English translation, you’ll sometimes just see the word “that,” but “and that” is what’s found in the Greek.

“and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” 

For these reasons, we have good grounds for affirming that the material cited in verses 4-7 are part of a creed. Paul received the creed somewhere and then proceeded to cite it to his Corinthian readers. What this means is that the material in 1 Corinthians 15:4-7 predates the actual writing of 1 Corinthians, which virtually all scholars date to around 55 A.D.

But how much earlier does this material date? Well, first of all, it certainly has to predate Paul’s first visit to the Corinthian church. Why? Because in verse 3, he uses the past tense “I passed on to you.” “For what I received, I passed on to you.” In the latter part of that sentence, Paul uses the past tense of “pass.” This implies that the information he’s about to cite in his epistle is information that he already cited to the Corinthians. And since he “received” this creed from someone else, this means the creed predates even Paul’s first visit there.

If this were as far back as we could go, it would still be extremely early information since the creedal data would date no later than 20 years after Jesus’ death.

But, as I said earlier in this blog post, most scholars believe that Paul got this creed directly from the apostles Peter and James, just five years after his conversion. In Galatians 1, Paul is recounting his conversion from skepticism. He describes how he persecuted the church (verses 13-14) that God revealed his son to him (verses 15-16), and then he says that he went away into Arabia and then went to Damascus (verse 17). Paul then writes “Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.” (verses 18-19). This seems like the most likely place and time for Paul to have received the 1 Cor. 15 creed. First of all, two of the explicitly named individuals that appear in the creed (Peter and James) are also the two individuals Paul was talking to. Secondly, As New Testament Historian Dr. Gary Habermas pointed out; “Paul’s use of the verb historesai (1:18), is a term that indicates the investigation of a topic.[1] The immediate context both before and after reveals this subject matter: Paul was inquiring concerning the nature of the Gospel proclamation (Gal. 1:11-2:10), of which Jesus’ resurrection was the center (1 Cor. 15:3-4, 14, 17; Gal. 1:11, 16).”[2]

These seem like very good indications that this is indeed when and where Paul received the creed. In that case, the information in the creed dates to within just a few years of Jesus’ death! By the principle of early attestation, this makes 1 Corinthians 15:3-8 extremely reliable material. This is because there was no time whatsoever for legend or embellishment to creep in. The apostles were proclaiming that Christ rose from the dead within decades of His crucifixion!

The creed cited in 1 Corinthians 15 dates back so early, well within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses, that anyone curious about whether or not Paul was telling the truth could have traveled over to Jerusalem and interviewed the people mentioned in the creed to see if they really did believe Jesus appeared to them. If Paul were lying about these people and they really hadn’t seen Jesus, the cat would have been out of the bag, and the resurrection would have been exposed as a falsehood. Given how fragile a faux resurrection would be in this case, the best explanation is that the twelve disciples, James, and 500 people actually did have postmortem Jesus experiences.

In fact, some have argued that Paul is essentially daring the Corinthians to interview these people if they are in doubt by mentioning that “some of them are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”[3] It’s as if Paul is saying “If you don’t believe that Jesus appeared to these individuals, go talk to them yourselves! Some of them have died, but others are still around to affirm what I’ve said.” That’s a pretty gutsy move on Paul’s part if these people hadn’t actually witnessed the risen Jesus. It could be so easily falsified, so easily undermined. The best explanation is that Paul’s creed was telling the truth.

Reason 2: Paul Had Direct Contact With The Twelve Disciples And Affirmed That They Claimed Jesus Rose From The Dead 

As I said earlier, most scholars believe Paul got the 1 Cor 15 creed from Peter and James when he visited with them just a few years after his conversion, and I gave some of the reasons why scholars have come to those conclusions. But let’s say you disagree with the scholars. Let’s say you don’t think that the two arguments which are given in favor of a Paul receiving the creed during the trip mentioned in Galatians 1:18-20 are sufficient. Nevertheless, the creed still dates to no later than 50 A.D, just 20 years after the resurrection. The creed could have been received two years or 20 years, but no earlier and no later. So my arguments above still stand that this is an early source within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses who could have falsified the postmortem appearances if they hadn’t occurred.
Secondly, even if Paul didn’t receive the creed in the Galatians 1 trip, we still know that he had firsthand contact with the original twelve disciples and were therefore in the perfect position to know what they believed.

Paul makes two trips to Jerusalem. The first trip occurs five years after his conversion (Galatians 1:18-20), and the second one takes place more than 14 years after (Galatians 2:1-2). Paul makes two trips, and he’s there at +5 years and +18 years after the cross. Both trips are very early, and he talks to the eyewitnesses. What are they discussing? The gospel. In 2:2 he specifically says “I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.” In other words, Paul is essentially saying “I just wanted to double check and make sure that I’m preaching the same message as my fellow apostles are. I just want to be absolutely sure that we’re on the same page and that I’m not wasting my time here. I gave them the gospel I preached and wanted to cross-reference it with the one they preach.” What was the result of such an inquiry? Paul says in 2:6 “They added nothing to my message.” Then he said “On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Cephas, and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave Barnabas and me the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.” (verses 7-10)

Probably the best thing Paul contributes to our case is interviewing the other eyewitnesses and giving us the data. Paul said that he and the other apostles preached the same message. In Galatians 1 and 2, he’s talking with the twelve disciples and in Galatians 2:6-10, he affirms that what he’s teaching is what they’re teaching. If the disciples were not claiming that Christ had risen from the dead and had appeared to them that would not be the case. Also, in 1 Corinthians 15:11, just after citing the creed, he basically says “I don’t care if you go to them, I don’t care if you go to me, we are preaching the same message about Jesus’ appearances.”
Reason 3: The Disciples Of The Disciples Affirmed That They Preached Jesus’ Resurrection
The early church fathers lived and wrote in the first, second, third, and fourth centuries.

When you investigate the writings of these guys, you find that some of them had physical contact with the apostles. Given this fact, just as we can trace the disciples’ teachings back to them through Paul, we can trace the teachings of the disciples back to them through the church fathers!

The early church father Clement (c. 30– 100) wrote to the Corinthian church in 95 AD. Around 185, Irenaeus gave us some extra info about this Corinthian epistle. Irenaeus wrote:  “Clement was allotted the bishopric. This man, as he had seen the blessed apostles, and had been conversant with them, might be said to have the preaching of the apostles still echoing, and their traditions before his eyes. Nor was he alone, for there were many still remaining who had received instructions from the apostles. In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brothers at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians.”[4] Around 200, the African church father, Tertullian wrote, “For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter.”[5] According to Irenaeus and Tertullian, Clement engaged in fellowship with the apostles. Clement writes of their belief in the resurrection thusly; “Therefore, having received orders and complete certainty caused by the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and believing in the Word of God, they went with the Holy Spirit’s certainty, preaching the good news that the kingdom of God is about to come.”[6] Clement said that the apostles believed in the resurrection of Jesus! If he knew the apostles (as Irenaeus and Tertullian say he did), Clement would be in the best position to know whether or not they were truly teaching that Christ got out of His grave. Irenaeus wrote that Polycarp (c. 69– c. 155) knew the disciples. He said: “But Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the Church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles.”[7]

Irenaeus wrote a letter to a person named Florinius. In this letter, Irenaeus also talked about Polycarp. Unfortunately, the letter that Irenaeus wrote to Florinius was annihilated by the sands of time, but while the letter itself is gone, the early church historian Eusebius quoted a portion from it; “When I was still a boy I saw you in Lower Asia with Polycarp when you had high status at the imperial court and wanted to gain his favor. I remember events from those days more clearly than those that happened recently… so that I can even picture the place where the blessed Polycarp sat and conversed, his comings and goings, his character, his personal appearance, his discourses to the crowds, and how he reported his discussions with John and others who had seen the Lord. He recalled their very words, what they reported about the Lord and his miracles and his teaching— things that Polycarp had heard directly from eyewitnesses of the Word of life and reported in full harmony with Scripture.”[8]
Given the fact that Polycarp knew the apostles personally, he would have been in the best position to know what the disciples believed. Polycarp mentioned the resurrection 5 times in his letter to the church in Phillipi.

So, through Polycarp and Clement, we can trace the claims of the resurrection right back to the disciples themselves.

“But!” the skeptic may object “Just because the disciples were claiming that Jesus rose from the dead, that doesn’t mean that He actually did. Maybe the disciples were making the whole thing up! Maybe they were lying about having seen the risen Jesus”. I have never found any attempt by non-Christians to make the disciples out to be bald face liars very convincing. This is because church history is unanimous in claiming that all of the disciples (with the exception of John) died a brutal martyrs death. Why would they die for a lie? Why would they die for something that they knew wasn’t true? I could believe someone would die for a lie that they believed was true, but I can’t bring myself to believe that someone would willingly die for something they knew was false.

Some of the sources that record the disciples’ martyrdoms are:

*Clement Of Rome – reported sufferings and martyrdoms of Peter and Paul.[9]

*Polycarp – Reported the sufferings and martyrdom of the disciples in general.[10]

*Tertullian – Reported the martyrdom of Peter and Paul (and specifically says that Peter was crucified and that Nero beheaded Paul).[11]

*Book Of Acts — Reports martyrdom of James the son of Zebedee (beheaded by Herod Agrippa).[12]
*Eusebius — Says in his Ecclesiastical History that all of the apostles were martyred, and says that Peter was crucified upside down.

At this point, skeptics usually respond by saying “Well that doesn’t prove anything. Other religions have martyrs. Does that mean their religious beliefs are true? Think of the terrorists who flew planes into the world trade center, for example. Does the fact that these terrorists were willing to die for their religious beliefs prove that Islam is true?” This rebuttal simply shows that the objector has misunderstood the argument. Neither I nor any Christian Apologist would argue that because the disciples died martyrs death that this proves that Jesus rose from the dead. What we’re claiming is that their willingness to suffer and die proves that they sincerely believed what they were claiming rather than trying to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes. No one would say the terrorists who took down the world trade center consciously thought that Islam was false. If they believed Islam was false, those 3,000 people would still be alive today. Martyrdom doesn’t prove a claim is true; it simply proves sincerity on the part of the one making the claim. Since almost all of the disciples were willing to die (some in horrible, slow, torturous, and gruesome ways), only an idiot would continue to say “Nah, they were simply spouting bald face lies.” I mean, can you imagine St. Peter lying upside down on the cross, having been beaten to a pulp, having had nails driven through his hands and feet, and bleeding and suffocating thinking to himself “Jesus is dead. He didn’t really rise. We stole his body and hid it at the bottom of a lake. He’s still dead, and soon I will be too! This torture was worth it!”

It’s also worthy to note that the apostles differ from modern day martyrs in that they were in a unique position to know for sure whether or not Jesus rose from the dead. The resurrection proclamations originated with them. If it’s made up, then they’re the ones who made it up. And yet, they died horribly for making this claim. Most martyrs, including Christian martyrs of today, die on the basis of secondary evidence (e.g. the minimal facts approach) or no evidence (blind faith). The disciples came to believe Jesus rose from the dead because they claimed that He appeared to them personally, that is, primary evidence! They claimed to have seen him! This places their martyrdom in a totally separate category than all of the ones you read about in “Voice Of The Martyrs.”

What all of this means is that through Paul and the church fathers Polycarp and Clement, we can affirm that the twelve disciples of Jesus claimed Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to them. Through the fact that they all died brutal deaths when they could have saved themselves by recanting means that they really believed what they were claiming.

Now, just put yourself in their shoes for a moment. What could make you believe that someone you loved rose from the dead and made you so confident of this, that you would be willing to die for proclaiming that? I know how I would answer this question: seeing him with my own two eyes.

Reason 4: The Postmortem Appearances To The Disciples Are Multiply Attested 

The synoptic gospels (Luke 24:36-43), The Gospel of John (20:19-20), and the 1 Corinthians 15 creed all mention postmortem appearances to the twelve disciples. It is highly unlikely that three independent sources would all make up the same lie, therefore, on the basis of the principle of multiple attestations, we have good reason to believe that the disciples saw the risen Christ.

Reason 5: Doubting Thomas Gives Us Reason Not To Doubt 

John 20:24-29 records the postmortem appearance to Thomas. All of the other disciples had seen Jesus alive and were rejoicing at his resurrection, but Thomas was so skeptical of the resurrection that he said that he wouldn’t believe it until he placed his fingers in Jesus’ hands and side. Verses later, we read that Jesus appeared to Thomas and Thomas was convinced. However, why would the writer of the gospel of John depict Thomas in such a bad light? John 20 doesn’t depict one of the apostles in a very good light by making him out to be a hard-headed skeptic, disbelieving the testimony of the rest of the apostles. It seems to me that Thomas’ skepticism is unlikely to be a Christian invention on the basis of the principle of embarrassment. Therefore, this passage is very likely to be telling us a historical fact.

Now, perhaps I can play devil’s advocate and propose an objection to this particular point: maybe the reason John puts Thomas in a bad light is that he disliked Thomas. Perhaps, later on, they got into heated arguments causing a rift between them. John 20’s depiction of Thomas, therefore, is slander. However, this is a possibility that has no historical evidence behind it. If the skeptic wants to undermine this fifth argument, he’ll have to do more than just propose an alternative possibility. He’ll have to back up that possibility with evidence. We have no reason to believe that the writer of John’s gospel (be he the apostle John or whoever) had any dislike of St. Thomas. No church historian hints at any tension between the apostle John and Thomas, nor do any of Paul’s writings indicate that such tension exists. We have no reason to believe that John had anything but the utmost respect for Thomas as he did the other apostles.

Reason 6: Brave Women, Cowardly Disciples 

Before the appearance to St. Thomas, the gospel of John reports that the risen Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene before He appeared to anyone else (John 20:11-17), and Jesus told her to tell the twelve disciples that He had risen (verse 18). We then read that Mary went and told the disciples what Jesus told her to tell them, but we also read in verse 19 that they were hiding in fear of the Jews!

Now, the principle of embarrassment has got a lot to go on here. First of all, remember that women were second-class citizens back in that culture and their testimony was so worthless that they weren’t even permitted to serve as witnesses in a Jewish court of law. In light of this fact, it is astonishing that not only is a woman the first to witness the empty tomb, but the first to see the risen Christ as well! If John were simply making this narrative up, wouldn’t he have had a man be the first witness of the risen Christ? Oh, no, but he couldn’t do that because he wrote that the men were locked up somewhere hiding in fear in the Jewish leadership. This is also a shocking thing to mention if you’re just making up a narrative. Why would John make the men (which would include John himself if he’s really the author of this book) be hiding like a bunch of wusses and write that only a woman follower of Christ had the guts to go down to the tomb? This paints the disciples in an embarrassing light and exalts a person who, back then, had low social status. By the principle of embarrassment, we can conclude that this account is historical.
But it gets even better! For the specific words, Jesus said to Mary were “Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (verse 17). John’s gospel puts more emphasis on the deity of Christ than any of the other 3, yet he says that God the father is “His God.” When you’ve told your readers from verse 1 that Jesus is God, it’s odd to have him say that The Father is His God, as though Jesus is somehow an inferior being. If Jesus has a God, how can he be God? Now, just like with “Why have you forsaken me” which we examined in part 3 of this series, I think a plausible explanation for this sentence can be given. I don’t think Jesus’ words here in any way diminish His deity. However, the point here is that they seem to. Therefore, rather than having to go through the trouble of explaining this saying, it would have been much easier for John if he had just omitted that part altogether. The fact that it’s in here gives us reason to believe that John is making this up, this is actually what Miss Magdalene heard the postmortem Jesus say. Once again, the principle of embarrassment gives us reason to believe this account is historical.

The principle of embarrassment applies to John 20 in so many different ways:

1: A Woman is the first to see the risen Jesus. She sees him before any of the twelve do.

2: The disciples are hiding like cowards because they’re afraid the big bad Pharisees are going to get them.

3: Jesus calls The Father “My God” which prima facie suggests he isn’t God, in a gospel that emphasized His divinity since literally verse 1.

This gives us yet another reason to believe that the 12 disciples had a postmortem appearance of Jesus. Again, you can try to explain this postmortem appearance by appeal to a naturalistic theory if you want to, but the fact that they believed they saw Jesus post-crucifixion seems well grounded historically.

Conclusion 
We’ve seen that as with Jesus’ death by crucifixion and Jesus’ empty tomb, there is an astounding amount of historical evidence for the postmortem appearances to the disciples. Now, you can try to explain these appearances in some way other than to say Jesus really rose from the dead, but you have no grounds on which to deny that the disciples really believed they saw Him post-crucifixion.

As the agnostic historian, Bart Ehrman said “We can say with complete certainty [emphasis added] that some of his disciples at some later time insisted that he soon appeared to them. . . . Historians, of course, have no difficulty whatsoever speaking about the belief in Jesus’ resurrection, since it is a matter of public record”[13]

The atheist historian Gerd Ludemann put it this way: “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which he appeared to them as the risen Christ.”[14]  For a historian, who is an atheist no less, to say that something like this is historically certain speaks volumes!

The atheist scholar E.P Sanders said “That Jesus’ followers (and later Paul) had resurrection experiences is, in my judgment, a fact. What the reality was that gave rise to the experiences I do not know.”[15]

Do we have enough evidence now to infer that Jesus rose from the dead? Actually, I think we do. In my experience, skeptics have a hard time coming up with a naturalistic theory that can account for both Jesus’ empty tomb and Jesus’ postmortem appearances to the disciples. However, I think we can make our case for the resurrection even stronger by examing postmortem appearances of Jesus to two specific individuals: Paul and James. It is these appearances that we will examine in the next blog post.

Notes 

[1] Several studies on the meaning of historesai in Gal. 1:18 have reached similar conclusions.  See William Farmer, “Peter and Paul, and the Tradition Concerning `The Lord’s Supper’ in I Cor. 11:23-25,”Criswell Theological Review, Vol. 2 (1987), 122-130, in particular, and 135-138 for an apostolic, Petrine source for the pre-Pauline tradition.  Also helpful is an older but still authoritative study by G.D. Kilpatrick, “Galatians 1:18 historesai Kephan” in New Testament Essays: Studies in Memory of Thomas Walter Manson, A.J.B. Higgins, editor (Manchester: Manchester University, 1959), 144-149.  Paul Barnett reports that this same term appears in Herodotus, Polybius, and Plutarch, for whom it meant to inquire (41).  Similar ideas are contained in J. Dore, “La Resurrection de Jesus: A L’Epreuve du Discours Theologique,” Recherches de Science Religieuse, Vol. 65 (1977), 291, endnote 1

[2] Gary Habermas: “Experiences of the Risen Jesus: The Foundational Historical Issue in the Early Proclamation of the Resurrection,” Originally published in Dialog: A Journal of Theology, Vol. 45; No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 288-297; published by Blackwell Publishing, UK.

[3] See the online article “Authenticating The Resurrection Of Jesus: The Corinthian Creed”, May 3rd, 2012, http://www.thefaithexplained.com/blog/authenticating-the-resurrection-of-jesus-the-corinthian-creed/

[4] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.3.3, c. 185. Taken from A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, and A. C. Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325 (Oak Harbor, Ore.: Logos Research Systems, 1997).

[5] Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, 32. In ibid.

[6] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3.3.4.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Irenaeus, To Florinus, cited by the fourth-century church historian, Eusebius, who regarded Irenaeus as a reliable source (Ecclesiastical History 5.20). See To Florinus in Roberts, Donaldson, and Coxe, eds. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers. See Eusebius, Eusebius: The Church History, Paul L. Maier, ed. and trans. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1999), 195–96.

[9] “Because of envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars have been persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set the good apostles before our eyes. Peter, who because of unrighteous envy endured, not one or two, but many afflictions, and having borne witness went to the due glorious place. Because of envy and rivalries, steadfast Paul pointed to the prize. Seven times chained, exiled, stoned, having become a preacher both in the East and in the West, he received honor fitting of his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, unto the boundary on which the sun sets; having testified in the presence of the leaders. Thus he was freed from the world and went to the holy place. He became a great example of steadfastness.” – Clement Of Rome, First Clement 5: 2– 7.

[10] “They are in the place due them with the Lord, in association with him also they suffered together. For they did not love the present age…” – Polycarp, “To The Philippians,” 9.2

[11] “That Paul is beheaded has been written in their own blood. And if a heretic wishes his confidence to rest upon a public record, the archives of the empire will speak, as would the stones of Jerusalem. We read the lives of the Caesars: At Rome, Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another, when he is made fast to the cross. Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizenship, when in Rome he springs to life again ennobled by martyrdom.” – Tertullian.

[12] Acts 12:1-2

[13] Bart Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (New York: Oxford University, 1999), 230-231.

[14] Gerd Lüdemann, What Really Happened to Jesus? Trans. John Bowden (Louisville, Kent.: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995), p. 80.

[15] E.P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, page 280

 

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