Going for the Jugular (Habermas & Licona Part 3, Post #23: Kicking the tires)

 in Apologetics
Open series outline: Going for the jugular

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Dear Friends,

Last time, we concluded our review of Part 2 of The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona. In that section, they presented their argument for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, and I don’t know about you, but I found it fascinating.

We now move on to Part 3, where they address naturalistic explanations of the events following the crucifixion.

Yes, I am biased

I freely confess my bias against these explanations…after all, I’ve been trying, in my stumbling way, to live in the light of the Resurrection for quite a long time now. And I have close relationships with others in the same boat.

But I can’t change my history; the best I can do is try to fairly consider the skeptics’ arguments. And if the arguments are sound, then I hope I will accept them. If they’re unsound, then my continued belief in the Resurrection becomes more justified, because I’ve at least considered the opposing views.

This is just a warm-up

As I mentioned at the beginning of this series, I’m actually planning to blog my way through 2 books by resurrection skeptics, just as I’ve been blogging my way through the Habermas/Licona book. Therefore, I’m not going to go into great detail on Part 3.

Today, I will just list all the naturalistic arguments that the authors address, and I’ll very briefly summarize their rebuttal (mixed in with my commentary) to each argument. If I decide to expand on any of these arguments/rebuttals, I’ll do that in a later post.

One last comment before we get started…I really have to hand it to the authors for addressing so many objections, first of all, and also for providing their rebuttals in not one, not two, but three formats (prose, diagram, and bulletized outline).

Naturalistic arguments against the Resurrection

  • “Legend theories assume the story grew”
  • “Nonhistorical genre theories assume it was just a story”
  • “The Resurrection story is a variation of myths in other religions”
  • “Fraud theories assume the story was a deception”
  • “Witnesses went to the wrong tomb.”
  • “Apparent death theory”
  • “Hallucination explains the accounts.”
  • “Delusion explains the accounts.”
  • “Vision explains the accounts.”
  • “Conversion disorder explains the accounts.”
  • “Other psychological theories target Paul”
  • “A combination of theories can explain the Resurrection.”
  • “There are discrepancies among Resurrection accounts.”
  • “The Resurrection accounts are biased.”
  • “A risen Jesus would have made a greater impact.”
  • “The disciples experienced ‘something.’ What it was will never be known.”
  • “Jesus was an extraterrestrial alien.”
  • “Only what science can prove is true.”
  • “Science proves that people do not come back to life.”
  • “Science can explain everything, so we don’t need a God.”
  • “If God exists, he cannot intervene in natural laws.”
  • “Science must assume a naturalistic explanation for everything.”
  • “Even if a miracle occurred, we could never know that it was a miracle.”
  • “Miracles in other religions count against Christian miracle claims.”
  • “There is a huge mountain of probability against an event ever being an act of God.”

Naturalistic arguments against the Resurrection, with rebuttals 

One explanatory note before presenting the rebuttals. When a rebuttal starts with “does not explain”, this is generally different than saying “OK, that’s a decent explanation for Fact A, but what about Fact B??” For a bit more on this topic, see “A combination of theories can explain the Resurrection” below.

And now, without further ado…

Click here to see brief rebuttals

 

  • “Legend theories assume the story grew”
    • But the original disciples themselves claimed they saw the risen Jesus.
  • “Nonhistorical genre theories assume it was just a story”
    • This does not explain the empty tomb, nor Paul’s (an educated Jew who was persecuting Christians!) conversion and martyrdom
  • “The Resurrection story is a variation of myths in other religions”
    • They go into a long discussion to show that the Christian resurrection story is fundamentally different than others, but I would just say, what about the empty tomb, and which of those other myths feature eyewitnesses who sealed their testimony in blood?
  • “Fraud theories assume the story was a deception”
    • “Fraud 1: ‘Disciples lied or stole the body…'”
      • But almost all scholars agree that the original disciples themselves believed they saw the risen Jesus
      • Even Britannica states, “Moreover, some of the witnesses of the Resurrection would give their lives for their belief. This also makes fraud unlikely.” (1)
    • “Fraud 2: ‘Someone other than the disciples stole the body.'”
      • Requires us to hypothesize a tomb raider, a motive, a way of getting past armed guards, AND mass hallucinations by the disciples. Not reasonable.
  • “Witnesses went to the wrong tomb.”
    • Does not explain the eyewitness resurrection accounts, nor why authorities would not simply open up the correct tomb and display the body
  • “Apparent death theory”
    • Refuted by JAMA article from March 21, 1986
    • Bonus statement from wikipedia: “This 200-year-old hypothesis continues to be the subject of debate in popular circles, but the scholarly literature considers it uncontroversial that Jesus died during the process of crucifixion (2)
  • “Hallucination explains the accounts.”
    • Doesn’t explain Paul’s conversion, given he had no emotional investment in Christianity
      • In fact, he had the opposite
    • Doesn’t explain the empty tomb
    • Hallucinations are individual occurrences, according to clinical psychologist Gary R. Collins; it’s not possible for one person to induce a hallucination in someone else
      • True, it’s just one guy, but it’s also true that I was unable to find any psychologists/psychiatrists promoting the disciples-hallucinated theory…help me find them if you can
    • Doesn’t explain why authorities did not simply produce the body and send everybody home
      • And if you want to argue that by the time the resurrection claims started flying around, the body would be too decomposed to prove anything, then my question is…why did it take them so long to start hallucinating? After all, He said He would rise again in three days.
    • Doesn’t explain why they sometimes had trouble recognizing Jesus (Luke 24:13-31, John 20:15, John 21:4) (this argument comes from C. S. Lewis), nor why the hallucinated Jesus did not issue the great awesome long-awaited glorious call to arms against the Roman intruders (see AD 70).
  • “Delusion explains the accounts.”
    • Doesn’t explain eyewitness accounts
    • Doesn’t explain the empty tomb
    • Doesn’t explain Paul’s or James’s conversion
  • “Vision explains the accounts.”
    • This term is vague, and so the proponent needs to clearly define it
    • An objective vision would mean Jesus actually rose again
    • An appeal to vision genre suffers the same problems as the legend theories mentioned at the top of this list
    • A subjective vision fits into the category of delusion or hallucination, which were already addressed
  • “Conversion disorder explains the accounts.”
    • This theory is targeted towards Paul, thus requiring additional theories to explain the earlier disciples’ accounts
    • Paul does not fit the profile of someone susceptible to this disorder
    • Additional theories (such as visual and auditory hallucination), not merely conversion disorder, have to be supplied even to explain Paul’s experience
    • Does not explain the empty tomb
  • “Other psychological theories target Paul”
    • Does not explain the empty tomb, nor the earlier disciples’ accounts, nor James’s conversion
    • Overall, this seems like one of the weakest theories to me; if you find it convincing, let’s discuss
  • “A combination of theories can explain the Resurrection.”
    • Unless you have preemptively ruled out a supernatural explanation (this is addressed in the final bullet, see below), it’s less reasonable to stitch together multiple, independent, unlikely hypotheses than to simply accept that He rose again
  • “There are discrepancies among Resurrection accounts.”
    • The minimal facts argument advanced by the authors does not assume inerrancy of Scripture
    • A proposed composite account reconciles the 4 individual accounts (3)
    • Apparent differences in the accounts actually strengthen the credibility of the gospels by demonstrating their independence
  • “The Resurrection accounts are biased.”
    • This doesn’t work for Paul or James
    • This does not explain the empty tomb
    • Biased accounts warrant careful investigation, not outright rejection
  • “A risen Jesus would have made a greater impact.”
    • This argument says that the number of extant ancient writings that mention Jesus would be higher if He had actually risen from the dead
    • Does not explain the empty tomb, conversions of Paul or James, or the disciples’ eyewitness accounts
    • Falls apart if we do a simple face-off:
      • Tiberius Caesar was a contemporary of Jesus and reigned as Roman emperor for 23 years (4); 10 extant sources mention him within 150 years of his death
      • Jesus scores 42 mentions within 150 years of his death, and nine of those sources are secular. Jesus FTW!
  • “The disciples experienced ‘something.’ What it was will never be known.”
    • This argument seems to preemptively rule out a supernatural explanation (this is addressed in the final bullet, see below)
    • Given that Jesus claimed He would rise again (see Post #6 in series outline above), and all the evidence we have in the aftermath of his death which points to a resurrection, what is so unreasonable about accepting that He rose again?
    • This argument may also be relying on the absence of 100% knowledge in order to evade the most reasonable, if not 100% verified, conclusion…I would have lost my job years ago if I approached questions this way!
  • “Jesus was an extraterrestrial alien.”
    • Really?
  • “Only what science can prove is true.”
    • Can you prove that universal claim with science?
    • What about the decapitation of Marie Antoinette? Do we need science to prove it was true? No, the historical record is sufficient evidence. Imagine how offensive it would be, to one of her descendants, if someone said “Something bad happened to Marie Antoinette in the late 18th century. What it was will never be known, because it’s not a repeatable experiment.”
  • “Science proves that people do not come back to life.”
    • This is a straw man; no one is claiming that He came back to life by natural causes
  • “Science can explain everything, so we don’t need a God.”
    • “There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.” – Biochemist Franklin Harold in a 2001 Oxford University Press monograph
    • “…it’s just a big mess—there’s no consensus whatsoever…” – Senior research scientist at American Museum of Natural History, discussing the narrative of hominin origins in May 2021 (5)
  • “If God exists, he cannot intervene in natural laws.”
    • I’ve never heard anyone make this claim before. I’d like to know what evidence there is for such a claim.
  • “Science must assume a naturalistic explanation for everything.”
    • This dodges the question, which is, did Jesus supernaturally rise from the dead?
    • It’s another way of stating the earlier claim, which was: “Only what science can prove is true.”
  • “Even if a miracle occurred, we could never know that it was a miracle.”
    • This is similar enough to “The disciples experienced ‘something.’ What it was will never be known.” that I would just point back to that one.
  • “Miracles in other religions count against Christian miracle claims.”
    • Example?
    • Also, ‘Edwin Yamauchi, one of the foremost scholars on ancient world cultures and religions [and a long-time professor of history at Miami University], argues that the reports relating to miracles by Jesus and the accounts of his resurrection are unique’
  • “There is a huge mountain of probability against an event ever being an act of God.”
    • The expected number of stable, useful, well-shaped proteins randomly produced via mutation by ALL the organisms that have ever existed is 1/10^37. That is, basically zero. It is 1 divided by 10000000000000000000000000000000000000 (6). So, yes, there’s a probability problem, but it’s on the other side.
    • I’m much more comfortable reasoning that, since DNA is so much like a computer language…
      • Per Richard Dawkins, “Everything about biology has become almost a branch of information technology because DNA is so exactly like a computer language.” (7)),
    • …And every computer language we know of comes from an intelligent mind…
      • Or from chatgpt, which also came from an intelligent mind!
    • …It’s inductively entirely reasonable to argue that DNA comes from an intelligent mind
    • For more on theism/atheism:

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The historical record does seem to indicate that…

…Jesus, after His death by crucifixion, was seen alive by people who were in their right minds and possessed all of their normal human faculties.

We analyzed numerous alternative naturalistic explanations today, and personally, I found the hallucination argument to be the strongest one, but it has serious flaws, as I mentioned above.

In the absence of a credible naturalistic explanation, I contend it’s reasonable to affirm this powerful truth:

He is risen!

God bless you my friend,

TFOTF

Links:

(1) Jesus on Britannica

(2) Swoon hypothesis on wikipedia

(3) Reconciling the resurrection accounts on Answers in Genesis

(4) Tiberius on wikipedia

(5) A big mess in hominin origins

(6) Yale computer scientist says farewell to Darwinism

(7) Dawkins on DNA

TFOTF

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