I just finished listening to an excellent debate between Michael Licona and Bart Ehrman on the radio/podcast "Unbelievable!" (this was the second time the two debated each other). Ehrman denies that the Resurrection can be a historical fact because believing in it involves faith (he is not claiming that it is fiction, but that its veracity cannot be ascertained by historical reasoning). Licona did a stellar job witnessing to the faith in the face of objections being advanced by his brilliant opponent. But he missed the opportunity to make some distinctions that I think are needed to overcome Ehrman's objections: the distinctions between the ways in which secular history, philosophy and faith might regard the claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Hence I would like to strengthen Licona's argument by adding a clarification or two. Or maybe three.
Here goes!
Objection: One may object to the possibility of a secular affirmation of the Resurrection on that basis that no explanation for the Resurrection other than a miracle is possible, and the only way that one can affirm a miracle is via an act of faith, and making an act of faith is an act of the will rather than act of reason. That act of will may be enabled by grace or by wishful thinking: secular reason can't tell between the two; hence the claim as to the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus does not belong to a genuinely rational inquiry into history.
My reply:
The claim that Jesus rose from the dead is not like a sterile, lifeless mass to be observed with detachment in a test-tube: it's an invitation to faith. So to be at all open to its possibility is to become vulnerable to faith and hope, sacrifice and fulfillment. So the inner logic of this invitation is such that one tends to accept both the claim that it happened and to believe that it happened miraclously. One either affirms both the event and its miraculous nature or denies both.
But it is worth noting that between that moment when one surveys the claims made by the followers of Jesus and the moment when one chooses to accept the miracle as a life changing event... is the possibility of taking time just to consider claim that Christ came back to life apart from the consideration of their cause. This intermediate consideration looks at the historical evidence AND at the philosophical question of whether any such event could happen. It is possible in principle to accept that possibility without committing to its having happened in the case of Jesus. It is possible to accept its actuality in the case of Jesus without yet having judged HOW it came about.
Because these can be distinguished, it is possible in principle that Jesus' Resurrection be reasonably regarded as a historic fact even by a genuinely secular historian. That is, it's something that a historian--even one who is not a believer--could with good reason report as true without in any way compromising the guiding principles of his or her non-religious inquiry (that is, without making an act of faith in the supernatural). But in doing so, this historian would regard it under different description than would a person of faith. Whereas the person of faith describes this as a miracle, the secular historian would instead speak of it as the following puzzling combination of facts: Jesus died on the cross and was later found to be alive. The same historian may be open both to the possibility that this event is a miracle as well as to its being explainable via natural causes. In other words, the non-religious historian can reasonably accept the claim THAT Jesus was alive after He was dead without professing to know HOW it happened.
To see how this is so, pretend that one could travel through time with a crew of scientists to the time of the apostles and accompany them and the holy women at the Cross and for the next forty three days, until the Ascension. They do everything but roll back the tombstone to witness the resurrection directly. They come with measuring instruments etc. and find that everything happens pretty much as described in the Gospels. In such a case, one who wishes to deny those facts would have to engage in flights of fancy (e.g., we are all hallucinating, this is part of a reality TV show, this just isn't happening, I am dreaming) in order to deny what would in this case be obvious. In this case, affirming the Resurrection would be the only rational take on the evidence for one who wishes to rely only on reliable historical data.
The case we have before us today is less open-and-shut than that, to be sure--unless one takes modern miracles as a kind of extension of the Resurrection.
I would argue that openness to the resurrection (but not naive credulity) is the more reasonable position. To look at the human spirit, human longing is to look at an arrow that points toward the Resurrection. Openess to that event is the same as hoping that this arrow reaches its target.
Scientists who noted all of the relevant data could, without performing a logical contradiction, affirm that Jesus came back to life without making an act of faith in a miracle. They could deny the miracle and put a kind of faith in a natural explanation (e.g., a demi-god is creating the illusion of death and resurrection). Such a position, while not involving a straight-forward contradiction, would not be as reasonable as faith. So the faith response, while not coerced by the data--while not even coerced by acknowledgment of the "puzzling" fact -- is still the most reasonable response. Here reasonable/unreasonable are contrasted, not as demonstrated/self-contradictory but as being faithful to one's spouse is more reasonable than being unfaithful. Faith is more like a life-changing response to a loving, momentous invitation than it is like a conclusion coerced by a demonstration.
Faith goes beyond philosophy and secular history: The Christian affirms not only that Jesus rose from the dead, but that this event was a miracle, the fulfillment of a promise, the transformation of our humanity, and the promise of things to come. For the Christian, the Resurrection is not an hypothesis, not a puzzle, but a mystery, i.e., a truth that sheds light on our lives and on our history!
-=-=-=-=-=
evaluation... one that distinguishes not only between the claim that Christ is newly alive and acceptance of that claim, but also between the acceptance of that new life and the acceptance that it has been brought about by the One who makes all things new.
a philosophical conviction accompanies both responses. The one who accepts both the claim that Jesus rose and that He did so miraculously is also adheres to the philosophical position that resurrecttions are possible. The one who rejects both either thinks that resurrections are impossible OR that the evidence available is insufficient to establish the veracity of this claim.
Here goes!
Objection: One may object to the possibility of a secular affirmation of the Resurrection on that basis that no explanation for the Resurrection other than a miracle is possible, and the only way that one can affirm a miracle is via an act of faith, and making an act of faith is an act of the will rather than act of reason. That act of will may be enabled by grace or by wishful thinking: secular reason can't tell between the two; hence the claim as to the truth of the Resurrection of Jesus does not belong to a genuinely rational inquiry into history.
My reply:
The claim that Jesus rose from the dead is not like a sterile, lifeless mass to be observed with detachment in a test-tube: it's an invitation to faith. So to be at all open to its possibility is to become vulnerable to faith and hope, sacrifice and fulfillment. So the inner logic of this invitation is such that one tends to accept both the claim that it happened and to believe that it happened miraclously. One either affirms both the event and its miraculous nature or denies both.
But it is worth noting that between that moment when one surveys the claims made by the followers of Jesus and the moment when one chooses to accept the miracle as a life changing event... is the possibility of taking time just to consider claim that Christ came back to life apart from the consideration of their cause. This intermediate consideration looks at the historical evidence AND at the philosophical question of whether any such event could happen. It is possible in principle to accept that possibility without committing to its having happened in the case of Jesus. It is possible to accept its actuality in the case of Jesus without yet having judged HOW it came about.
Because these can be distinguished, it is possible in principle that Jesus' Resurrection be reasonably regarded as a historic fact even by a genuinely secular historian. That is, it's something that a historian--even one who is not a believer--could with good reason report as true without in any way compromising the guiding principles of his or her non-religious inquiry (that is, without making an act of faith in the supernatural). But in doing so, this historian would regard it under different description than would a person of faith. Whereas the person of faith describes this as a miracle, the secular historian would instead speak of it as the following puzzling combination of facts: Jesus died on the cross and was later found to be alive. The same historian may be open both to the possibility that this event is a miracle as well as to its being explainable via natural causes. In other words, the non-religious historian can reasonably accept the claim THAT Jesus was alive after He was dead without professing to know HOW it happened.
To see how this is so, pretend that one could travel through time with a crew of scientists to the time of the apostles and accompany them and the holy women at the Cross and for the next forty three days, until the Ascension. They do everything but roll back the tombstone to witness the resurrection directly. They come with measuring instruments etc. and find that everything happens pretty much as described in the Gospels. In such a case, one who wishes to deny those facts would have to engage in flights of fancy (e.g., we are all hallucinating, this is part of a reality TV show, this just isn't happening, I am dreaming) in order to deny what would in this case be obvious. In this case, affirming the Resurrection would be the only rational take on the evidence for one who wishes to rely only on reliable historical data.
The case we have before us today is less open-and-shut than that, to be sure--unless one takes modern miracles as a kind of extension of the Resurrection.
I would argue that openness to the resurrection (but not naive credulity) is the more reasonable position. To look at the human spirit, human longing is to look at an arrow that points toward the Resurrection. Openess to that event is the same as hoping that this arrow reaches its target.
Scientists who noted all of the relevant data could, without performing a logical contradiction, affirm that Jesus came back to life without making an act of faith in a miracle. They could deny the miracle and put a kind of faith in a natural explanation (e.g., a demi-god is creating the illusion of death and resurrection). Such a position, while not involving a straight-forward contradiction, would not be as reasonable as faith. So the faith response, while not coerced by the data--while not even coerced by acknowledgment of the "puzzling" fact -- is still the most reasonable response. Here reasonable/unreasonable are contrasted, not as demonstrated/self-contradictory but as being faithful to one's spouse is more reasonable than being unfaithful. Faith is more like a life-changing response to a loving, momentous invitation than it is like a conclusion coerced by a demonstration.
Faith goes beyond philosophy and secular history: The Christian affirms not only that Jesus rose from the dead, but that this event was a miracle, the fulfillment of a promise, the transformation of our humanity, and the promise of things to come. For the Christian, the Resurrection is not an hypothesis, not a puzzle, but a mystery, i.e., a truth that sheds light on our lives and on our history!
-=-=-=-=-=
evaluation... one that distinguishes not only between the claim that Christ is newly alive and acceptance of that claim, but also between the acceptance of that new life and the acceptance that it has been brought about by the One who makes all things new.
a philosophical conviction accompanies both responses. The one who accepts both the claim that Jesus rose and that He did so miraculously is also adheres to the philosophical position that resurrecttions are possible. The one who rejects both either thinks that resurrections are impossible OR that the evidence available is insufficient to establish the veracity of this claim.
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