At the men’s Bible study this morning, I tried to pull a David Ennis on the guys and play the “other side” by challenging the case for the resurrection of Jesus. (In retrospect, let me say this: I know Dave Ennis. Dave Ennis is a friend of mine. And I’m no Dave Ennis. But I digress.)
Here’s how I tried to do it:
- Miracles are the most improbable thing that could happen.
- The resurrection is presented as the most probable explanation for the empty tomb, the postmortem appearances of Jesus, and the changed lives of his followers.
- A resurrection is a miracle.
- Therefore, the claim that a miracle—the most improbable thing that could happen—is the most probable explanation… is nonsense.
An Abject Failure
This is a variation on the argument against miracles offered by David Hume in 1748, but it has been thoroughly beaten to a pulp since then—even by atheists. It’s so bad that John Earman, an agnostic philosophy professor at the University of Pittsburgh, wrote a book titled Hume’s Abject Failure in 2000 to show that Hume’s argument is without merit.
You can defeat the argument by showing that things that are unlikely—even immensely improbable—happen all the time. For example, winning the lottery is immensely improbable, but nobody disputes that it happens. That a man could conquer the known world at the age of 33 is immensely improbable, but that’s precisely the reason Alexander is called “the Great” and still appears in our history books. So “improbable” is not the same as “impossible” (with apologies to the title of Dan’s message this week… š )
In Search of an Adequate Explanation
The fact is, the resurrection of Jesus is the only adequate explanation for the evidence we have: multiple accounts from numerous eyewitnesses, found in documents dating to the time of the events. Moreover, there are no surviving credible rebuttals that go back that far, and given the opposition faced by the early church, you would expect that every available objection would have been raised against it. Nothing stuck, and the Gospel prevailed. Conclusion: the eyewitness accounts were true. (See also yesterday’s post about rebuttals.)
Also, bear in mind that the resurrection of one man was not part of the Jewish understanding at the time: the Jewish people looked forward to a general resurrection of everyone at the same time. If the account of Jesus’ resurrection were made up, you would expect it to fit the prevailing understanding of how the resurrection was supposed to work. The best explanation for the church proclaiming the sort of resurrection Jesus had is that it really happened.
Add to that the fact that no competing explanation does a better job of making sense of the evidence, and the resurrection account holds up beautifully: even though it relies on miracles, it’s where the evidence leads. As William Lane Craig said, “If [the probabilities of the naturalistic alternatives to the resurrection] are sufficiently low, they outbalance any intrinsic improbability of the resurrection hypothesis.”
Two Questions
Let’s see if we can kick up some dust here in the comments. Two questions to get things started:
- Do extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?
- Suppose someone says that miracles aren’t just improbable—they’re impossible. How might you answer that?
“Feeling a little *outbalanced* myself, I respond, ‘Yeah, what William Lane Craig said. What he said; that’s what I would say, too’. I then quickly cut-and-paste Mr. Craig’s quote into pleasetranslateusingwordsIknow.com, and roll-the-dice on the translation from, ‘Words Hardly Anyone Use Anymore’ to ‘Common Georgia English’, and press enter. Waiting, waiting…nope, nothing; nothing I can make sense of anyway..” :0)
I guess you could say I have a physical aversion to sentences with 10 or more words that have 9 or more letters. They make my head throb. Ouch!
Back to the real questions:
1.The idea that a claim can be extraordinary but can have (extraordinary or ordinary) evidence of any reputable and feasibly-irrefutable kind would make that claim essentially indisputable, wouldn’t it? Isn’t the difference between a claim and a fact, evidence?
Consider Revisionist History being taught around the country right now. A present-day historian publishing his thoughts on what may or may not have happened centuries before has no value when it doesn’t align with legitimate historical documents. Can you imagine a text book with no supporting texts? Or a research paper absent research? The author would be a mockery of his field of study.
The Resurrection is historically no different. There *is* supporting proof text. There *is* eye witness account. There is no reason to revise this significant piece of history. There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than that I am who I say I am and am sitting here right now! The burden of disproof is on the non-believer.
Hmmm, miracles. How does one define “miracle” other than “the impossible happening”?
Lots to chew on. Thanks.
Sorry, my terminal case of bigwordorrhea flared up just then.
What Craig said was “If the non-miracle alternatives are unlikely enough that you can write them off, then the miracle of the resurrection — no matter how unlikely it is — remains the best explanation.”
Like Sherlock Holmes said, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Hugh,
I think the first question is difficult to answer. On one level I would say ‘no’ because, as your title suggests, in all cases we need to follow the evidence where it leads which is the same method one would use to validate an un-extraordinary claim. However, given that part of the evidence of the resurrection is a man who was dead out walking around and appearing to many people, that seems to me to be extraordinary evidence!
On the second question I’d have to ask on what basis they are claiming miracles are impossible. It probably comes from a belief that God does not exist so that’s where you would start in discussing it with them I think.