Tag Archives: apologetics

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Daily Broadside | Maybe Jesus Didn’t Really Die on the Cross and Come Back to Life

It’s Good Friday and I always take a break from the political nonsense going on in our country to deliberately reflect on what is ultimately important in this life — a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. (See 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023.)

Because I don’t write on the weekends, I never specifically write about Easter Sunday and the resurrection of Jesus, which are inextricably bound up with the events of Good Friday. I want to do that today by examining some of the explanations posited by unbelievers who object to the idea of a physical resurrection from the dead.

To claim that Jesus was put to death and was really, indisputably dead — no heartbeat, no pulse, no brainwaves, no breath, fixed pupils, cold to the touch, completely unresponsive to any stimulation — and that he remained that way for some 40 hours and then came back to life, is extraordinary. It defies our reason, logic and experience.

When my father died, I was there. He was really, indisputably dead. If I had been told that he was up and walking around a few days later, it would be inexplicable and frightening and “unbelievable.” In our world, there is no “coming back” from the dead. Death is final. Dead is dead.

Yet we have four documents that describe an individual named Jesus who died and came back to life some 2,000 years ago. Could it be? Is it true?

Those who don’t believe say that what the Bible claims is impossible, and there must be another explanation. It was a hoax that the disciples pulled off by stealing and hiding the body; His appearance after death was a hallucination; Jesus didn’t die on the cross but was revived later; the entire story is a myth.

To say the disciples stole the body and just claimed Jesus was alive doesn’t stand scrutiny because they all went to their deaths proclaiming that Jesus was alive. One might die for something he believes to be true, but twelve will not die for something they know to be false.

Same with the theory that the appearances of Jesus were hallucinations driven by a fanatical wish for it to be true. But the Bible says that Jesus appeared to groups of people, including a crowd of more than 500. Individuals may hallucinate, but groups of people don’t all hallucinate the same thing at the same time.

As far as the whole story being a myth, the textual evidence doesn’t support the theory. A myth requires time to develop, so the closer a writing is to actual events the less time there is for the truth to be contaminated by mythology.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 Paul refers to a creed, a creed being a formal statement of belief.

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.

Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in the mid-50s. In this passage, he’s referring to an even earlier statement about Jesus’ life, death, burial and resurrection. Paul likely “received” this creed directly from Peter and James, both of whom were eyewitnesses and with whom he had met following his conversion. The features of Paul’s language dates the creed to the 30s, probably within a couple of years of Jesus’ death, which precludes any legendary developments.

So Jesus’ resurrection isn’t a myth, it wasn’t the product of mass hallucinations, and the disciples didn’t steal the body. What about the theory that Jesus simply passed out but recovered after he was removed from the cross?

It’s known as the “swoon theory” and it collapses under close scrutiny. Rather than summarize it for you, I’ll let the writers at CARM do it:

The Swoon theory falls apart quickly when you consider that Jesus had undergone six trials, was beaten, then scourged with 39 lashes that left His back raw, exposed, and bloody.  He had a crown of thorns forced upon His head, ripping His scalp.  He had been crucified with nails in the hands and feet; he hung there for six hours bleeding and dehydrating; his spear-pierced side emitted blood and water.  He was left in a tomb for three days and was tightly wrapped up.  Was anyone in this condition able to revive, get himself out of the tight wrappings, and then walk on pierced feet?

Could he single-handedly move a large stone with hands that were unusable due to the wrist piercings which severed the median nerve and paralyzed them?  Could he then somehow get by the armed guards given the charge of watching the grave-side?  Are we to believe further that Jesus managed to walk a long distance on feet which had been pierced and then appear to the disciples as a victorious conqueror of death?  The Swoon theory makes no sense.  In fact, it would take more to believe this ridiculous conjecture than it would to believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

Exactly so.

The resurrection of Jesus is the lynchpin of the entire Christian faith. If Jesus is still dead, then the entire ediface collapses. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19,

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins … If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Fortunately, the tomb was empty and the only reasonable explanation is what the Bible declares: we have a risen Savior.

Happy Easter!

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Making Your Point vs Making an Appeal

Talking to a skeptic about the Reality of Christ can be a real challenge.

In some cases, they’re genuinely curious. They recognize the elegance of the human experience and the complexity of the universe as something that has to have been designed for a purpose as opposed to it being nothing more than an infinite collection of lucky accidents.

In other instances, you’ve got a cynic that is resolved to maintain a desperate grasp on the idea that they are their own absolute and they’re not interested in listening as much as they’re interested in talking.

Regardless of what kind of a skeptic you’re talking to, you have to be strategic. Should you make the mistake of trying to build your case according to a sequence of truths, there’s a good chance you’ll be stopped in your tracks before you can even make your point.

It’s not because what you’re saying lacks validity as much as it’s an approach that can be easily compromised simply by disagreeing.

Should your argument be built according to a series of talking points that build on one another, all your critic has to do is question the substance of just one of your assertions and your whole platform has now been compromised because of the way you have to pause and “prove” a portion of your perspective that usually falls way short of what you’re actually trying to communicate.

Sometimes it’s a legitimate question, but a lot of times, especially when you’re contending with someone who doesn’t want to listen as much as they want to mock, villify and undermine what you would say about Jesus, it’s a tactic designed to shut you down while simultaneoulsy enhancing their mindset without them having to say a word.

You see this played out in a big way especially when it comes to historical references to Christ.

A Complete Fabrication

Anytime you suggest that there are secular references to Jesus Christ as Someone Who actually lived, you’ve got a real problem on your hands because the atheist needs Jesus to be a complete fabrication.

If Jesus was Someone you could actually speak with and listen to, then He becomes a far bigger problem in the mind of the skeptic who needs to convince both himself and everyone else that there is no absolute save the bottom line of the individual. It’s not just the Substance of the gospel and the question of sin that has to be discarded. The very “idea” of Christ has to be reduced to a ridiculous albeit popular non-entity that has no place in intelligent conversation.

And so they engage in a campaign where things like the portion of Josephus Antiquities that references Christ by name is dismissed as an unethical edit made by an enterprising scribe that was never written by the original author. The persecution of Christians spearheaded by Nero in 64 AD is a complete fabrication and John Tyndale was not burned at the stake for laboring to create an English version of the Bible.

Even the verbiage of the Declaration of Independence that references the “Creator” as the source of one’s rights is reduced to a token courtesy that has no real historical or spiritual substance given the way our Founders were supposedly Deists as opposed to orthodox Christians.

The thing that makes this so toxic and at the same time so exhausting is that, while the conversation has the look and feel of a reasonable evaluation with the goal being an equitable treatment of all faiths and an accommodation of those who may not subscribe to the gospel, the inevitable result is a distorted perception of our nation’s spiritual heritage which then segues gracefully into a godless culture and a humanistic marketplace.

It’s not a search for answers as much as it’s a resolve to silence the answers as they were articulated by our Founding Fathers who were looking to the Bible for both their Inspiration and their Resolve.

It’s not the “separation of church and state,” it’s the re-creation of the church and state as institutions that worship the individual and God is dismissed altogether.

But you can’t do that without inventing an entirely different past…

…nor can you question the historical Reality of Christ without assaulting the Christian doctrine as a whole.

You’re not just “disagreeing” with the gospel or “questioning” the integrity of the Scriptures.

You’re actually implying much, much more.

A Fool or a Fiend
Not Getting Rich Jesus doesn’t offer power or wealth in exchange for believing in His Identity as the Son of God. Rather, He invites you to “take up your cross and follow Him.” (Lk 9:23; [see also 1 Tim 6:10]) Not Making a Good Impression In the aftermath of Christ’s Resurrection, the disciples, who are now absolutely convinced the Jesus is the Christ, are now speaking out publicly and in so doing are infuriating the Saducees. In Acts 5 you can see how the disciples’ resolve was rewarded by threatening them with their lives and then having them flogged (Acts 5:17-41). No Room for Rivals In Acts 17:7 you see the lethal aspect of beliving in Christ from the standpoint of a Roman legislature in that you were proclaiming allegiance to a king other than Caesar.

The First Disciples Were Liars

In order for Christianity to be false, you have to include several default scenarios that must be in place if Jesus is a myth and the gospel is a scam.

First, the original apostles were liars. If the Resurrection was a hoax, then they were lying when they said that Christ has risen.

Yes, the Ten Commandments forbid lying (Ex 20:16) and Jesus was morally perfect (Heb 3:15). But somehow the disciples saw no conflict in lying about the fact the Jesus rose from the grave (Acts 4:10).

That makes no sense.

Every Christian That’s Ever Believed is Either a Fool or a Fiend

You’re Not Getting Rich, You’re Getting Killed

Early Jewish converts to Christianity were not getting rich nor were they getting applauded for subscribing to Christ as the Son of God. As a Hebrew, you were putting yourself at odds with the established religious hierarchy who saw your creed as heretical. From the perspective of Rome, any reference to a “king” other than Caesar was considered a capital offense (Acts 17:7).

Even prior to the persecution by Nero in 64, Christians were getting harrassed as seen in Acts 8:1. After the Edict of Milan, although Christians were no longer targeted the way they had been, believing in the gospel, a commitment to printing the Bible in English or a desire to communicate the Message of Christianity to foreign countries was often enough to warrant abuse, torture and oftentimes death.

Given the lack of benefits and the sacrifices that were often made, you have to be either a fool or a fiend to believe in Christ if He was a myth.

What Are You Thinking?

In the immediate aftermath of the crucifixion, if there was, in fact, a body that could be recovered and you knew it, you were knowingly misleading people in a way that could cost them their lives.

‘That would qualify you as a detestable human being –  a genuine fiend.

Then again, if you could do some thinking for yourself and determine that the Resurrection was not real, yet you made a point of declaring yourself a believer, you’re a fool given the way in which you have now pitted yourself against the authorities that have the legal means to end your life.

And you’re not gaining anything by doing it!

That would make you a fool.

Consider Who You’re Talking To

In subsequent centuries, while distortions of the gospel could translate to wealth and power, neither legitimate Reformers nor authentic Missionaries were benefitting by championing the cause of Christ.

Again, if you’re aware of the fallacy that characterizes your faith, either your character or your intelligence can be rightfully regarded as flawed and you are either a fool or a fiend.

But when you consider the intellectual substance of men like Martin Luther, John Locke or Copernicus, these are not “fools,” rather these are academics that have contributed significantly to the way we see ourselves and the world around us.

And to accuse people like Mother Theresa or Albert Schweitzer as being sinister in any way shape or form is ludicrous.

And yet, should you insist that Christianity is for non-thinking people, you either hold these people in contempt or regard them as hopelessly gullible.

And that makes no sense.

The Writers of the Ancient World Were Frauds

He Can’t Be Real

As has been already stated, acknowledging Jesus as a historical figure – apart from any kind of religious context – represents a dangerous concession for the atheist.

If Christ can be validated as a legitimate person, then you have what amounts to a natural segue to an objective acknowledgement of His Words and His Actions; most of which resonate as incredibly noble.

An atheist’s contempt for religion is founded on an unwillingness to submit to any authority other than the one they’re comfortable with. Yet they can’t be heard as someone who is critical of charity or compassion so it becomes strategic to shut down any attempt to refer to Jesus as a verifiable reality by insisting that…

But in order for this to be true, then every falsification has to have had some kind of motive that would make it not only reasonable but genuinely beneficial to promote a lie.

Why Are You Doing This?

Bear in mind that the Resurrection is an absurd marketing campaign. Given the way many of the world’s religions are capable of winning converts simply by promising eternal rewards or temporary fulfillment, asserting the idea of a bodily Resurrection is a bizarre and unnecessary overreach if all you’re trying to do is win friends and influence people.

At least, that’s what a lot of religious mystics are able to accomplish simply by being charasmatic as opposed to positioning themselves as a resurrected corpse.

Everything we know about the disciples suggests they died as obscure martyrs and not as wealthy and powerful individuals.

To maintain that the gospels are nothing more than a collection of lies, you have to justify why these men would document these fabrications especially given the political and spiritual landscape they occupied at the time.

Not only are they championing a ridiculous claim, they have nothing to gain by promoting the idea that Christ had risen from the grave. Rather, they had literally everything to lose.

That makes no sense.

Josephus

Eusibius is a Fraud
Among the things we have confirmed now is that all surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities derive from the last manuscript of it produced at the Christian library of Caesarea between 220 and 320 A.D.
, the same manuscript used and quoted by Eusebius, the first Christian in history to notice either passage being in the Antiquities of Josephus. That means we have no access to any earlier version of the text (we do not know what the text looked like prior to 230 A.D.), and we have access to no version of the text untouched by Eusebius (no other manuscript in any other library ever on earth produced any copies that survive to today). That must be taken into account. (Richard Carrier)

In a similar vein, if you’re going to insist that every secular reference to Christ is an “interpolation,” then you have to do more than elaborate on “what” was changed, but you also have to provide a substantial reason as to “why” it was changed in the first place.

How does changing or adding some verbiage to Antiquities written by Josephus translate to a marketing strategy? What do you stand to gain by editing the words of Tacitus?

Critics want to insist that the references to Christ found in the writings of Josephus and Tacitus were lies introduced by Christians that took it upon themselves to transcribe a copy of the original and corrupt it by adding content that gave credibility to the historical reality of Christ and the substance of the Christian doctrine.

For example, in Book 18 of Antiquities written in 93 AD, it says this:

At this time appeared Jesus, a very gifted man—if indeed it is right to call him a man; for he was a worker of miracles, a teacher of such men as listened with pleasure to the truth, and he won over many of the Jews and many of Gentile origin as well. This was the Christ; and when at the instigation of our leading men he had been condemned to the cross by Pilate, those who had loved him at the first did not cease to do so; for on the third day he appeared to them alive again, the inspired prophets having foretold this and countless other wonderful things about him. Even now the group of people called Christians after him has not died out.1

This was quoted by a man named Eusibius who put together a history of the early church called “The Ecclesiastical History” in 313 AD. It was a massive undertaking and something that had never been done before. In subsequent centuries he would become known as the “Father of Church History.”

Eusibius was a student of Pamphilus who trained under Origen, one of the earliest and more important Christian scholars.  Under Origen, Pamphilus established a library containing over 30,000 volumes. Eusibius undoubtedly had access to this library and because he was so meticulous in his citations we can know for certain where he was getting his information from.

This is significant because some of what Eusibius references has since been lost so in his documentary we’re given access to resources that no longer exist.

He also had the ability to reference texts like Josephus’ Antiquities that, although it was obviously a copy of the original, it was a transcription written within 200 years of the original as opposed to now where the oldest manuscript we have today was written in the 12th century – over a thousand years removed from the original writing.

Eusibius quoted the above text, not once, but three times. In addition to the above text, Eusibius quotes Josephus prolifically throughout his book.

Historian John Michael Wallace-Hadrill makes an astute observation by saying:

It is in any case exceedingly improbable that Eusebius himself is to be held responsible for the alteration of Josephus’ text, as some have held him to be. If he had perpetrated what would be one of the cleverest frauds of literary history, can we believe that he would have treated his own fraud in the almost casual manner of quoting the Testimonium differently on three occasions?2

The fact that both Josephus and Tacitus reference Christ is understandable given the impact Christ had regardless if you believed Him to be the Son of God or not. The fact that we’re still talking about Him today demonstrates that whatever happened in Jerusalem that first Easter morning resonated as more than just a Facebook post and would’ve been worthy of mentioning as part of a “Year in Review.”

No doubt, Eusibius recognized how the substance of his account would be enhanced by including the irrefutable dynamic of an impartial, secular reference to Christ. But would the temptation to quote a forgery be enough to offset the very real chance of him being revealed as a fraud?

He’s writing the history of the church and attempting to present Christ as the Son of God. How do you accomplish that by lying?

It’s one thing if you’re mistaken or perhaps some concessions can be allowed should you choose to overlook or minimize certain aspects of the past in order to preserve the dignity of specific individuals.

But here you’re talking about the very Identity of Jesus Christ. Being able to cite Josephus honestly would be advantageous but the Substance of the Christian doctrine does not depend on the observations of a historian. Therefore to risk the integrity of your work as a whole for no reason other than the chance to incorporate a secular Jewish perspective into your text…

…makes no sense.

Tacitus

Cornelius Tacitus was a Roman historian who lived approximately between AD 56 and 120. Robert Van Voorst says Tacitus “is generally considered the greatest Roman historian” and his Annals is his “finest work and generally acknowledged by modern historians as our best source of information about this period.”3

At one point, Tacitus says this:

Therefore, to squelch the rumor, Nero created scapegoats and subjected to the most refined tortures those whom the common people called ‘Christians,’ [a group] hated for their abominable crimes. Their name comes from Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius, had been executed by the procurator Pontius Pilate. Suppressed for the moment, the deadly superstition broke out again, not only in Judea, the land which originated this evil, but also in the city of Rome, where all sorts of horrendous and shameful practices, from every part of the world converge and are fervently cultivated.4

The fact that you have a Roman historian who, by virtue of the way he describes Christians as a people group, “…hated for their abominable crimes” and proliferators of a “deadly superstion” is obviously not a believer – that fact the he references Christ as Somone who was executed by Pontius Pilate is a huge vote of credibility for the Christian doctrine in that it validates Jesus as a real person and that He was put to death by Pontius Pilate.

Critics swarm to this text like flies to sugar because of their need to undermine anything that could potentially qualify Christ as Someone that actually existed.

Their criticisms target the way in which Christ is spelled “Christus,” thus referring to someone else. They also attempt to assert that the Christians referenced by Tacitus is actually a different sect of people and not Christ-followers…

Here it’s a bit easier to recognize the improbability of what the atheist needs to be in place in order for their criticisms to carry any weight.

Apart from their critique resonating more as a desperate search for flaws than it does an honest evalutation, if it were something authored by a renegade Christian, the text would be far more complimentary of the Christian doctrine as opposed to it being addressed as an “evil” and a “horrendous and shameful practice.”

Again, to be critical to the extent where you feel justified in dismissing the text altogther…

…it just doesn’t make any sense.

So How Do You Do This?

When you look at the way Jesus engaged the Pharisees, you see a method being deployed from time to time that those who are familiar with the techniques used in a debate would recognize as the Socratic Method.

Basically, you’re posing a series of questions that compel your opponent to answer in a way that complels them to make your point for you.

You see Jesus using this method when He asks the Pharisees to tell Him whose image is on the Roman coinage (Matt 16:26). He made His point about working on the Sabbath when He asked the Pharisees what they would do if they saw one of their flock had fallen into a pit (Matt 12:11).

In the context of this conversation, what you want to do is ask your critic questions based on the three things that we covered here.

For example…

How could the first disciples feel comfortable about lying about Christ’s Resurrection if God commanded them not to lie?

Would you feel comfortable calling Copernicus or Mother Thersa an idiot?

Explain to me why a historian would risk being labeled a fraud for lying about something that could easily be verified?

The idea is to expand the scope of the conversation in a way that compels your opponent to acknowledge the way in which their cynicism and arrogance translates to a scenario where some of the most brilliant minds and compassionate human beings are held in contempt.

It’s then when the fragility of their platform is revealed as something that’s based more on pride than principle and you now have an opportunity to elaborate on the True Substance of the gospel and the practical impact it has on one’s life.

There’s a difference between making your point and making an appeal.

Use Christ’s example in the way you champion your convictions and you’ll be able to make your point. Otherwise, you come across as though you’re asking for concessions.

Your faith is stronger than that…

…and so is He.

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Daily Broadside | You’re Not the Result of Time + Chance

Daily Verse | Ezekiel 37:26
I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant.

It’s Thursday and I want you to know that guy over there in the shades wants you to play pickleball with him.

Let’s take a break from the political world and the ongoing disaster that is the Biden administration, and look at the question of how we got here, with “we” meaning human beings. I don’t assume that all of you who read this blog believe in God or, conversely, that you all believe in the theory of evolution.

Frankly, I don’t know what you believe.

I suppose that for a lot of people, the question of where “life” came from, and specifically human life, might not even find its way to the forefront in their thinking. We just “are” and we muddle along as best we can. But lots of people wonder about it; even NASA is wondering if “life” once existed on Mars and, if so, how it got there.

I don’t dabble much in apologetics on this blog, which has a much tighter focus on politics, but it does have a relationship to what I write about. I believe that almost everything we see happening in our culture today is the result of an abandonment of the centrality of God — and, specifically, of Jesus Christ — by our society.

I say that this blog is an examination of the intersection of faith, culture and politics. If you read my brief “About” page, you’ll see that I believe that culture is a reflection of faith, and politics is a reflection of culture.

I follow Jesus Christ and come at life as an evangelical Christian. It’s from that perspective that I comment on national politics and American culture. If politics is downstream from culture (as Andrew Breitbart believed), then culture is downstream from faith. In fact, said Richard John Neuhaus, “Culture is the root of politics, and religion is the root of culture.”

So if culture reflects the faith (or lack thereof) in a society, then it’s important to understand the reasons for why a society either embraces or rejects faith. And that’s the connection to apologetics, which is not about saying, “sorry,” but about defending the Christian faith with reason, facts and logic.

Are there solid reasons to believe in the God of the Bible?

Biblically-grounded Christians believe that God created the whole universe ex nihilo, out of nothing, including human beings, as Genesis 1:27 testifies:

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

If true, that means there is a personal, powerful and creative Being who designed men and women and the environment they inhabit. Also, if true, it seems like we should expect to see evidence of design in the creation.

On the other hand, the secular alternative to the Creation narrative is that life spontaneously arose out of nothing. Life is the result of pure chance over billions of years with no Designer involved or even necessary.

One of the factors to consider as we try to determine whether the biblical account is truthful or whether the evolutionists are correct is the complexity of what we see around us. Is it rational or logical to think that the incredible intricacies and complexity we find in our world is the result of random mutations and impersonal chance over time? Or is it more rational to see that there must have been an intelligence behind the creation?

Mark Tapscott over at HillFaith.org posted an interesting link to an article in Quanta Magazine that discusses the complexity of just a single neuron. Three researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem trained an artificial neural network to imitate a biological neuron. They were shocked at their findings.

[The researchers] trained an artificial deep neural network to mimic the computations of a simulated biological neuron. They showed that a deep neural network requires between five and eight layers of interconnected “neurons” to represent the complexity of one single biological neuron.

Even the authors did not anticipate such complexity. “I thought it would be simpler and smaller,” said Beniaguev. He expected that three or four layers would be enough to capture the computations performed within the cell.

Like Tapscott, I’m no scientist and don’t pretend to be one. But I can read, and what this tells me is that the sheer complexity of a single neuron far surpasses what even some of our smartest scientists assumed about them.

Tapscott goes on to suggest that “one tentative conclusion suggested by the Quanta Magazine piece and the study it describes might be expressed with something like this: Greater complexity reduces the probability of a chance explanation for the existence of a single biological cell and increases the necessity for intelligent design as the explanation.“

Intelligent Design theory posits that there must be an intelligence behind all that we see, but does not specifically name the Christian God as that intelligence (although it’s inferred). The Intelligent Design movement is led by luminaries such as Michael J. Behe (Darwin’s Black Box) and William A. Dembski (The Design Revolution).

Tapscott goes on to quote retired mathematics lecturer Julie Hannah:

In general, there is a problem with the popular belief that infinity renders anything possible. For example, monkeys typing for an infinite length of time are supposed to eventually type out any given text, but if there are 50 keys, the probability of producing just one given five-letter word is

Julie Hannah equation

This is a tremendously low probability, and it decreases exponentially when letters are added. A computer program that simulated random typing once produced nineteen consecutive letters and characters that appear in a line of a Shakespearean play, but this result took 42,162,500,000 billion years to achieve!

In other words, the probability that such complexity as we see in our universe is the result of chance + time is essentially zero “in any operational sense.”

This is not just true about a single biological neuron, but about the universe as a whole. “The physicist Lee Smolin has calculated that the odds of life-compatible numbers coming up by chance is 1 in 10229.” That number is nearly incomprehensible (1 followed by 229 zeroes):

10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

Even in the face of odds like that, some people refuse to concede that it’s possible there’s a Designer. So they persist in their claims that they just haven’t discovered the incontrovertible evidence that is necessary to “prove” that the universe was formed by chance.

Back to my earlier questions: Is it rational or logical to think that the incredible intricacies and complexity we find in our world is the result of random mutations and impersonal chance over time? Or is it more rational to see that there must have been an intelligence behind the creation?

When we abandon reason and logic (one chance in 10229 means, for all intents and purposes, impossible) in favor of ideological presumptions (there is no god), we become untethered from fact and veer into conjecture. From there we begin to draw assumptions about the meaning of life that align with our worldview. If our existence is the result of random mutations and chance, then there is no god and no reason to adhere to biblical principles or consider them superior to any other set of life principles.

While over-simplified, that’s how we got to where we are today as a society and a culture. It’s the wholesale rejection of Jesus Christ at the center of our lives.

What do you think? Agree or disagree?

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The resurrection happened

Coming off of Easter Sunday—or Resurrection Sunday, as some call it—I thought it might be of interest to post some of the hard evidence for the resurrection being an historical (albeit miraculous) event.

There are at least five possible theories about the resurrection that are covered in the post, Evidence for the Resurrection of Christ, by Peter Kreeft (which is from the Handbook of Christian Apologetics by Peter Kreeft and Fr. Ronald Tacelli, SJ (Intervarsity Press, 1994): ” Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon.”

The excerpt below is specifically about whether the resurrection is myth, the most popular accusation about the truth claims of the Gospels. Kreeft makes six arguments refuting the claim, which I’ve condensed further.

(1) The style of the Gospels is radically and clearly different from the style of all the myths. Any literary scholar who knows and appreciates myths can verify this. There are no overblown, spectacular, childishly exaggerated events. Nothing is arbitrary. Everything fits in. Everything is meaningful. The hand of a master is at work here.

Psychological depth is at a maximum. In myth it is at a minimum. In myth, such spectacular external events happen that it would be distracting to add much internal depth of character. That is why it is ordinary people like Alice who are the protagonists of extra-ordinary adventures like Wonderland. That character depth and development of everyone in the Gospels—especially, of course, Jesus himself—is remarkable. It is also done with an incredible economy of words. Myths are verbose; the Gospels are laconic (concise).

There are also telltale marks of eyewitness description, like the little detail of Jesus writing in the sand when asked whether to stone the adulteress or not (Jn 8:6). No one knows why this is put in; nothing comes of it. The only explanation is that the writer saw it.

[…]

The stylistic point is argued so well by C.S. Lewis in “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism” (in Christian Reflections and also in Fern-Seed and Elephants) that we strongly refer the reader to it as the best comprehensive anti-demythologizing essay we have seen.

[…]

(2) A second problem is that there was not enough time for myth to develop. The original demythologizers pinned their case onto a late second-century date for the writing of the Gospels; several generations have to pass before the added mythological elements can be mistakenly believed to be facts. Eyewitnesses would be around before that to discredit the new, mythic versions. We know of other cases where myths and legends of miracles developed around a religious founder—for example, Buddha, Lao-tzu and Muhammad. In each case, many generations passed before the myth surfaced.

The dates for the writing of the Gospels have been pushed back by every empirical manuscript discovery; only abstract hypothesizing pushes the date forward. Almost no knowledgeable scholar today holds what Bultmann said it was necessary to hold in order to believe the myth theory, namely, that there is no first-century textual evidence that Christianity began with a divine and resurrected Christ, not a human and dead one.

[…]

(3) The myth theory has two layers. The first layer is the historical Jesus, who was not divine, did not claim divinity, performed no miracles, and did not rise from the dead. The second, later, mythologized layer is the Gospels as we have them, with a Jesus who claimed to be divine, performed miracles and rose from the dead. The problem with this theory is simply that there is not the slightest bit of any real evidence whatever for the existence of any such first layer. The two-layer cake theory has the first layer made entirely of air—and hot air at that.

[…]

(4) A little detail, seldom noticed, is significant in distinguishing the Gospels from myth: the first witnesses of the resurrection were women. In first-century Judaism, women had low social status and no legal right to serve as witnesses. If the empty tomb were an invented legend, its inventors surely would not have had it discovered by women, whose testimony was considered worthless. If, on the other hand, the writers were simply reporting what they saw, they would have to tell the truth, however socially and legally inconvenient.

[…]

(5) The New Testament could not be myth misinterpreted and confused with fact because it specifically distinguishes the two and repudiates the mythic interpretation (2 Peter 1:16). Since it explicitly says it is not myth, if it is myth it is a deliberate lie rather than myth. The dilemma still stands. It is either truth or lie, whether deliberate (conspiracy) or non-deliberate (hallucination). There is no escape from the horns of this dilemma. Once a child asks whether Santa Claus is real, your yes becomes a lie, not myth, if he is not literally real. Once the New Testament distinguishes myth from fact, it becomes a lie if the resurrection is not fact.

[…]

(6) William Lane Craig has summarized the traditional textual arguments with such clarity, condensation and power that we quote him here at length. The following arguments (rearranged and outlined from Knowing the Truth About the Resurrection) prove two things: first, that the Gospels were written by the disciples, not later myth-makers, and second, that the Gospels we have today are essentially the same as the originals.

[…]

If you are interested in biblical apologetics, you really must read the whole thing.

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GOOD FRIDAY

Today on Good Friday, Christians soberly remember the execution of Jesus Christ on the cross. We remember that his death was the result of our sin and mourn the part we played in his crucifixion. We also breathe a prayer of genuine relief and thanksgiving that it was he, and not we, who experienced the cross and all that it encompassed.

Unfortunately, his atoning death on the cross proves to be a hurdle for some unbelievers and a trip hazard for some of the faithful.

In my discussions with atheists, one of the objections sometimes raised is that it is unfair for someone to punished for someone else’s crimes. Not only is it unfair, but it violates true justice because the criminal himself doesn’t actually suffer any consequences for what he did wrong. Therefore, the idea that Jesus died for everyone’s sins is irrational and not truly just.

Usually their objection boils down to a question similar to this one: How is it possible for someone to be punished for someone else’s crimes, for which that person, and that person alone, is responsible?

To make it even more concise the question is, Why should I have to pay for what Adam did and why should Jesus have to pay for what I did?

To understand how this is possible, we need to first separate our local standard of justice from the biblical standard of justice. Trying to understand God’s justice through the world’s system of justice is exactly the wrong way to do it. We need to flip our approach 180 degrees and start with what the Bible says about sin, its consequences, and how Jesus assumes the consequences on our behalf.

THE ORIGIN OF SIN AND DEATH
Most atheists are familiar with the account of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis, even if they dismiss it as myth. But it is here that we start because we’re looking at what the Bible says about justice, not what we say about it.

After creating the world and stocking it with flora and fauna, God created Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, “to work it and take care of it.” But he also warned him, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (see Gen. 2:15-17).

Here we see a command to follow—don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—and the consequence of disobedience: if you do, you will die. What this meant was that, in addition to physically wearing out, Adam would be spiritually separated from God.

Adam, as we all know, takes that consequential bite of the forbidden fruit and “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12).

There are several options for interpreting this Pauline passage with various levels of support, but the one shared most widely by biblical scholars is that we were all “in” Adam when he sinned. The term “world” is a reference to humanity, the whole of which existed in Adam (whose name, after all, means “man” or “mankind”) at the fall. As the British theologian John Stott put it in his commentary on this passage, “All died because all sinned in and through Adam, the representative or federal head of the human race.”

Interestingly, this does not absolve us of individual acts of disobedience, “because all sinned.” While we cascaded from Adam under judgment spiritually and biologically, we are each responsible for the choices we make to sin. Writes Grant Osborne,

All people have inherited corruption from Adam and then have participated in that sin. Therefore, they are guilty from two directions—the sinful nature inherited from Adam (passive sin) and their personal participation in that via their own sins (active sin). In fact, this is the basic difference of Christianity from all other religions, the nature of total depravity and the universal guilt of all people under sin. It is this that necessitated the cross, for this guilt is so severe that no human effort could ever assuage it” (The IVP New Testament Commentary Series: Romans, 2004; emphasis added).

THE NECESSITY OF THE CROSS
Here’s the dilemma, then: mankind has sinned in Adam and is, therefore, subject to death, the penalty for that sin. What to do? How does one pay for sin without suffering death? “The wages of sin,” writes Paul, “is death” (Rom. 6:23). It’s what we earn for being sinners. We are utterly incapable of freeing ourselves from the consequences because the penalty must (literally) be paid.

Originally God instituted the sacrificial system found in the Old Testament as a temporary means of atonement, a substitutionary act which covers or satisfies payment for an offense. These sacrifices often required the death of an animal—a blood sacrifice—because “the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one’s life” (Leviticus 17:11).

As long as the Israelite community made regular sacrifices, they held God’s wrath at bay. But we’re told in Hebrews that such sacrifices were inadequate. “Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (Hebrews 10:11). In other words, it was not a permanent remedy for sin.

And that brings us back to what Paul wrote in Romans 5. “Just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all men, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (vv. 18-19).

In other words, just as Adam’s one act of disobedience was enough to condemn every one of his human descendants, so Jesus Christ’s one act of obedience—his death on a cross—was enough to absolve all of those who are “in Christ” of Adam’s sin.

And that is what the next verses in Hebrews 10 affirm: “But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (12-14).

This is perhaps the greatest misunderstanding of all: Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world. That boat has sailed. Condemnation is where we start because being under condemnation is the world in its natural state.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:16-18).

We are, all of us, blithely drifting on a tide that terminates in permanent separation from God. Jesus’ death on the cross, which we remember today, is the only permanent solution to avoid that fate. By his substitutionary atonement, Jesus frees us from the penalty of universal and personal sin and graciously welcomes us back to where we belong—in relationship with God.

May we see it and rejoice.