5.3 Science: No resurrections
1. What science has shown is that a person cannot rise from the dead through natural causes.
But this does not apply to Jesus because we are not claiming he rose naturally. Perhaps someone will ask: “What is more probable, that Jesus rose from the dead or that he did not?” We may answer accurately by stating that the chances of Jesus rising from the dead by natural causes are about zero. However, if the God of traditional Christian theism exists and desired to raise Jesus from the dead under circumstances like the ones we have hinted at here, these natural chances do not affect Jesus’ rising from the dead.
The New Testament writers asserted God raised Jesus from the dead. See in the texts Acts 2:24, 32; 3: 15, 26; 4: 10; 10: 40; 13: 30, 37; Romans 10: 9; Galatians 1: 1; 1 Thessalonians 1: 10, Hebrews 13: 20; 1 Peter 1: 21.
2. The resurrection is not an isolated event
it occurred in interconnected religio-historical context that helps provide any meaning. This includes Jesus’ claims to be Divine. His deeds appear miraculous in nature, possibly even his predictions concerning the resurrection. Jesus’ life claims happened within a context in which his resurrection is right at home. If your mate Dave told you his dad, who died 20 years ago and he saw him walking around his house you would find it odd. Increasingly if he made no claim of divinity, claiming to return physically or performed deeds to suggest as such, you would have a strong wanting to question them. If these events did happen in a significant environment, as in Jesus’ case we might begin thinking about the possibility God was at work. It seems that this is what happened to Jesus’ disciples, as well as to James, the brother of Jesus and Paul. The evidence overwhelmed them all. This objection doesn’t work unless there is a working naturalistic theory for resurrections and we know that doesn’t work. Additionally, the same objections to ‘only science can prove what is true’ apply to this scenario as well (The scientific method is limited in its ability to observe and test; The claim that truth is only found in what science can prove is self-refuting; To require historical events to be predictable or repeatable is self-refuting since these are just different ways of stating science is the only way to live now something).
Notes
Resurrection prediction — See Mark 8: 31; 9: 31; 10: 33–34; Matthew 12: 38–40; 16: 1 –4; John 2: 18–21. We say “possibly” only because many critical scholars today hold that Jesus’ predictions concerning his resurrection were invented later and, thus, cannot be included in our “minimal facts” approach. However, a surprising number of other scholars think that Jesus did make predictions regarding his death and/ or his resurrection.
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