Chris Sinkinson debates John Hick on exclusivism and pluralism in religion

Looks like Justin Brierley on the Unbelievable radio show found a pastor with a Ph.D in philosophy, and he can really whip some ass.

The players:

John Hick is a noted philosopher and theologian who is a proponent of a pluralist view of religion – that there is one light (God) but many lampshades (religious expressions).

Chris Sinkinson is a pastor and Bible tutor who has critiqued Hick’s work.  He says that pluralism empties Christianity of any content and in its own way disrespects other religions more than his own exclusivist stance.

The MP3 file is here.

Justin does a great job as moderator of this debate. He said what I was thinking of saying a number of times during the debate.

Anyway, here is my snarky summary. I creatively paraphrase some of the things that Hick says to make it more clear. And funny.

—-

Hick:
- had an experience looking at the buildings of other religions
- other religions have buildings, so all religions are equal
- I spent some time in the East, and met nice Eastern people
- since Eastern people are nice that means all religions are equal

Justin:
- isn’t Jesus’ claim to be the exclusive path to salvation offensive?

Sinkinson:
- all religions that are exclusive and have to deal with religious pluralism
- even John Hick writes polemically in favor of his own view
- even John Hick thinks that religions that are exclusive are false

Justin:
- what about the blind man and the elephant?
- the story seems to say that other people have a partial grasp?
- but the story-teller himself has the privileged view
- so isn’t the religious pluralist just as arrogant as exclusivists?

Hick:
- well, it’s not arrogant to claim to have the right answer
- Jesus never made the claim to be God incarnate
- Jesus never made the claim to be the exclusive path to God
- historians don’t think that John’s gospel is reliable because it is late
- the proclamation of exclusivity was added by evangelists much later

Sinkinson:
- the historians who doubt the high Christology are radical skeptics
- the mainstream of historical scholarship accepts a high Christology
- the EARLIEST history about Jesus has the highest Christology

Hick:
- the moderate scholars do think Jesus was divine but that he didn’t think he was divine
- the phrase “Son of God” was used to describe any remarkable person
- only later did the early church turn the generic term into “God the Son”

Sinkinson:
- there is reflection on Jesus’ identity and developments, but not invention
- Jesus and his followers were in trouble precisely for linking him to deity
- why else would Jesus get into trouble and get crucified?

Hick:
- the Romans crucified him because people were saying he was the Messiah
- but the Messiah was not identified as being divine, but political
- and that’s why the Romans crucified him

Justin:
- do you (Sinkinson) think that people in other religions can be saved?

Sinkinson:
- the traditional view is exclusivism
- the other world religions are logically contradictory with Christianity
- you have to respect their differences – they are not the same as Christianity
- exclusivists allow that people can be saved by responding to natural theology
- and there are also other cases where non-Christians are saved, like old testament saints and babies who die in infancy

Hick:
- but people’s religions are based on where they are born
- so it’s not fair for God to expect people to be saved in one religion only

Sinkinson:
- the plurality of religions grouped by location doesn’t make christianity false
- that would be the genetic fallacy – rejecting an idea because of its origin
- the real question to consider is whether it is true
- and even the objection assumes that God is a God of love, who should be fair
- but how do you know that God is loving? that is an exclusive view
- how can the “blob” ultimate of religious pluralism be “loving” and “fair”

Hick:
- the ultimate reality is loving or not loving depending on each person’s religion

Sinkinson:
- but some religions and theistic and some are atheistic
- how can those God exist and not exist?

Hick:
- God is beyond everyone’s understanding, except mine
- God is beyond all definitions, except mine
- God is beyond all human understanding, except mine
- i’m not contradicting myself, it’s a mystery! a mystery!
- as long as you don’t look to closely, they’re all the same!
- allow me to tell you about God, which no one can do but me

Justin:
- doesn’t your religious pluralism mean that Christianity is false?

Hick:
- well, Christianity can’t be true, because it disagrees with other religions
- Christianity can’t falsify other religions, that would be mean to them
- other religions are just as “profound” as Christianity – and that’s what matters – not whether a religion makes true claims
- some religions are older than Christianity, that means they can’t be disagreed with
- we can’t let Christianity be true, because then some people will feel bad
- if people feel bad, then they don’t like me and then I feel bad
- if there’s one thing I know about the unknowable ultimate reality, it’s that it wants me to be liked by lots of people

Sinkinson:
- your view seems to be agnosticism – that nothing can be known about the “ultimate real”
- if we can’t express in words what God is like, then why are you saying what God is like?

Hick:
- the indescribable ultimate is described (falsely, but interestingly) by various tradition

Sinkinson:
- does the “ultimate real” exist?

Hick:
- no

Justin:
- are all the exclusive religions wrong, and only you are right?

Hick:
- all propositions about God in all the religions are false
- the experience of being deluded and having feelings about your delusions is “valid” in all religions
- all religions are equally good ways to believe false things and to have feelings about your false beliefs
- only my propositions about God are true
- everyone who disagrees with me is wrong

Sinkinson:
- so all the propositions of all the religions are wrong
- but all the experiences and feelings are “right”

Hick:
- yes
- all propositions about God are humanly constructed, and so false
- except mine – mine are true!

Sinkinson:
- so everything distinctive about Christianity are literally false?

Hick:
- yes, Christian doctrines are all false
- because if they were true, other religions would be false, and they would feel bad
- and we can’t have that, because everyone has to like me
- only things that don’t offend people in other religions can be true

Sinkinson:
- so do we have to then treat all religions as non-propositional?

Hick:
- well just don’t ask people about the content of their beliefs
- just treat their religion as non-cognitive rituals, feelings and experiences
- don’t inquire too deeply into it, because all religions are all nonsense
- i’m very respectful and tolerant of different religions!

Sinkinson:
- but Muslims, for example, think their religion is making truth claims

Hick:
- but there can be tolerance as long as you treat religions as non-propositional nonsense

Sinkinson:
- um, I have a higher respect for religions than you do
- I actually consider that the claims of other religions could be true
- I think that other religions make truth claims and not nonsense claims

Hick:
- well they are all useful because they are all false
- I don’t emphasize beliefs, I emphasize living, experiences and feelings
- as long as everyone accepts my view and rejects their religion, we’ll all be tolerant

Justin:
- erm, isn’t that an exclusive claim?
- you’re trying to say that your view of what religion is is right, and everyone else is wrong

Hick:
- I’m not arrogant, I just think that all the religions of the worlds are false
- only my statements about religion are true – everyone else is wrong
- I’m tolerant, and Christians are arrogant

Justin:
- but you think Sinkinson’s view is wrong
- why should we accept your view and deny his view?

Hick:
- His view of salvation is false, and mine is true

Sinkinson:
- you use words with set meanings, but you mean completely different things
- when I say salvation, I mean deliverance from sins through Jesus

Hick:
- I get to decide what salvation means for everyone, you intolerant bigot

Sinkinson:
- but that word has a specific meaning that has held true in all of Christian history
- but what you mean by salvation is people having subjective delusions that are not true

Hick:
- I don’t like using the word salvation

Sinkinson:
- but you just used it!
- and you think that it is present in different world religions, but it isn’t

Hick:
- God is unknowable and indescribable
- God isn’t a wrathful God though
- and the Christian description of God is false
- Evangelical Christians are mean
- I had experiences with people of other faiths
- and these experiences taught me that religions that think that the universe is eternal are true
- as long as you reduce religion to behaviors and not truth, then religions are all good at producing behaviors
- if you just treat all religions as clothing fashion and food customs, they are all valid
- the main point of religion is for people to agree on cultural conventions and stick to them
- never mind the propositional statements of religions… who cares about truth? not me!
- but Christianity is definitely false

Sinkinson:
- the Judeo-Christian God is different – he reveals himself to humans
- he is distinct from the other religions
- he is personal, and is loving but also angry at sin

Hick:
- But God isn’t a person, and he isn’t a non-person
- I can’t say what he is – I’ll offend someone if I say anything at all!
- except Christians – I can offend them because they are arrogant bigots
- I’m also very spiritual – I meditate on my breathing

Sinkinson:
- you can’t assess a religion by the experiences that people have
- people who have weird experiences do all kinds of evil things
- so the real question has to be about truth – is the New Testament reliable?, etc.

Filed under: Podcasts, Apologetics, Buddhism, Chris Sinkinson, Debate, Exclusivism, Heaven, Hinduism, Inclusivism, Islam, Jesus, John Hick, Judaism, No Other Name, Paul F. Knitter, Paul Knitter, Salvation, Saved, Soteriology, Theology, Uniqueness, World Religions

William Lane Craig debates Arif Ahmed: Does God Exist?

I thought that I would summarize a debate that occurred at Cambridge University between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Arif Ahmed. Everyone knows Dr. Craig, but I should say that Arif Ahmed is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at Cambridge University.

The full MP3 is available here.

Below, I’ve summarized the two opening speeches from each debater. I put snarky clarifications in italics.

Here is Dr. Craig’s opening speech: (1:24)

Craig’s case for God.

1) The origin of the universe (3:10)
- an eternal universe is not compatible with mathematics
- the impossibility of an actual infinite in nature (cites David Hilbert)
- an eternal universe is not compatible with science
- the big bang theory requires space and time to come into being out of nothing (cites PCW Davies)
- even radical alternative theories require an absolute beginning (cites Stephen Hawking)
- atheists must believe that the origin of space and time came from nothing and by nothing (cites Anthony Kenny)

Argument:
P1.1) Whatever begins to exist requires a cause
P1.2) The universe begin to exist
C1.3) Therefore, the universe requires a cause

What can the cause be:
- it must be eternal, because it caused time to exist
- it must be non-physical, because it caused space to begin to exist

Why must the cause of the universe be a person instead of a force?
Only minds can exist non-physically
- the only non-physical entities we know of are abstract objects and minds
- but abstract objects can’t cause physical effects
- therefore, the cause universe is a personal mind

Only minds can cause effects in time without antecedent conditions
- causally prior to the universe’s beginning, there were no antecedent conditions
- the only entity capable of acting freely, not based on antecedent conditions, are free agents
- therefore, the cause of the universe is a free agent

2) The fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe (9:15)
- the fine-tuning of the universe is supported by science
- the constants and quantities given in the big bang can take any of a range of values
- the actual values are within a extremely narrow range that supports the requirements of life
- he gives the example of the fine-tuning of the gravitational constant
- he gives the example of the fine-tuning of the weak force

Argument:
P2.1) The fine-tuning is either due to law, chance or design
P2.2) It is not due to law, because the numbers are independent of the law
P2.3) It cannot be due to chance, the life-permitting band is tiny compared to the possible values
C2.4) Therefore, the fine-tuning is due to design

3) Objective moral values are plausibly grounded in God (12:41)
- objective moral values are values that exist and are binding regardless of what individuals think
- objective moral values cannot be rationally grounded on an atheistic worldview (cites Michael Ruse)
- atheists can recognize moral values and act on them, but they cannot explain their origin and existence
- atheists can only appeal to personal or cultural preferences to say what is right and wrong
- the existence of objective moral is undeniable

Argument:
P3.1) If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist
P3.2) Objective moral values do exist
C3.3) Therefore, God exists

4) The resurrection of Jesus implies that God exists (16:04)
- if the resurrection of Jesus happened, then it would be a miracle, implying that God exists
- three facts are recognized by the majority of scholars
- the tomb was found empty after his death (cites Jacob Kramer)
- individuals and groups saw Jesus after his death (cites Gerd Ludemann)
- the belief in the resurrection of Jesus was totally unexpected (cites N.T. Wright)
- naturalistic explanations of these facts have been rejected by the consensus of scholars

Argument:
P4.1) The 3 minimal facts are established
P4.2) The hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation for these facts
P4.3) The hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead entails that God exists
C4.4) Therefore, God exists

5) God can be known directly by personal experience (20:02)
- God can be experienced just like you experience a relationship with human persons

Dr. Ahmed’s first opening speech: (22:10)

Rebuttal to Craig’s case for God.

0) Craig is wrong about faith and reason (25:20)
- Craig’s book Reasonable Faith, he makes a number of statements about faith and reason
- He writes that Christianity is not accountable to reason if reason goes against Christianity
- He writes that the truth of Christianity is knowable without rational arguments
- He writes that even if there are no reasons to believe, and many reasons to disbelieve, humans are still obligated to believe
- Question for Craig: is Christianity reasonable or isn’t it? Do reasons matter or don’t they?

1) Response to Craig’s first argument: the origin of the universe (28:27)
- what mathematicians say about the contradictory nature of subtraction and division for actual infinities is wrong
- what cosmologists and physicists say about the beginning of time is wrong, every event follows another one, there is no first event
- even if the universe is 15 billion years old, the act of Creation requires time and there was no time prior to the supposed beginning of the universe for God to act in
- the cause of the universe need not be a personal agent
- all minds are made of matter so a mind cannot be the cause of the universe, 
- it is impossible for a person to act outside of time
- why did God wait 15 billion years before creating humans and relating to them? 

2) Response to Craig’s second argument: the fine-tuning of the creation (32:38)
- where do these probabilities that Craig is using come from?

3) Response to Craig’s third argument: the moral argument (34:07)
- I have personal preferences about what counts as right and wrong, and they are superior to God’s preferences
- moral intuitions are not a good way of discovering objective moral values, so therefore objective moral values don’t exist

4) Response to Craig’s fourth argument: the resurrection (36:00)
- the number of eyewitnesses is not enough, because groups number of eyewitnesses can be fooled by illusions, as in David Copperfield illusions
- the Gospels contradict themselves, e.g. – the story of Matthew’s earthquake and walking dead isn’t in Mark – so that’s a contradiction, so the Gospels are not reliable sources for Craig’s 3 minimal facts

5) Response to Craig’s fourth argument: personal experience (37:30)
- there are many different religious experiences because there are many different religions, which means that no one religion can be right

Ahmed’s case against God.

1) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence (39:00)
- if there is are no reasons to believe in God, then this is evidence that he doesn’t exist

2) The inductive argument from evil (40:04)
- some evil is gratuitous – events cause people to suffer, and has no benefit that I can see, which argues against the existence of a good God
- God would not have allowed people to suffer, because he has no overriding purpose that would justify his permission of human suffering

3) Belief in God makes people evil (41:52)
- all genuinely religious people are very immoral, when measured against my subjective standard of morality

Further study

In case you are wondering about his inductive argument from evil, please read this summary on the problems of evil and suffering, which is taken from my list of arguments for and against Christian theism.  Keep in my mind that I am a software engineer with two degrees in computer science… not philosophy!

Craig mentions a paper by the late William P. Alston of Syracuse University in his rebuttal to the inductive problem of evil. The paper lists six limitations on human cognitive capacities that make it difficult for humans to know that some instance of  apparently gratuitous evil really is gratuitious – that God has no morally sufficient reason for permitting this specific instance of evil.  Since Ahmed is making the claim that some evil is gratuitous, he bears the burden of proof.

Filed under: Podcasts, Agnosticism, Arguments, Atheism, Buddhism, Cambridge University, Debate, Does God Exist?, Evidence, Facts, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Judaism, Logic, Muslim, Non Belief, Proof, Secular Humanism, Skepticism, Syllogism, Truth, William Lane Craig

Craig Hazen explains why Christianity is not like other religions

A 28-minute lecture delivered at Biola University.

Topics:

• Christianity is different from other religions for several reasons
• Christianity is testable using objective evidence
• you can offer objective evidence for and against it
• compare that to Zen Buddhism, for example, which is about subjective experiences
• Buddhism is subjective, you can’t test it objectively
• Christianity can be tested using the historical method
• if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Christianity is false
• Christianity is set up for inquiry
• You can know whether the resurrection happened using historical methods
• “faith” in Christianity is not belief without arguments and evidence
• the Bible presents it’s claims about God as testable and public

This was very fun to watch.

UPDATE: Here’s a related post at the Simpson blog.

Filed under: Videos, Argument, Buddhism, Christianity, Craig Hazen, Evidence, History, Logic, Objective, Religion, Resurrection, Subjective, Testability, Testing

William Lane Craig debates Arif Ahmed: Does God Exist?

I thought that I would summarize a debate that occurred at Cambridge University between Dr. William Lane Craig and Dr. Arif Ahmed. Everyone knows Dr. Craig, but I should say that Arif Ahmed is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Philosophy at Cambridge University.

The full MP3 is available here.

Below, I’ve summarized the two opening speeches from each debater.

Here is Dr. Craig’s opening speech: (1:24)

Craig’s case for God.

1) The origin of the universe (3:10)
- an eternal universe is not compatible with mathematics
- the impossibility of an actual infinite in nature (cites David Hilbert)
- an eternal universe is not compatible with science
- the big bang theory requires space and time to come into being out of nothing (cites PCW Davies)
- even radical alternative theories require an absolute beginning (cites Stephen Hawking)
- atheists must believe that the origin of space and time came from nothing and by nothing (cites Anthony Kenny)

Argument:
P1.1) Whatever begins to exist requires a cause
P1.2) The universe begin to exist
C1.3) Therefore, the universe requires a cause

What can the cause be:
- it must be eternal, because it caused time to exist
- it must be non-physical, because it caused space to begin to exist

Why must the cause of the universe be a person instead of a force?
Only minds can exist non-physically
- the only non-physical entities we know of are abstract objects and minds
- but abstract objects can’t cause physical effects
- therefore, the cause universe is a personal mind

Only minds can cause effects in time without antecedent conditions
- causally prior to the universe’s beginning, there were no antecedent conditions
- the only entity capable of acting freely, not based on antecedent conditions, are free agents
- therefore, the cause of the universe is a free agent

2) The fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the universe (9:15)
- the fine-tuning of the universe is supported by science
- the constants and quantities given in the big bang can take any of a range of values
- the actual values are within a extremely narrow range that supports the requirements of life
- he gives the example of the fine-tuning of the gravitational constant
- he gives the example of the fine-tuning of the weak force

Argument:
P2.1) The fine-tuning is either due to law, chance or design
P2.2) It is not due to law, because the numbers are independent of the law
P2.3) It cannot be due to chance, the life-permitting band is tiny compared to the possible values
C2.4) Therefore, the fine-tuning is due to design

3) Objective moral values are plausibly grounded in God (12:41)
- objective moral values are values that exist and are binding regardless of what individuals think
- objective moral values cannot be rationally grounded on an atheistic worldview (cites Michael Ruse)
- atheists can recognize moral values and act on them, but they cannot explain their origin and existence
- atheists can only appeal to personal or cultural preferences to say what is right and wrong
- the existence of objective moral is undeniable

Argument:
P3.1) If God does not exist, then objective moral values do not exist
P3.2) Objective moral values do exist
C3.3) Therefore, God exists

4) The resurrection of Jesus implies that God exists (16:04)
- if the resurrection of Jesus happened, then it would be a miracle, implying that God exists
- three facts are recognized by the majority of scholars
- the tomb was found empty after his death (cites Jacob Kramer)
- individuals and groups saw Jesus after his death (cites Gerd Ludemann)
- the belief in the resurrection of Jesus was totally unexpected (cites N.T. Wright)
- naturalistic explanations of these facts have been rejected by the consensus of scholars

Argument:
P4.1) The 3 minimal facts are established
P4.2) The hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead is the best explanation for these facts
P4.3) The hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead entails that God exists
C4.4) Therefore, God exists

5) God can be known directly by personal experience (20:02)
- God can be experienced just like you experience a relationship with human persons

Dr. Ahmed’s first opening speech: (22:10)

Rebuttal to Craig’s case for God.

0) Craig is wrong about faith and reason (25:20)
- Craig’s book Reasonable Faith, he makes a number of statements about faith and reason
- He writes that Christianity is not accountable to reason if reason goes against Christianity
- He writes that the truth of Christianity is knowable without rational arguments
- He writes that even if there are no reasons to believe, and many reasons to disbelieve, humans are still obligated to believe
- Question for Craig: is Christianity reasonable or isn’t it? Do reasons matter or don’t they?

1) Response to Craig’s first argument: the origin of the universe (28:27)
- what mathematicians say about the contradictory nature of subtraction and division for actual infinities is wrong
- what cosmologists and physicists say about the beginning of time is wrong, every event follows another one, there is no first event
- even if the universe is 15 billion years old, the act of Creation requires time and there was no time prior to the supposed beginning of the universe for God to act in
- the cause of the universe need not be a personal agent
- all minds are made of matter so a mind cannot be the cause of the universe, because all the people who pre-suppose materialism like me think that minds must be made of matter
- it is impossible for a person to act outside of time,because all the persons I know act in time
- why did God wait 15 billion years before creating humans and relating to them? – i wouldn’t have done it that way

2) Response to Craig’s second argument: the fine-tuning of the creation (32:38)
- where do these probabilities that Craig is using come from?

3) Response to Craig’s third argument: the moral argument (34:07)
- I have personal preferences about what counts as right and wrong, and they are superior to God’s preferences
- moral intuitions are not a good way of discovering objective moral values, so therefore objective moral values don’t exist

4) Response to Craig’s fourth argument: the resurrection (36:00)
- the number of eyewitnesses is not enough, because groups number of eyewitnesses can be fooled by illusions, as in David Copperfield illusions
- the Gospels contradict themselves, e.g. – the story of Matthew’s earthquake and walking dead isn’t in Mark – so that’s a contradiction, so the Gospels are not reliable sources for Craig’s 3 minimal facts

5) Response to Craig’s fourth argument: personal experience (37:30)
- there are many different religious experiences because there are many different religions
- if lots of people disagree about something, then no one can be right

Ahmed’s case against God.

1) Absence of evidence is evidence of absence (39:00)
- if there is are no reasons to believe in God, then this alters reality to make it true that he doesn’t exist

2) The inductive argument from evil (40:04)
- some evil is gratuitous – events cause people to suffer, and has no benefit that I can see, based on my limited knowledge in time and space and my personal preference of what counts as a benefit and what doesn’t
- God would not have allowed people to suffer, because God’s job is to make us feel happy in this life

3) Belief in God makes people evil (41:52)
- all genuinely religious people are very immoral, according to my personal preferences about what counts as right and wrong

Further study

In case you are wondering about his inductive argument from evil, please read this summary on the problems of evil and suffering, which is taken from my list of arguments for and against Christian theism.  Keep in my mind that I am a software engineer with two degrees in computer science… not philosophy!

Craig mentions a paper by the late William P. Alston of Syracuse University in his rebuttal to the inductive problem of evil. The paper lists six limitations on human cognitive capacities that make it difficult for humans to know that some instance of  apparently gratuitous evil really is gratuitious – that God has no morally sufficient reason for permitting this specific instance of evil.  Since Ahmed is making the claim that some evil is gratuitous, he bears the burden of proof.

Filed under: Podcasts, Agnosticism, Arguments, Atheism, Buddhism, Cambridge University, Debate, Does God Exist?, Evidence, Facts, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Judaism, Logic, Muslim, Non Belief, Proof, Secular Humanism, Skepticism, Syllogism, Truth, William Lane Craig

Easter is a good time to learn how to defend the resurrection of Jesus

First, let’s briefly talk about whether the Bible supports talking about the resurrection with non-Christians.

There are lots and lots of Christians in the world, but almost none of them are comfortable talking about the resurrection with non-Christians, in a way that doesn’t use crazy Christianese language and doesn’t assume that the Bible is inerrant. But I think that this situation is wrong for three reasons.

First, Jesus says that his resurrection is a sign so that people will believe in his other theological claims.

Matthew 12:38-40:

³⁸Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.”

³⁹He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

⁴⁰For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Second, Paul says that if the resurrection didn’t happen then we are all wasting our time with Christianity.

1 Corinthians 15:13-19:

¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

¹⁴And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

¹⁵More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either.

¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins.

¹⁸Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.

¹⁹If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

And third, Peter uses the resurrection as evidence in his evangelistic efforts.

Acts 2:22-24, 29-33, 36:

²²“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

²³This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

²⁴But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

²⁹“Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.

³⁰But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.

³¹Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.

³²God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.

³³Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.

³⁶“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

So, how can you do what Jesus, Paul and Peter do with your non-Christian friends?

You can do it, too – and you must

Most non-Christians don’t like to hear about the resurrection, because if a religious teacher really rose from the dead, then they would have to care about what that person said. Many people don’t want to have to adjust their lives to someone else’s rules and values – they don’t want to have to follow anyone but themselves. Many people have also heard that that they will separated away from God when they die unless they respond to the Easter story and develop a relationship with Jesus over the course of their lives.

But aside from the dislike of authority issue, there’s another reason why people don’t want to hear about the Easter story. Many people think that when Christians talk about Easter, that we are just telling our personal your personal opinions, not telling about what really happened in history. So not only are these stories threatening to their autonomy, but they are also just our opinions. And our opinions can be ignored – especially when they are opinions that put burdens on them to re-prioritize their lives.

Just think for a minute what they must think of you when you talk about how they must “believe in Jesus” (whatever that means to a non-Christian) in order to be “saved” from eternal separation from God. They think that your opinions about religion are just like opinions about which flavor of ice cream is best – just your personal preferences. They don’t think that you are talking about anything real – something that really happened. How would you like to hear someone tell you that you are going to Hell for not liking vanilla ice cream? You’d think they were crazy! And that’s what non-Christians think of you, unless… Unless what? Unless you present publicly testable arguments and evidence to show them why they should consider the claims of Jesus.

No one complains that it is “mean and divisive” if their doctor diagonoses them with cancer. Because a challenging diagnosis is not the doctor’s personal opinion – it’s true objectively. You need to make your presentation of the gospel exactly like a doctor’s diagnosis. Am I making sense here?If you are telling them the truth and you can show them publicly testable reasons and evidence, what sense does it make for them to be offended? They might as well be offended by their credit card statement or their speeding ticket. And that’s why people in the New Testament were constantly appealing to evidence whenever they talked to people about why they ought to become Christians.

I have Jewish friends, Hindu friends, Muslim friends, atheist friends, etc. They do listen when  you talk about the Bible as a historical document, and when you talk about what we can know about the life of Jesus using historical methods. Telling people the truth with publicly testable arguments and evidence that they can assess for themselves works.

Some things to help you talk about the resurrection

The main thing to remember about talking about the resurrection in public with non-Christians is that you can’t assume that they believe everything in the Bible is true. Serious Christians get around this by using standard historical criteria to filter out the passages of the Bible that are most likely to be historical. A passage could be as small as 1 verse or it could be several verses. Some of the criteria that historians use to separate out the passages that are more likely to be “historical” would be things like: 1) how early after the events was the passage written? 2) in how many places does the passage appear? 3) Are the places where the passage appears independent from one another (e.g. – Mark’s gospel and Paul’s letters), 4) does it embarrass the author in some way? 5) Is the passage corroborated by other historical accounts not written by people who share the author’s views? Using these criteria and others, historians (and I mean even non-Christian historians) can extract a bare minimum set of historical facts about Jesus. On this view, it matters more that you know things like when books of the Bible were written, who wrote them, and whether they agree with other books in the Bible, and books outside the Bible. You have to do good history in order to bee able to talk about Jesus in public.

Once you establish these minimal facts, you argue that the best explanation of the facts is that God raised Jesus from the dead. Your opponent either has to disprove one of your minimal facts, or he has to propose an alternative explanation of those minimal facts that explains the data better.

Here is an example set of facts that almost no historian denies:

• Jesus died by crucifixion
• Jesus was buried in a tomb and the location was known
• The tomb was later found empty by his women followers
• He was seen by individuals and groups alive after his death
• He was seen by skeptics like James after his death
• He was seen by enemies like Paul after his death
• The earliest message preached by the first Christians was that Jesus had been resurrected
• Christians faced persecution from the Roman authorities for proclaiming the resurrection

So why do historians accept these facts and not others? See below for some links and even a real formal academic debate where this “minimal facts” approach was used.

The top 10 links to get you started

So with that out of the way, here are the top 10 links to help you along with your learning.

1. How every Christian can learn to explain the resurrection of Jesus to others
2. The earliest source for the minimal facts about the resurrection
3. The earliest sources for the empty tomb narrative
4. Who were the first witnesses to the empty tomb?
5. Did the divinity of Jesus emerge slowly after many years of embellishments?
6. What about all those other books that the Church left out the Bible?
7. Assessing Bart Ehrman’s case against the resurrection of Jesus
8. William Lane Craig debates radical skeptics on the resurrection of Jesus
9. Did Christianity copy from Buddhism, Mithraism or the myth of Osiris?
10. Quick overview of N.T. Wright’s case for the resurrection

Debates are a fun way to learn

Here’s a formal debate between two scholars, one Christian and one not, where you can see how to talk about the resurrection – even at a university:

• James Crossley and William Lane Craig

Books on the resurrection

You can learn more about defending the resurrection on historical grounds by getting books by people who know how to make the case for the resurrection in formal academic debates. Mike Licona, for example, has debated skeptics like Bart Ehrman many times.

• Here is a good introductory book on the resurrection
• Here is a good intermediate book on the resurrection

Filed under: News, Apologetics, Appearances, Atheism, Authenticity, Bart Ehrman, Buddhism, Christianity, Corinthians, Criteria, Debates, Dissimilarity, Divinity, Early Attestation, Embarassment, Empty Tomb, Enemy Attestation, Gary Habermas, God, Hallucination, Historical Jesus, History, History of Religion, Jesus, Learn, Minimal Facts, Mithra, Mithraism, Multiple Attestation, Myth, N. T. Wright, Naturalism, New Testament, Osiris, Paul, Reliability, Religion, Resurrection, Resurrection of Jesus, Skeptic, Train, William Lane Craig