By Paul Nelson and David Klinghoffer | December 13, 2016 | 2:37 PM EST

Darwinian theory is broken and may not be fixable. That was the takeaway from a meeting last month organized by the world’s most distinguished and historic scientific organization, which went mostly unreported by the media.

The three-day conference at the Royal Society in London was remarkable in confirming something that advocates of intelligent design (ID), a controversial scientific alternative to evolution, have said for years. ID proponents point to a chasm that divides how evolution and its evidence are presented to the public, and how scientists themselves discuss it behind closed doors and in technical publications. This chasm has been well hidden from laypeople, yet it was clear to anyone who attended the Royal Society conference, as did a number of ID-friendly scientists.

Maybe that secrecy helps explain why the meeting was so muffled in mainstream coverage.

Oh, there were a few reports. In the Huffington Post, science journalist Suzan Mazur complained of a lack of momentousness: “[J]ust what was the point of attracting a distinguished international gathering if the speakers had little new science to present? Why waste everyone’s time and money?” On the other hand, a write-up in The Atlantic by Carl Zimmer acknowledged a sense of strain between rival cliques of evolutionists: “Both sides offered their arguments and critiques in a civil way, but sometimes you could sense the tension in the room – the punctuations of tsk-tsks, eye-rolling, and partisan bursts of applause.”

Mild drama notwithstanding, why should anyone care?

For one thing, the Royal Society, dating back to 1660, is a legend in the science world. Its founders included the great chemist Robert Boyle, and it was later headed for 24 years (1703-1727) by Isaac Newton – a fact that is hard to forget with Newton’s death mask on prominent display in a glass case. Portraits of Boyle and Newton look down from the walls above. So the historical connections lend a certain weight by themselves.

What’s really notable, however, is that such a thoroughly mainstream body should so openly acknowledge problems with orthodox Neo-Darwinian theory. Indeed, though presenters ignored, dismissed, or mocked the theory of intelligent design, the proceedings perfectly illustrated a point made by our colleague Stephen Meyer, author of the New York Times bestseller “Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design.”

Dr. Meyer, a Cambridge University-trained philosopher of science, writes provocatively in the book’s Prologue:

“The technical literature in biology is now replete with world-class biologists routinely expressing doubts about various aspects of Neo-Darwinian theory, and especially about its central tenet, namely the alleged creative power of the natural selection and mutation mechanism.

“Nevertheless, popular defenses of the theory continue apace, rarely if ever acknowledging the growing body of critical scientific opinion about the standing of the theory. Rarely has there been such a great disparity between the popular perception of a theory and its actual standing in the relevant peer-reviewed science literature.”

The opening presentation at the Royal Society by one of those world-class biologists, Austrian evolutionary theorist Gerd Müller, underscored exactly Meyer’s contention. Dr. Müller opened the meeting by discussing several of the fundamental “explanatory deficits” of “the modern synthesis,” that is, textbook Neo-Darwinian theory. According to Müller, the as yet unsolved problems include those of explaining:

• Phenotypic complexity (the origin of eyes, ears, body plans, i.e., the anatomical and structural features of living creatures);

• Phenotypic novelty, i.e., the origin of new forms throughout the history of life (for example, the mammalian radiation some 66 million years ago, in which the major orders of mammals, such as cetaceans, bats, carnivores, enter the fossil record, or even more dramatically, the Cambrian explosion, with most animal body plans appearing more or less without antecedents); and finally

• Non-gradual forms or modes of transition, where you see abrupt discontinuities in the fossil record between different types.

As Müller has explained in a 2003 work (“On the Origin of Organismal Form,” with Stuart Newman), although “the Neo-Darwinian paradigm still represents the central explanatory framework of evolution, as represented by recent textbooks” it “has no theory of the generative.” In other words, the Neo-Darwinian mechanism of mutation and natural selection lacks the creative power to generate the novel anatomical traits and forms of life that have arisen during the history of life. Yet, as Müller noted, Neo-Darwinian theory continues to be presented to the public via textbooks as the canonical understanding of how new living forms arose – reflecting precisely the tension between the perceived and actual status of the theory that Meyer described in “Darwin’s Doubt.”

Yet, the most important lesson of the Royal Society conference lies not in its vindication of claims that our scientists have made, gratifying as that might be to us, but rather in defining the current problems and state of research in the field. The conference did an excellent job of defining the problems that evolutionary theory has failed to solve, but it offered little, if anything, by way of new solutions to those longstanding fundamental problems.

Much of the conference after Müller’s talk did discuss various other proposed evolutionary mechanisms. Indeed, the prime movers in the Royal Society event, Müller, James Shapiro, Denis Noble, and Eva Jablonka – known to evolutionary biologists as the “Third Way of Evolution” crowd, neither ID theorists nor orthodox Darwinists – have proposed repairing the explanatory deficits of the modern synthesis by highlighting evolutionary mechanisms other than random mutation and natural selection. Much debate at the conference centered around the question of whether these new mechanisms could be incorporated into the basic population genetics framework of Neo-Darwinism, thus making possible a new “extended” evolutionary synthesis, or whether the emphasis on new mechanisms of evolutionary change represented a radical, and theoretically incommensurable, break with established theory. This largely semantic, or classificatory, issue obscured a deeper question that few, if any, of the presentations confronted head on: the issue of the origin of genuine phenotypic novelty – the problem that Müller described in his opening talk.

Indeed, by the end of Day 3 of the meeting, it seemed clear to many of our scientists, and others in attendance with whom they talked, that the puzzle of life’s novelties remained unsolved – if, indeed, it had been addressed at all. As a prominent German paleontologist in the crowd concluded, “All elements of the Extended Synthesis [as discussed at the conference] fail to offer adequate explanations for the crucial explanatory deficits of the Modern Synthesis (aka Neo-Darwinism) that were explicitly highlighted in the first talk of the meeting by Gerd Müller.”

In “Darwin’s Doubt,” for example, Meyer emphasized the obvious importance of genetic and other (i.e., epigenetic) types of information to building novel phenotypic traits and forms of life. The new mechanisms offered by the critics of Neo-Darwinism at the conference – whether treated as part of an extended Neo-Darwinian synthesis or as the basis of a fundamentally new theory of evolution – did not attempt to explain how the information necessary to generating genuine novelty might have arisen. Instead, the mechanisms that were discussed produce at best minor microevolutionary changes, such as changes in wing coloration of butterflies or the celebrated polymorphisms of stickleback fish.

Moreover, the mechanisms that were discussed – niche construction, phenotypic plasticity, natural genetic engineering, and so on – either presupposed the prior existence of the biological information necessary to generate novelty, or they did not address the mystery of the origin of that information (and morphological novelty) at all. (Not all the mechanisms addressed were necessarily new, by the way. Niche construction and phenotypic plasticity have been around for a long time.)

Complex behaviors such as nest-building by birds or dam construction by beavers represent examples of niche construction, in which some organisms themselves demonstrate the capacity to alter their environment in ways that may affect the adaptation of subsequent generations to that environment. Yet no advocate of niche construction at the meeting explained how the capacity for such complex behaviors arose de novo in ancestral populations, as they must have done if the naturalistic evolutionary story is true.

Rather, these complex behaviors were taken as givens, leaving the critical question of their origins more or less untouched. While there is abundant evidence that animals can learn and transmit new behaviors to their offspring – crows in Japan, for instance, have learned how to use automobile traffic to crack open nuts – all such evidence presupposes the prior existence of specific functional capacities enabling observation, learning, and the like. The evolutionary accounts of niche construction theory therefore collide repeatedly with a brick wall marked “ORIGINAL COMPLEX FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY REQUIRED HERE” – without, or beyond which, there would simply be nothing interesting to observe.

James Shapiro’s talk, clearly one of the most interesting of the conference, highlighted this difficulty in its most fundamental form. Shapiro presented fascinating evidence showing, contra Neo-Darwinism, the non-random nature of many mutational processes – processes that allow organisms to respond to various environmental challenges or stresses. The evidence he presented suggests that many organisms possess a kind of pre-programmed adaptive capacity – a capacity that Shapiro has elsewhere described as operating under “algorithmic control.” Yet, neither Shapiro, nor anyone else at the conference, attempted to explain how the information inherent in such algorithmic control or pre-programmed capacity might have originated.

This same “explanatory deficiency” was evident in the discussions of the other mechanisms, though we won’t attempt to demonstrate that exhaustively here. We would direct readers, however, to Chapters 15 and 16 of “Darwin’s Doubt,” where Meyer highlighted the way in which, not just Neo-Darwinism, but also newer evolutionary mechanisms (including many discussed at the conference) fail to solve the question of the origin of information necessary to generate novelty.

In those chapters, Meyer reviewed a range of proposed fixes to the Modern Synthesis. He acknowledged and described the various advantages that many of these proposals have over Neo-Darwinism, but also carefully explained why each of these mechanisms falls short as an explanation for the origin of the biological information necessary to build novel structures and forms of animal life. He quoted paleontologist Graham Budd who has observed: “When the public thinks about evolution, they think about [things like] the origin of wings … . But these are things that evolutionary theory has told us little about.”

Many fascinating talks at the Royal Society conference described a number of evolutionary mechanisms that have been given short shrift by the Neo-Darwinian establishment. Unfortunately, however, the conference will be remembered, as Suzan Mazur intimated in her coverage, for its failure to offer anything new. In particular, it failed to offer anything new that could help remedy the main “explanatory deficit” of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis – its inability to account for the origin of phenotypic novelty and especially, the genetic and epigenetic information necessary to produce it.

These are still problems that evolutionary theory tells us little about – constituting, in our judgment, an invitation to scientists to consider the alternative of intelligent design.

Dr. Paul Nelson and Mr. David Klinghoffer are Senior Fellows with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture.

This is pretty remarkable. Our colleague Stephen Meyer was on Dennis Prager’s radio show earlier this week to talk about the recent volume Steve co-edited, Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique. Dennis described how, on the theory of evolution — “the creative power of mutation and natural selection,” as Dr. Meyer summarizes the issue — Steve turned him around.

Prager’s Journey
On his own intellectual journey, here’s what Prager told Meyer:

Until I met you, to be honest, my view was, I didn’t really care about evolution. It didn’t bother me if it was true, and it didn’t bother me if it wasn’t true. I believe in God as the creator of the heavens and the earth, the God of Genesis 1, and if God used evolution, what do I care? It’s all a miracle, anyway. Then I read you and talked to you, and my wife, frankly, who as you know, knows a fair amount about evolution, and it has become less and less tenable, not for religious reasons, but for scientific reasons, to endorse evolution as it is generally taught.

They discuss the 2016 Royal Society meeting, and Prager reiterates:

I was agnostic on evolution much of my life. I didn’t really care. I believe in God as the creator, and the methodology did not interest me. But I don’t want to believe, or even be agnostic about something that just isn’t upheld by scientists.

That’s a key point. It was the science not the religion that moved him. What impressed Dennis was not theological objections. It was the fact that the field of evolution is in turmoil, a reality that the media largely conceal from the public, as Meyer has made clear in his books. “This is what you opened my mind to,” Prager said. “Scientists are having trouble with evolution!”

Groupthink and Prior Commitment
For the thoughtful layman, this raises an obvious question. Prager asked, “When I hear you say this, I think of all the preeminent scientists of the last hundred years who have believed what you now say is not tenable. If you’re right, what does that say about scientists?”

Meyer explained that scientists are humans after all. It tells us, he says:

That science like every other form of human endeavor can be subject to groupthink, or it can be influenced by prior ideological commitments. In particular, in the debate about biological origins, there is a prior commitment to a materialistic approach to the question. It’s codified in a principle known as methodological naturalism, and it says that if you’re going to be a true scientist, you have to limit yourself to strictly materialistic explanations for everything, not just how nature ordinarily operates, which would be quite sensible, but where nature itself came from.

Theistic evolution, in particular, is a troubled thesis not for scientific reasons alone, but also for reasons of basic incoherence. Meyer: “There’s a logical problem for theistic evolution: Can God direct an undirected process? Well, no, even God can’t direct an undirected process. If he does, it’s no longer undirected.”

Do consider subscribing to Dennis’s service to hear this for yourself. Steve is a clear as crystal. As Dennis points out, “He writes as clearly as he speaks.” Of Meyer’s previous books, Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, Dennis says, “They’re very, very important works.” Regarding the Theistic Evolution book itself, says Prager, “Don’t let the title in any way intimidate you. Any of you interested in theology or science will find this immensely interesting.” And that is all true.

Challenge from an Atheist
Prager recounts a challenge from an atheist friend: “You want to believe in God, go right ahead, that’s fine. But you can’t use science to argue for God because science can only talk about that which is material.” Yes, that’s an objection you hear all the time. Well, the agent behind the design in nature may be God, or it may not, as far as the theory of ID can tell us. But the agent is certainly a mind. So are we saying that science can’t detect minds?

Meyer nails it:
Actually, that’s an artificial restriction on the scientific method. Point one. Point two is that we infer the activity of mind all the time. We do it in our ordinary experience. If you’re an insurance fraud detector, and you determine that somebody was manipulating circumstances, you’d infer the activity of mind. If you’re an archaeologist, and you look at the Rosetta Stone, you don’t say, ‘Gee, isn’t it wonderful what wind and erosion did to produce those information-rich inscriptions?’ You recognize that there was a mind behind it.

Prager is rightly taken with the last point. “DNA is a Rosetta Stone,” as he puts it.

Something from Nothing
I think a lesson here may be that reasonable people, without a dog in the fight, but when exposed to powerful ideas clearly expressed, are able to tell sense from nonsense. Prager describes having atheist cosmologist Lawrence Krauss on his show to talk about Krauss’s most recent book, A Universe from Nothing. Lawrence argues for quantum cosmology, Meyer explains, “in which the universe is thought to emerge out of the law of quantum physics.” The only problem? “Laws of physics do not produce matter. They describe the interactions between matter.”

Prager questioned Krauss about the fundamental logic of getting something from nothing, as Krauss asserts about the origin of the cosmos. As Prager recalls it, Professor Krauss responded to the challenge with a comment along the lines of, “It depends on your definition of nothing.”

“And,” Dennis recalls, “that’s when I gave up.” (…on Lawrence Krauss)

The interaction with Dennis reminds me of journalist John Zmirak, the editor of our friend Fr. Michael Chaberek’s book Aquinas and Evolution, who similarly had his mind changed by the power of ideas. Zmirak, like Prager, is a shrewd critic of bad ideas. Zmirak was a theistic evolutionist to begin with. He later recalled:

I started out working on the book quite hostile to its premise. And then something very strange happened. I’ve only experienced it maybe five or six times in my life. (And never while editing some book I disagreed with.) I changed my mind.

Oh, it’s very difficult to concede that you were mistaken about something. Especially, I would say, for males. A changed mind is an impressive testament. An unwillingly changed mind, in Dennis Prager’s case or in John Zmirak’s, is even more impressive.

Photo: Dennis Prager and Stephen Meyer.

Discover magazine tells readers why people believe in God. It’s simple: Evolution fooled us! But in fact the article is a perfect case study in how a sweeping story of “evolution” gets credit for just about anything.

Bridget Alex wrote the article, titled, “How the Human Brain Evolved to Believe in Gods.” She points to three “evolved” tendencies: “We seek patterns, infer intentions and learn by imitation.”

Pattern-seeking is about seeing cause-and-effect relationships. There’s a connection between the shape of a lion’s paw-print and the existence of actual lions. Evolution produced that awareness in us so that (continuing the same example) we wouldn’t get gobbled by lions.

Inferring intentions has to do with recognizing “that others have beliefs, desires and goals, influencing their actions.” Evolution gave us that ability so we could have social relationships.

Then there’s learning by imitation, which is a great way to know what to eat and what not to eat, how to cook, how to hunt, how to find shelter and so on. Evolution obviously had to build that in us — there’d be no “us” without it.

A Case Study in How To Read Evolution Articles

There’s more to this than debunking just one article. This is the way evolution stories are written. Always. Everything I’ve read about “how evolution did this,” or “how evolution did that” depends on unproven, often unscientific assumptions like the five listed here. It’s especially a problem in popular writing, but it’s common in technical articles, too.

We need to keep our antennae up for these assumptions. We need to train our kids in how to spot them. It’s about thinking clearly and rationally, knowing the difference between demonstrated facts and unproven assumptions.

It isn’t just about fending off evolution, in other words. Still, it’s worth noticing how often good critical thinking can spot these kinds of deep holes in evolutionary explanations. People who want to prove evolution just don’t seem to be able to get anywhere without assuming they’re already there.

That’s the story, says Alex. Evolution wired all that into us; but it messed up, too. It didn’t include a “stop” switch to tell us where not to use those tendencies. We see patterns that aren’t real, and we conclude falsely that someone must have put them there on purpose. Some things we learn by imitation aren’t so good after all. So for example we see patterns in weather, and we attribute them to some kind of person. We call that person a god; then we imitate one another in worshiping that god. Voila, it’s religion!

Therefore, she concludes, “It doesn’t take supernatural beings to explain why so many people believe in them — just natural evolutionary processes.”

Five Necessary — But Bad — Assumptions

And it works — in a way. The problem is, you have to make a whole boatload of assumptions to make it work. Let me just list a few:

1. You have to assume your thinking is rational, even while you’re building a theory of pervasive human irrationality.

2. You have to assume that all religious belief is irrational. This requires ignoring or dismissing centuries of solid Christian thinking in support of the rational truth of Christianity.

3. You have to assume we have useful abilities like pattern recognition only because evolution gave them to us. That means you must ignore the possibility that God could have given them for the same and perhaps other reasons.

4. You have to assume “evolution” is true in its strongest, materialist, sense. (That’s key.) That is, that all of life is the product of an entirely blind process of natural selection and random variation, with no role left for a Creator. Now, the author is free to make that assumption (even though I don’t agree with it). Almost all of Discover’s readers believe in this type of evolution, so she’s not responsible in this article to prove it to them again. Still, the rest of us are free to take note that there’s plenty of evidence against this Grand Darwinian Story.

5. You have to assume that because “evolution is true,” evolutionary answers must also be true.

Evidence-Free Conclusions

That last point is important. Let me quote a couple lines from the article:

In this way adaptive mental abilities could have led to religious beliefs.

Evolved features of our brains, such as Theory of Mind and over-imitation, likely caused the emergence of religions in human societies.

“Could have.” “Likely caused.” Even granted the assumptions, she still can’t establish the conclusion. No scientist saw any of these things happen. No one has any direct evidence for them. Nothing is demonstrated; it all rests on layers and layers of assumptions. This isn’t science. It’s a pile of assumptions floating in mid-air.

The article claims (Darwinian) evolution fools us into believing in God. I’d say it’s the other way around: Disbelieving in God fools people into believing in evolution.

CLICK HERE!

By Timothy W. Massaro on Sep 05, 2017 in God, Q&A

1. God is a genocidal maniac.

The God revealed in the Bible is not reducible to the attributes of love or mercy. God is a righteous, holy, and just God. He must punish evil. If God didn’t have reasons for doing so beyond our comprehension, he would not be worthy of worship, let alone belief. We would never praise a judge who chooses to let convicted thieves, murders, and rapists return home without justice. Even if a judge did this in the name of love, we would never be satisfied with the practical realities of having these people living unpunished in our neighborhoods or teaching our children at school. A God who never gives justice is a God who should be rejected. A God who is both loving and just is a God that is not only worthy of but also demands our worship and obedience. (See Is God a Genocidal Maniac?)

2. Jesus never existed as a real person.

While the news media often reports the proposition that belief in Jesus’ historical existence is untenable, most scholars today disagree. Jesus’ existence is one of the best-attested facts available to us. Hostile witnesses attest to his life in Palestine. His life recorded in the Gospels is the best explanation available to us about who he was and what he did. This fact is even held by hostile sources outside the Christian sources. (See 7 Unbiased Facts about Jesus’ Death)

3. Science has disproven Christianity.

Historically, Christianity has often led the way in scientific advancement. Many leading scientists today believe in a cosmology that is much more open to intelligent design and creation than most pundits assume. Science has not found evidence precluding the belief in God, miracles, or the resurrection of Jesus. Such fields are outside the competence of science and its methodology. (See 3 Ways Science Supports the Miracle of the Resurrection)

4. The Bible is based on myths.

History is integral to the Christian faith. The Apostle Paul, who wrote more than half of the New Testament, grounds faith in eyewitness testimony and verifiable events (1 Cor. 15). If these things are myths and fables, Christianity is not useful or good. The tone and tenor of the Scriptures are categorically different from that of Greek myths or Aesop’s Fables.

What we believe is based on reality and grounded in history. The Bible is open to investigation and scrutiny.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1–3) (See Our Faith is Historically Verifiable – Or It’s Nothing)

5. All Religions teach the same thing.

Many people today attempt to dismantle the claims of religion before they even hear them by asserting (not arguing) that all religions teach the same thing. In truth, each religion makes very different claims and assumptions about reality. There may be superficial agreement about the Golden Rule, but the gospel of the triune God categorically separates the faith of Christianity from all religions. (See Do All Religions Just Teach Love?)

6. Jesus never died on a cross.

According to multiple sources, Jesus was condemned to die for specific reasons. He attempted to lead Israel away from God through miraculous deeds. His enemies attributed his works to the devil as acts of sorcery. Jesus’ death was a well-known fact throughout the ancient world. Historians and politicians of the century spoke of the events that happened in Jerusalem. (See 7 Unbiased Facts about Jesus’ Death)

7. There are no such things as miracles.

To assume miracles cannot happen because they do not do so normally is not itself an argument. Rather, most people take their personal experience as the normative basis for judging past events. This subjective view of what is possible does not allow for normal historical events to transpire, let alone miraculous ones. If we look at historical evidence, the question remains an open possibility. (See Our Faith is Historically Verifiable – Or It’s Nothing)

8. Evil precludes a good God.

Only the God of Scripture allows evil to be a problem in the first place. If evil exists, it presumes an original goodness and liberty that makes such a choice evil. The problem of evil is actually an argument for Christianity. Evil, as a choice that has real consequences, cannot be accounted for without God.

Many people wrongly assume that if God is good there should no be evil in the world. And yet, this assumes that as finite creatures we could know God’s purposes. If such a God exists, there are likely reasons he allows evil that we cannot fully comprehend. (See 4 Ways the Bible Deals with Evil)

9. Christianity is irrational and unreasonable.

Faith is often wrongly perceived as a leap in the dark, irrational, and imaginary. Yet, historically, Christianity has seen three aspects of faith: knowledge, assent, and trust.

Faith is based on actual historical events that are rational explanations of reality. Faith assents to the reliability of the speaking God. These explanations may not be seen by the naked eye, but that does not mean they are irrational. Rather, the revelation of Scripture reveals a rational, and more importantly, a good God who is saving sinners. (See Why Does Anyone Become a Christian?)

10. There is no evidence for the resurrection.

Many people wrongly assume there is no real evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Yet, this is incorrect. The women who found an empty tomb attested to the resurrection of Christ. Hundreds of witnesses around Jerusalem saw the resurrected Lord and could be questioned. Hostile authorities among the Jews and Romans attested to his empty tomb and miracles. According to many scholars, the Gospel accounts remain the best explanation of the empty tomb, the transformation of the apostles, and the existence of the early church. (See Why Should I Believe that Jesus Rose From the Dead?)

11. Science and faith are incompatible.

Science cannot exist without the assumptions of a stable creation, with meaning, purpose, or the laws of nature to govern it. Without the assumptions brought about by Christianity, modern science would have no footing whatsoever. If nature were inherently self-serving and motivated merely by survival rather than to the giving of life, the stability of natural laws would be unknowable. Nature itself would be a moving deception. We would not have the ability to even perceive such a reality if it existed.

“Science is based on the assumption that the universe is thoroughly rational and logical at all levels,” writes Paul Davies. “Atheists claim that the laws [of nature] exist reasonlessly and that the universe is ultimately absurd. As a scientist, I find this hard to accept. There must be an unchanging rational ground in which the logical, orderly nature of the universe is rooted” (Russell Stannard, God for the 21st Century [Templeton Foundation Press, 2000], 12). Many scientists today see this rationality—which many people want to discount as superstition. The evidence points to something of an infinite creator and to a belief in him.

Faith in what must be (i.e., God) for the world to exist as it does is actually rational. Science has not found evidence precluding the belief in God, miracles, or the resurrection of Jesus. Such fields are outside the competency of science and its methodology. Faith is not incompatible with the evidence. Everyone has to believe in a hypothesis concerning where the compelling evidence leads them. Such basic beliefs are the building blocks of understanding the laws of nature. The laws of nature, therefore, pose a problem for both atheists and materialists but not for theists. (See 5 Reasons Why Science and Faith Are Compatible)

February 18, 2016  By Tim Stratton

 Why are you a Christian? As a full-time church youth pastor and a part-time adjunct professor at a Christian college, I like to ask this question to all of my students. In fact, I ask this question quite often to many active churchgoers these days. The answer I typically receive in response to my simple question is nothing but a blank stare. After a little coaxing, sometimes I get answers like, “because my parents were Christians,” or, “’cause I was born in ‘Merica!” With that I respond, “Oh, so if you were born in Afghanistan, then you would be a Muslim?” The blank stare typically returns.

What frightens me about the state of the church (including many pastors) today is that by and large, we do not know WHY we are Christians. I think that if pressed, many churchgoers today simply like the story of the gospel, but they don’t really think it’s true! Perhaps they like the “country club atmosphere” the church provides and the community they can find there, but they sure don’t think Christianity is really true!

This is evidenced by so many unchanged lives. We see this play out every week when we see churchgoers in the pews on Sunday mornings, singing praise songs, opening their Bibles, and whispering “amen” to the pastor’s message, but during the week you couldn’t tell a difference between the churchgoer and the atheist. In fact, it doesn’t surprise me to see the atheist living a more moral life than the churchgoer on Friday and Saturday nights. But as soon as Sunday morning comes around, they will put on their Sunday best and come back to the good ol’ country club (I mean church).

Speaking of atheists, it is these hypocritical churchgoers who are the greatest cause of atheism in the world today. Why do we find this dilemma in the modern church? Because people don’t think Christianity is really true! Sure, if you ask them they will tell you that they think it’s true, but deep down, they have been influenced by atheistic naturalism if they realize it or not. They really don’t think any of this supernatural stuff is true at all.

As a pastor, I believe the problem starts at the pulpit. When pastors themselves don’t really know why they believe what they say they believe, the people in the pews hear it loud and clear. The congregation will at  least have caught what was not intentionally meant to be taught. Many times pastors will say things like, “According to the Bible, Jesus was raised in Nazareth,” or “The Biblical truth is that Jesus was raised in Nazareth.” While these statements are true (and the intention is good), statements worded in this manner can often lead to postmodern views. People will have caught what was not meant to be taught. They will think, “Oh, there is Biblical truth, and there is also Islamic truth, there is Buddhist truth, and there is Star Wars truth. So you can have your Biblical truth, and I’ll have my Star Wars truth!”

Here’s the problem: Is it true that Luke Skywalker was raised on the planet Tatooine? Yes, that is a true statement. Within the Star Wars narrative, Luke Skywalker was raised on the planet Tatooine. Next question: Is it true that Jesus was raised in Nazareth? Yes, that is a true statement. Within the Biblical narrative, Jesus was raised in Nazareth. Both of these propositions are true within their narratives, but only one of these statements corresponds to reality. That is to say, only one of these statements is really true!

By definition, statements that are true correspond to reality. Reality is the way things are. If churchgoers simply attend on Sunday mornings because the Gospel story makes them feel good, or merely because they like the people in their small group, you will never see a radical transformation in their lives. This kind of transformation only occurs when one comes to understand Ultimate Reality (God)! Moreover, even if one kept all of the church’s/country club’s “rules,” and acted like Mother Theresa, but didn’t really think Christian theism was true, then, these individuals are not Christians.

Saving belief requires three essential components that can be remembered via the acronym, “K.A.T.” Let’s apply this to John 14:6 (one of my favorite Bible verses). In this verse, Jesus is quoted as saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” The “K” stands for knowledge. This means, understanding the proposition that Jesus is the only way to the Father. The “A” stands for assent. This means, believing this proposition is really true. If you don’t really think it’s probably true, then you do not have saving belief.

It’s important to note that merely having the “K” and the “A” of K.A.T. is not enough for salvation as James 2:19 states that even “the demons believe and shudder.” One must possess knowledge and assent, but then they need the “T” to complete saving belief: trust! Have you put your trust (a.k.a. “faith”) in what you believe is probably true? If not, you have the same kind of belief the demons have. Let that sink in a bit!

There are many churchgoers today that only have the first two aspects of saving belief as they understand the Gospel and think it’s probably true; however, they have never put their trust/faith in Christ. With that said, I am starting to see that many today (including some pastors) at least struggle with the “A.” They do not really think Christianity is true. They might really like the story, and they can tell you what the Bible says, but they don’t really think it corresponds to reality.

Now, I’ve devoted my life to truth. In fact, I would say that I am more committed to truth that I am to Christianity. However, since I am devoted to truth, and I am fully convinced that Christianity is really true, I am willing to die for my faith! If I’m willing to die for my faith, you better believe I’m willing to live it out 24/7!

When churchgoers know what they believe, and why they believe it, radical transformation occurs (Romans 12:2)! When the churchgoer is transformed into someone who understands reality and knows that Christianity is true, the “compartmentalized” problems of the modern church come to an abrupt end. That is to say, churchgoers will do so much more than only act like a Christian on Sunday mornings and maybe Wednesday nights; rather, they will live for Jesus Christ all the time, even when no one else is watching!

I am committed to truth, and since I sincerely believe the Bible is true in all that it teaches, I think we should read it to see what Jesus thought about “truth.”

John 4:24
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

John 8:31-32
“… If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

John 14:6
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 18:37
“… For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”
Wow! The very reason the creator of the universe entered into the universe was to testify to the TRUTH! If Jesus has this attitude towards truth, I see nothing wrong with being devoted to truth our selves. In fact, if we are truly Christ followers, we ought to be committed to the same thing. If there is any confusion regarding Jesus’ attitude towards truth, Paul makes it clear:

Ephesians 4:15
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Ephesians 4:25
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Philippians 4:8
“Whatever is true…. think about these things.”

1 Timothy 2:4
(God) “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Let’s get back to the original question. I hope if someone inquires and asks, “Why are you a Christian?,” you can respond with more than just a blank stare. When someone asks me that simple question I respond with a simple answer:

“I’m a Christian because I believe it’s TRUE!”

Christianity is so much more than simply being true according to the narrative found in a book. The gospel message found in the Bible also corresponds to reality. That is to say, Christianity is really true!

Stay reasonable my friends (Philippians 4:5),

Tim Stratton

Visit Tim’s Site: Free Thinking Ministries

Visit the source site of this article.

When I left the ministry due to my skepticism, one of the factors involved in my departure concerned the reliability of the New Testament documents and the resurrection of Jesus. The folks from the Jesus Seminar had me second-guessing whether I could trust what the New Testament said and if I could truly accept the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. In July of 2005, my life changed. I entered the Lifeway Christian Bookstore in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and read three books that changed my life more than any other book outside the Bible. I discovered Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, Josh McDowell’s The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict, and McDowell’s A Ready Defense. I discovered that there are many reasons for accepting the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth as a historical fact.

Through the years, the evidence has increasingly mounted for the historicity of Jesus’s resurrection. This article will provide 10 of the most fascinating arguments for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. This list is not exhaustive and my dealings with each argument is extremely brief. Nevertheless, I hope this list will provide a starting point for you to consider the authenticity of Jesus’s resurrection.

1. The First Eyewitnesses were Women. The first eyewitnesses of the resurrection were women. All the Gospels note that the first individuals to discover the tomb empty were women. Matthew notes that “After the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to view the tomb…The angel told the women, ‘Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the play where he lay” (Matthew 28:1, 5-6).[1] Women were not held in high esteem. In Greco-Roman culture, a woman’s testimony was not admissible in court. In Jewish circles, it took the testimony of two women to equate that of one man. If one were to invent a story, the last people one would place as the first witnesses would have been women, unless it were otherwise true.

2. Minimal Facts Concerning the Resurrection. Gary Habermas has popularized the so-called minimal facts argument for the resurrection. The minimal facts are those things that are accepted by nearly all New Testament scholars. The minimal facts are “1. Jesus died by crucifixion. 2. Jesus’ disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them. 3. The church persecutor Paul was suddenly changed. 4. The skeptic James, brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed. 5. The tomb was empty.” [2] These facts are nearly universally accepted by New Testament scholars, including liberals.

3. Transformation of the Early Disciples. As noted in the minimal facts, James, the brother of Jesus, was changed from a skeptic to a believer because of the resurrection. James along with his brothers did not believe in Jesus during Jesus’s early ministry (see John 7:5). However, Jesus appeared to James (1 Corinthians 15:3-9) and James became a leader in the early Jerusalem church. His death is recorded by Josephus.[3] Paul is another example of one who was completely transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. Paul had been a persecutor of the church. After witnessing the risen Jesus, Paul became a proclaimer for the church.

4. Embarrassing Details of the Resurrection. Historically speaking, embarrassing details add veracity to a historical claim. The fact that women were the first witnesses, that a member of the Sanhedrin (the same Sanhedrin that executed Jesus) had to give Jesus a proper burial, and that the disciples were fearful and fled all serve as embarrassing factors for the resurrection account.

5. Willingness to Die for What Was Known. Many people will die for what they believe to be true. But no one will die for something they erroneously invented. The disciples knew if they were telling the truth. Yet, one finds that the disciples were willing to die for what they knew to be true. Stephen died by stoning (Acts 7:54-60), James of Zebedee died by the sword at the hands of Herod (Acts 12:2), James the brother of Jesus died,[4] and Peter and Paul died at the hands of Nero.[5]

6. Documentary Evidence. The documentary evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is quite good. The historian seeks to find how many primary and secondary sources[6] can be gathered for an event to determine the event’s historicity. Concerning primary sources, the resurrection has Matthew’s account, John’s account, and Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 15, including the additional references by James (if one accepts that James wrote the letter attributed to him) and Jude. The following are secondary sources for the resurrection: Luke, Mark, Clement of Rome, and to a lesser degree Ignatius and Irenaeus.

7. Circumstantial Evidence. Douglas Groothius notes that circumstantial evidence for the historicity of the resurrection is “namely, the practice of the early church in observing baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and Sunday worship.”[7] Baptism is based upon the analogy of Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection. The Lord’s Supper is a symbol of Christ’s sacrificial death. In addition, it is quite odd that faithful Jews would move their worship from a Friday evening into Saturday to a Sunday morning unless something major had occurred on a Sunday morning. The major Sunday morning event was Jesus’s resurrection.

8. The Missing Motive. J. Warner Wallace has noted in his lectures and books that when a conspiracy is formed, three motivating factors are behinds such a move—power, greed, and/or lust.[8] The disciples would hold no power behind claiming the resurrection as history. They were running around while often being threatened by the Jewish and Roman authorities. As far as greed, they taught that one should not desire earthly possessions, but spiritual ones. Lust was not a factor, either. They taught celibacy before marriage and marital fidelity after marriage. In fact, N. T. Wright notes in his classic book, The Resurrection of the Son of God, that the disciples had no theological motivation behind claiming that Jesus had risen from the dead as they were anticipating a military hero and a final resurrection at the end of time. What motivating factors existed for these disciples to invent such a story? None! The only reason the disciples taught the resurrection of Jesus was because Jesus’s resurrection had occurred.

9. Enemy Attestation of the Resurrection. Historically speaking, if one holds enemy attestation to an event, then the event is strengthened. When one considers the claims of the authorities that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus (Matthew 28:11-15), the testimony of the resurrection is strengthened. The early belief that the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus is strengthened by the discovery of the Nazareth Inscription that orders capital punishment for anyone who steals a body from a tomb.[9] In addition, several refences to Jesus and his resurrection include citations from Josephus,[10] Tacitus,[11] and Suetonius[12] among others (including the Babylonian Talmud).

10. Multiple Post-Resurrection Eyewitnesses. Finally, there is multiple eyewitness testimony pertaining to the resurrection of Jesus. Several people had seen Jesus alive for a period of 40 days. The eyewitnesses include Mary Magdalene (John 20:10-18), the women at the tomb accompanying Mary (Matthew 28:1-10), the Roman guards (Matthew 28:4), the Eleven disciples (John 21), the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), an indeterminate number of disciples (Matthew 28:16-20); over five-hundred disciples (1 Corinthains 15:6), to James (1 Corinthians 15:7) and to Paul (1 Corinthians 15:8-9). I am certain that there were many other witnesses that are unnamed.

Conclusion:
Many other evidences could be given for the resurrection of Jesus. Thinking about the methods of history, one must understand that there is a reason why American accept the first President of the United States as George Washington and not Spongebob Squarepants. History backs up the claim that Washington was the first President. In like manner, history backs up the reality of Jesus’s resurrection. Now the question is this: what will you do with such information? Some will try to ignore the event. Some will try to dismiss it. Others will acknowledge the factual nature of the event and worship Jesus as the risen Lord. It is my prayer that you will do the latter.

 Notes
[1] Unless otherwise noted, all quoted Scripture comes from the Christian Standard Bible (Nashville: Holman, 2017).
[2] Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 48-50, 64-69.
[3] Josephus, Antiquities XX.200.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Eusebius, Church History XXV.5.
[6] Primary sources are documents written by eyewitnesses. Secondary sources are documents written by individuals who know eyewitnesses. For instance, my grandfather was an eyewitness to the biggest naval battle in World War II history. From the information my dad gathered from him, he would be a secondary source, whereas my grandfather would have been a primary source.
[7] Douglas Groothius, Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith (Downers Grove; Nottingham, UK: IVP Academic; Apollos, 2011), 553-554.
[8] See J. Warner Wallace, “Rapid Response: I Think the Disciples Lied About the Resurrection,” Cold-case Christianity.com (October 17, 2016), retrieved April 11, 2017, http://coldcasechristianity.com/2016/rapid-response-i-think-the-disciples-lied-about-the-resurrection/.
[9] See http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/07/22/The-Nazareth-Inscription-Proof-of-the-Resurrection-of-Christ.aspx#Article.
[10] Josephus, Antiquities XX.9.1.
[11] Tacitus, Annals XV.
[12] Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars-Claudius 25 and Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars-Nero 16.

January 30, 2016
J. Warner Wallace

On the final page of the paperback edition of Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman famously listed the “Top Ten Verses That Were Not Originally in the New Testament.”

In an effort to discredit the reliability of the New Testament text, Ehrman offered this list to demonstrate the existence of many late insertions in the text. He found this reality troubling as a young man, and eventually walked away from his Christian faith as a result:

“The Bible began to appear to me as a very human book. Just as human scribes had copied, and changed, the texts of scripture, so too had human authors originally written the texts of scripture. This was a human book from beginning to end.”  (from Misquoting Jesus)

Let’s take a look at Ehrman’s list of troublesome verses and examine how they impact the reliability of the New Testament text:

1 John 5:7
There are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.

John 8:7
Let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.

John 8:11
Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

Luke 22:44
In his anguish Jesus began to pray more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.

Luke 22:20
And in the same way after supper Jesus took the cup and said, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.“

Mark 16:17
These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons and they will speak with new tongues.

Mark 16:18
And they will take up snakes in their hands, and if they drink poison it will not harm them, and they will lay their hands on the sick and they will become well.

John 5:4
For an angel of the Lord went down at certain times into the pool and disturbed the waters; and whoever was the first to step in when the water was disturbed was healed of whatever disease he had.

Luke 24:12
But Peter rose up and ran to the tomb, and stooping down to look in, he saw the linen clothes by themselves. And he went away to his own home, marveling at what had happened.

Luke 24:51
And when Jesus blessed them he departed from them and he was taken up into heaven

While this list may seem large (and even surprising for those of us who haven’t examined the presence of textual variants in the New Testament), I think this list does little to impact the reliability of the text. In fact, I think Ehrman is profiting from the unfamiliarity that most Christians have with the presence of textual variants. The list does seem shocking and daunting if you’ve never taken the time to examine matters such as these. But if you stop and think about it and examine each verse listed here, the impact is actually very minimal. I recognize four truths about these verses:

The Verses are Designated Earlier
Seven of these passages (John 8:7, John 8:11, Luke 22:44, Luke 22:20, Mark 16:17, Mark 16:18 and John 5:4) are already clearly designated in my Bible (I’m using the ESV for this blog post). It’s not as though these specious verses are hidden; most modern translations do an excellent job of including everything, then identifying those verses that are variants. Check it out for yourself. You’ll see that these verses, like many others in the text, have been clearly marked.

The Verses are Described Elsewhere
Three of these passages (Luke 22:20, Luke 24:12 and Luke 24:51) are simply reiterations of information that is given to us in other gospels. So, although these verses could be removed from Luke, their claims are found elsewhere in passages that are uncontested (see Matthew 26:28, Mark 14:24, John 20:3-7, Acts 1:9-11).

The Verses are Decidedly Extraneous
That leaves only one verse on Ehrman’s list (1 John 5:7) that begs for explanation. But even if this verse can’t be reconciled, it’s clearly extraneous. The doctrine of the Trinity it addresses is found elsewhere in the scripture. Like other scribal variants, it may have been included by a scribe to make the doctrine clearer, but with all the other Biblical evidence for the triune nature of God, this verse has no impact on our understanding of the Trinity. The superfluous nature of this verse is similar to the vast majority of all Biblical textual variants; they have no impact on the theological or historical claims of the text.

The Verses are Detected Easily
Perhaps most importantly, these late entries were easy to detect, given the large number of ancient Biblical manuscripts we possess. By comparing these texts, we are able to determine which verses should not be in our Bible today, and the same discipline that allows us to determine what is specious, allows us to determine what is special. The skill set that allows us to identify what doesn’t belong is the very same skill set that allows us to identify what does belong.

I’ve written a lot more about this issue in a chapter in my book entitled, “Separating Artifacts from Evidence.” It turns out that Ehrman has the ability to complain about the existence of these passages only because we possess the accurate methodology to remove them from consideration in the first place. As a result, we ought to have even more confidence that we possess documents today that are a reliable reflection of what was originally written thousands of years ago.

By James Bishop|

My intent here is to briefly touch on the troubles that a universe with a beginning has for atheists, especially for their proposed explanations.

The beginning of our universe is evidently troubling for atheists judging by their responses. For a start, philosophical reasoning shows that it is not possible to have an infinite regress of past events. Couple that with persuasive scientific evidence from cosmic expansion and the second law of thermodynamics, and we needn’t doubt that the universe had its finite beginning in the Big Bang.

According to prominent cosmologist Paul Davies, “the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe but also of spacetime itself” ⁽¹⁾. Atheist scientist Stephen Hawking chimes in that “almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang” ⁽²⁾.

Atheists, however, have traditionally believed that the universe never had a beginning but that it had existed eternally. According to some contemporary atheists, “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created” ⁽³⁾. However, as noted this is problematic both philosophically and scientifically.

Next to no expert in the field accepts an eternal universe and no evidence has proven convincing to cosmologists, as Robin Schumacher realizes,

“ATHEISM’S STRUGGLE IS TO EXPLAIN HOW THE UNIVERSE IS ETERNAL WHEN ALL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY SHOWS IT HAD A BEGINNING.” ⁽⁴⁾

Other atheists like Lewis Wolpert more honestly admit that “there’s the whole problem of where the universe itself came from,” and then asks “How did that all happen? I haven’t got a clue” ⁽⁵⁾. I suppose many atheists leave it at that and put it on the back burner until hopefully the dilemma is resolved one day.

Moreover, I think Stephen Hawking is quite informative in saying that:

“MANY PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE THE IDEA THAT TIME HAS A BEGINNING, PROBABLY BECAUSE IT SMACKS OF DIVINE INTERVENTION.” ⁽⁶⁾

Of course, it smacks of divine intervention precisely because we are dealing with a creation event from nothing, and that could only be reasonably explained by a new effect brought about by a personal creator.

I’d further argue that claimed ignorance can be lazy since it merely refuses to adopt a position (either the universe began to exist or it did not) and have to explain how it sits with one’s atheism. It’s far easier to pretend that something is not a problem than actually have to grapple with it.

Then there are the typically more irrational efforts in dealing with the dilemma. Atheist philosopher Daniel Dennett agrees that the universe has a cause and that it began to exist a finite time ago, but he then argues that the cause of the universe is itself ⁽⁷⁾.

This is clearly irrational for he is essentially saying that the universe had to already exist in order to bring itself into existence. It would have to exist before it existed! His view is therefore logically incoherent.

Another atheist in a video he released essentially argues that the universe came into being from nothing. This is irrational for the very reason that things that do not exist cannot bring other things into existence nor bring itself into existence.

Something which does not exist has no creative power, nor the essential properties, to bring anything into existence. Philosopher William Lane Craig thus explains, “suppose something could come into being from nothing. If that were the case then it is inexplicable why just anything and everything doesn’t pop into being out of nothing. But no-one here tonight is worried that while you’re listening to this debate a horse may have popped into being uncaused out of nothing in your living room, and is there defiling the carpet right now as we speak” ⁽⁸⁾.

Craig concludes that:

“TO SUGGEST THAT THINGS COULD JUST POP INTO BEING UNCAUSED OUT OF NOTHING IS LITERALLY WORSE THAN MAGIC. IT IS TO QUIT DOING SERIOUS PHILOSOPHY AND APPEAL TO MAGIC… WHEN THE MAGICIAN PULLS A RABBIT OUT OF THE HAT, AT LEAST YOU HAVE THE MAGICIAN.” ⁽⁹⁾

Finally, Stephen Hawking proposes that the origin of the universe is explainable by the law of gravity, “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing” ⁽¹⁰⁾. Again, this is problematic for several reasons.

Firstly, laws are by definition descriptive in the way that they describe nature and how the physical world functions. However, they are clearly powerless to bring anything into existence, as professor John Lennox notes, “Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions” ⁽¹¹⁾.

That’s pretty much the sinker for Hawking’s proposal but, on a further note, Hawking is already assuming that something exists, namely gravity. So, when Hawking says “the universe can and will create itself from nothing” he doesn’t actually mean nothing in the sense of no thing which is the complete absence of space, time and matter.

Instead, according to him, gravity already exists, and because gravity exists the universe can be brought into existence. So, Hawking hasn’t made a single step in the direction of explaining how the universe can come into existence from nothing.

References

1. Davies, P. “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III.

2. Hawking, S. 1996. The Nature of Space and Time.p. 20.

3. Humanist Manifesto I.

4. Schumacher, R. An Examination of Atheism’s Truth Claims.

5. Wolpert, L. 2007. The Hard Cell. p. 18.

6. Hawking, S. 1988. Brief History of Time.p. 46.

7. Dennett, D. 2006.Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. p. 244.

8. YouTube. The Wit of Dr. Craig – Part 7 “A random horse from nowhere defiling your carpet.”

9. Craig, W. 2010. The Best of the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

10. Hawking, S. The Grand Design. p. 180.

11. Lennox, J. 2010. As a scientist, I’m certain Stephen Hawking is wrong. You can’t explain the universe without God.

This blog post is based on the Minimal Facts argument for the Resurrection of Jesus by Dr. Gary Habermas, and it one of the strongest arguments that I have seen for the resurrection.

Dr. Habermas is an American historian, New Testament scholar, and philosopher of religion, and he has been studying the resurrection for around 40 years now. During this time he has been cataloging the accepted facts of the resurrection by every New Testament scholar he can find, regardless of their belief.

He says this about his Minimal Facts argument:

My Minimal Facts Argument in favor of Jesus’ resurrection was developed many years ago while writing my PhD dissertation.  It has two requirements for the historical facts that are used: each must be confirmed by several strong and independent arguments, plus the vast majority of even critical scholars must recognize the occurrence’s historical nature.  The critical scholars can be liberal, skeptical, agnostic, or even atheist, as long as they are specialists in a relevant field of study, such as New Testament.  Of these two requirements, it is important to recognize that the initial standard concerning strong evidential back-up is by far the most crucial.

So why do even critical scholars admit or allow these individual historical facts?  The answer is that each one is virtually undeniable.  Most of the half-dozen Minimal Facts typically used are confirmed by ten or more historical considerations each.  That is simply an amazing foundation, especially for events that occurred in the First Century AD!

If a physicist was writing on the resurrection, then they didn’t qualify because their doctorate wasn’t relevant. But if even an atheist New Testament scholar was writing on the resurrection, then he counted what they accepted. He has compiled over 3000 references in English, French, and German, and note the lowest common denominator of accepted facts. The following are accepted by virtually all historians, skeptic and believer:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion

2. His disciples had experiences which they believed were appearances of the risen Jesus (They claimed it and they believed it.)

3. His brother James, who formerly believed that Jesus was crazy, became a believer

4. Paul, a former persecutor of those that believed, suddenly became a believer.

5. The tomb was found empty 3 days later

The only one that is slightly contested is the empty tomb, but even then, you have 75%+ of historians accepting it. But there are 3 arguments to support the empty tomb:

1. Jesus was crucified in Jerusalem, the very place the message started. All the authorities had to do to squelch the start of Christianity was produce the body.

2. Enemy attestation. The early critics accused the disciples of stealing the body, which was an admission that the body was missing.

3. The first witnesses to the empty tomb were women. This is relevant because women’s testimony in the 1st-century in both Jewish and Roman cultures was deemed as questionable and unreliable.

There are actually other well-accepted facts as well, like

• He was buried, most likely in a private tomb

• His disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers and were even willing to die for this belief.

• The origin of the Christian church

• How the central message was the resurrection

• The message started early

• and more

But you really only need the top 5 to make this argument. With these being accepted facts, even by skeptical and atheist historians, one needs to try and explain these facts. Yet most of those explanations fail to explain all the data.

The most common theories that you will hear to try and explain these core facts are:

• The Conspiracy Theory

• The Apparent Death Theory

• Displaced Body Theory

• Hallucination Theory

The Conspiracy Theory essentially says that the disciples conspired to start a religion. But this fails to account what is needed to actually to pull off a conspiracy (which I’ve written about here, here, and here.) It also fails to account for the empty tomb and the conversion of Paul and James.

The Apparent Death theory says that Jesus didn’t actually die from the crucifixion, that they only thought that he had died when he was taken down and put in a tomb, and 3 days later he “miraculously” emerged from the tomb. This fails to understand how successful the crucifixions were. First-century Jewish historian reports that during one set of crucifixions, he noticed that 3 of his friends were being crucified. So he went to the Roman governor and made an appeal. The Roman governor ordered those 3 taken down and given the best medical care possible. 2 of those 3 still died. If Jesus didn’t die on the cross but was “buried alive”, he wouldn’t have “miraculously” emerged 3 days later and have been mistaken for risen; the disciples would have taken one look at him and said, “You need a doctor!”

The Apparent Death theory also fails to account on how thorough the Romans were at executing people. Or the charge that if someone didn’t die that was supposed to, the guards over it died in their place. It also doesn’t account for Paul or James.

The Displaced Body theory says that the body was either moved or that they went to the wrong tomb. But this theory fails to account for Paul and James, as well as for the disciple’s claims that the risen Jesus appeared to them. Also, all the authorities would have had to do was present the body, but they never did.

The Hallucination theory might be the strongest natural theory, but even if fails. For one thing, hallucinations are more like dreams, individualistic in nature, not shared. 1 Corinthians 15:3-8, which is the earliest creed (written about here and here), dates to within 6 months of the resurrection. It says that Jesus appeared to the twelve, to over 500 brethren at once, and then to all the disciples. (This creed is one of the evidences that all skeptic scholars accept.) Plus the hallucination theory fails to account for the empty tomb as well as for Paul and James.

When you consider all of the core facts of the resurrection, only the Resurrection theory, the claim that Jesus truly did rise from the dead, accounts for all of the data.

If you’d like to read more about this, then I highly suggest The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Dr. Gary Habermas and Dr. Michael Licona.