This post has been sadly neglected here, but it has indirectly generated discussion at Thinking Christian, in case anyone’s interested.

Paul and Jacob - thank you for your interesting responses.

Paul - as regards postmodernism: in the sense that it sits alongside modernism, and cannot exist without it, it is, in essence, a critique of modernism. So in that sense, I am somewhat in harmony with your view that it hasn’t swept all before it. On the other hand, my list of categories in which it is proving influential was deliberate: postmodernism is the world in which the certainties of Newtonian physics have been called into question; likwise the certainties of the great sociological and economic theories (Marxism/global capitalism - viz the protests at the recent G8 meeting); psychological narratives (Freudianism); philosophical certainties (in the light of today’s fragmentation following the great eighteenth and nineteenth century philosphical traditions). The same holds true of religion: modernism loves foundational logic; postmodernism (as a mindset) is suspicious of such proofs, and holds more regard for personal story and experience. Postmodernism finds monolithic ‘truth’ to be distasteful.

But as regards the historicity of the New Testament, and the resurrection of Jesus in particular, the testimony of the NT itself is that the story depends on its factual basis - as far as anything can be proved to have taken place. This emerges in particular in 1 Corinthians 15:13-19, and the preceding verses where Paul is at pains to present those to whom the resurrected Christ had appeared - a key verse being 6. If the 250 mentioned there were still alive, all could have been cross-questioned as to the truthfulness of their claims at the time Paul was writing. There was no possibility of a mythical reconstruction of history here.

The reason the resurrection is important lies in the central distinguishing features of the Christian faith - in which its relation to the material world is of supreme importance. It affirms the goodness of the material world, but also the frustration of its purpose through the disobedience of man, leading to sin and death. It promises a new material world, in which the purposes of creation willl be fulfilled, with humanity as its supreme expression. This new creation begins in Christ, in his resurrection.

One of the best short apologetics for the resurrection is Frank Morison’s ‘Who moved the stone?’. Written at a time when the stripping out of the supernatural from the biblical accounts was at its height, Morison, trained in law, thought he could easily write a book in which the demythologising techniques could be applied to the resurrection. Instead, the historical basis of the resurrection accounts gripped him. So the first chapter of the book is movingly entitled: ‘The book that refused to be written’!

Christian faith is no more ‘truth’ that can be objectively proved than anything else in which proofs are being applied. On the other hand, its operations do somewhat depend on events which require a historical anchoring for their validity. It relates to this world, and our lives; this world’s history, and the place our lives occupy in that history. It is not, in the end, purely a spiritual, existential phenomenon, and by no criteria could that be said to have been the message Jesus came to bring.

This is an interesting point, and I've often thought similar things myself. Josh McDowell style apologetics don't really turn me on either. However, they have resulted in a changed life for some people, and one can't say that their experience of the power of God has been disingenuous simply because they faith had a start in empirical inquiry. God created the natural word, and he created the human mind, and there is nothing "un-spiritual" about investigating our reality through rational means.

The Gospel of Luke and Romans (The authors of which account for more than 50% of the New Testament text) both start out with verifiable claims to support their pictures of the gospel. John, perhaps the third great theologian of the New Testament, claims to base his version of the gospel on eye-witness evidence. None of these three stop with natural evidence. They make claims about God and his purpose which cannot be empirically tested, but they start out with data.

What I believe is this: If the gospel is true, and it has anything to do with the natural world, there should be some mark on the world from it. As it turns out, for those looking, there does seems to be some evidence that would support Christian claims. Of course, the Christian faith is just one 'hypothesis' which explains the data, and there are others that can do so with varying levels of success (not that our faith can always make perfect sense of everything).

Are we compelled to find this evidence for our own edification? I don't think so, and I avoid the debates for the most part. However, there are some bits of data which, for me, confirm Jesus' claims beyond reasonable doubt, and they have been a great help in times when I wanted to question my faith. From my experience, and certain bits of data that seem to point to the historical reality of the resurrection, I am fairly certain that I could never wholly reject Christianity on a rational basis.

Your faith can fully exist without any rational explanation, and evangilization will probably only work if you communicate your message though methods that are meaningful for you personally. However, I would think long and hard before condemning the use of the scientific method for the assessment of the Christian faith in total. Different people learn, know, understand, and I daresay believe in very different ways, and there is room for tolerance in such matters.

Aaron Christianson

PS. Not to say that any Christian should neglect truth, love, or justice in their everyday life.

The stimulating discussions among Paul, Peter and Jacob have reminded me of a book that I am currently reading entitled “The Resurrection of Jesus: Dom Crossan and Tom Wright in Dialogue.” I think the thread has already moved beyond this issue, but I don’t get the chance to go on OST very often…

Peter Wilkinson wrote “But as regards the historicity of the New Testament, and the resurrection of Jesus in particular, the testimony of the NT itself is that the story depends on its factual basis - as far as anything can be proved to have taken place.”

Here are two quotes from Crossan from the book on the subject:
Referring to the harrowing of hell… “that I have great trouble seeing literally. Let me admit it. If I take that literally, that means that I think that the people who said it were literal. Then there would be hundreds of empty tombs around Jerusalem. it wouldn’t be a matter of checking out one on Easter Sunday, but seeing how many empty ones. So I will concede that maybe I like the harrowing of hell, at least I place a lot of emphasis on it, and Tom does not,… It you take the harrowing of hell, I think it will push you toward the metaphorical. If you don’t talk about it, you might be talking about Jesus’ raising, and that is much easier to take literally.” (pg. 27)
“I see now two routes before us. We can argue about mode: Is the resurrection to be taken literally or figuratively? Is it maybe, as Tom has suggested, a literal resurrection for Jesus, metaphorical for Christians, literal again for everyone? Or might it be metaphorical for Jesus, literal now for everyone who is a Christian, again metaphorical at the end? We can go on debating that. It seems to me that we have been debating it for two hundred years, and we have reached an impasse; nobody is persuading anyone else about it that I can see…. if you want to debate mode, what has to be taken literally, what has to be taken metaphorically, it is a perfectly valide debate. But there is something else: the question of meaning.” (pg. 29)

Even though I personally believe in a factual resurrection as advocated by Wright, I have gained a greater appreciation for folks like Crossan through this book. I guess what I appreciate about both of them is that they do take the discussion “personally” in the sense that both of them want to talk about action and the consequences of that belief be it literal or metaphorical.

Again, Crossan says, “Now if I take that spectrum, from 100 percent literal to 100 percent metaphorical, …Wherever you take it, … any way you take it you are committing high treason (against Caesar). That’s what scares me a little bit becaseu we’ve been doing it for two hundred years. I don’t see much evidence of it changing people. And, it seems to me that it’s the great magnificent cop-out… could we spend as much time talking about putting the resurrection of Jesus, the general resurrection, into practice…”

Crossan is surprisingly convicting, even though I disagree with a lot of what he says.

Carlos

Peter

I do not think you have quite addressed my points on your approach to the historicity of the gospels.

The crux of your argument (I am sure you will tell me if I am misrepresenting you) has been as follows:

1. It is important that the resurrection actually happened- because Christianity is about God’s intervention in our material world of flesh and blood not some spiritual epiphenomenon or fairy story

2. the Resurrection can only be regarded as something that actually happened if it can be supported by historical evidence

3. and it can indeed be supported by historical evidence

I agree with you (partly) on 1 but not on 2 and 3

As regards 3, I do not deny that there is some historical evidence available to us 2000 years after the resurrection occurred but, given how contrary to ordinary experience the event was and its importance, if true, for my life, the evidence, if it is to do the job, has to be in the very top bracket- at least as good as (say) the evidence that George Bush was inaugurated for a second time on Jan 20 2005.

My question to you is: is the evidence as good as that?

As regards 2, I assume you would not want to say that nobody can in good conscience believe in the resurrection who has not examined the evidence and found it satisfactory- else the uneducated or slow of intellect would not be justified in believing in the resurrection. However, you might be satisfied with a lesser claim: that at least some person or persons have examined the evidence and found it satisfactory and as long as that is so, all the other people who believe the same thing are justified in doing so. But that does not work either, because the persons who have not done the research would have to satisfy themselves that those who have are correct.

And does the same requirement exist for justifiable belief in God? May only those people believe in God who have examined the ontological, cosmological arguments etc and found them satisfactory? Does it apply to the belief that electricity powers my washing machine or that lasers depend on quantum theory. The fact is that there are all sorts of things we believe to be true but for which we can adduce neither reasons nor evidence. Of course in some cases, such beliefs are unacceptable (and we may be accused of wish fulfilment or gullibility or superstition or being careless with the truth) but in some cases they are quite acceptable and I would suggest that the resurrection is one of them.

So I do agree with you on 1, that the resurrection actually happened. I am strongly opposed to Jacob’s position

The fact is that people believe this, say they believe this and act in the name of the risen Jesus. Whether it did or did not happen is almost beside the point as to whether it has implications for how people live. We know that it has implications because we can see them.

I think what Jacob is proposing is an error of logic because it entails someone making the following self contradictory statement “I believe that Christ rose from the dead but of course I have no idea whether or not it actually happened”

Paul

Faith in God is irrational. With that being said, all the commenter’s have made excellent points in regards to what are things that make faith not foolishness. I think that you can be presented all the evidence in the world and even believe in the evidence and still not believe in God or Christ. So ultimately, faith is not purely rational.

In regards to the “defense of our faith.” Stop defending, stop trying to argue with those who are already poised against us. I believe that it is much better to approach people in their context and to explain the gospel in terms of experience. This is not to devoid our gospel message of compelling arguments and stories, but it is to remove the argumentative process. If we believe in illumination, then we don’t need to argue, just explain what the gospel is and how our relationship to Christ has changed our lives. If someone chooses not to believe our experience it makes it no less true for ourselves. At least they will be left with our experience.

When I look at Christ I see him using this style. He explained the gospel to people in ways that they would understand. To the woman at the well it was a discussion about life giving water, to the Pharisees it was more intellectual about being sent from the Father. In both cases I don’t see Him needing to “defend His faith” but rather just explaining why He has his faith. In my opinion, this is the way we should approach our gospel sharing.