The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
The Christian gospel is based squarely on a
miracle. It was the miracle of the resurrection of Christ that started
it going, and that same miracle is its central message. Indeed, the
basic qualification of a Christian apostle was to be an eyewitness of
the resurrection, and for centuries Christians have greeted each other
at Easter time with the confident words, "Christ is risen! He is risen
indeed!"
C.S. Lewis expresses the situation precisely: "The first fact in the
history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the
Resurrection. If they had died without making anyone else believe this
'gospel', no Gospels would ever have been written." According to the
early Christians, then, without the resurrection there simply is no
Christian message. Paul writes: "If Christ has not been raised, our
preaching is useless and so is your faith."
The question is: can we make sense of this claim in a scientifically
literate society? For the Christian gospel conflicts with the widely
held notion that belief in miracles in general, and New Testament
miracles in particular, arose in a primitive, pre-scientific culture
where people were ignorant of the laws of nature, and readily accepted
miracle stories. In the oft-quoted words of David Hume (1711-76):
"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a
firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof
against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any
argument from experience as can be imagined ... It is no miracle that a
man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a
kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been
frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle that a dead man
should come to life; because that has never been observed, in any age or
country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every
miraculous event; otherwise the event would not merit that appellation."
Hume denies the miraculous, because miracle would go against the
uniform laws of nature. And yet elsewhere he denies the uniformity of
nature. He famously argues that, just because the sun has been observed
to rise in the morning for thousands of years, it does not mean that we
can be sure that it will rise tomorrow. This is an example of the
Problem of Induction: on the basis of past experience you cannot predict the future, says Hume. But if that were true, let us see what follows.
Suppose Hume is right, and no dead man has ever risen up from the
grave through the whole of earth's history so far; by his own argument
he still cannot be sure that a dead man will not rise up tomorrow. That
being so, he cannot rule out miracle. What has become now of Hume's
insistence on the laws of nature, and its uniformity? He has destroyed
the very basis on which he tries to deny the possibility of miracles.
In any case, if according to Hume we can infer no regularities, it
would be impossible even to speak of laws of nature, let alone the
uniformity of nature with respect to those laws. And if nature is not
uniform, then using the uniformity of nature as an argument against
miracles is simply absurd.
I find it astonishing that, in spite of this fundamental
inconsistency, Hume's argument has been responsible to a large extent
for the widespread view that we have a straightforward choice between
mutually exclusive alternatives: either we believe in miracles, or we
believe in the scientific understanding of the laws of nature; but not
both. For instance, Richard Dawkins claims:
"The nineteenth century is the last time when it was
possible for an educated person to admit to believing in miracles like
the virgin birth without embarrassment. When pressed, many educated
Christians are too loyal to deny the virgin birth and the resurrection.
But it embarrasses them because their rational minds know that it is
absurd, so they would much rather not be asked."
Not so. For there are eminent, scientists, like Professor William
Phillips (Physics Nobel Prizewinner, 1998), Professor Sir John
Polkinghorne FRS (Quantum Physicist, Cambridge) and, in the United
States, the current Director of the National Institute of Health and
former Director of the Human Genome Project, Francis Collins (to name
just three) who, though well aware of Hume's argument, nevertheless
publicly, and without either embarrassment or any sense of irrationality
or absurdity, affirm their belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
which they regard as the supreme evidence for the truth of the Christian
worldview.
Such scientists do not feel threatened by Hume because his idea that
miracles are "violations" of the laws of nature, is fallacious, as C.S.
Lewis illustrated:
"If this week I put a thousand pounds in the drawer of my
desk, add two thousand next week and another thousand the week
thereafter, the laws of arithmetic allow me to predict that the next
time I come to my drawer, I shall find four thousand pounds. But suppose
when I next open the drawer, I find only one thousand pounds, what
shall I conclude? That the laws of arithmetic have been broken?
Certainly not! I might more reasonably conclude that some thief has
broken the laws of the State and stolen three thousand pounds out of my
drawer. One thing it would be ludicrous to claim is that the laws of
arithmetic make it impossible to believe in the existence of such a
thief or the possibility of his intervention. On the contrary, it is the
normal workings of those laws that have exposed the existence and
activity of the thief."
The analogy also helps point out that the scientific use of the word
"law" is not the same as the legal use, where we often think of a law as
constraining someone's actions. There is no sense in which the laws of
arithmetic constrain or pressurise the thief in our story! Newton's Law
of Gravitation tells me that if I drop an apple it will fall towards the
centre of the earth. But that law does not prevent someone intervening,
and catching the apple as it descends. In other words, the law predicts
what will happen, provided there is no change in the conditions under
which the experiment is conducted.
Thus, from the theistic perspective, the laws of nature predict what
is bound to happen if God does not intervene; though, of course, it is
no act of theft, if the Creator intervenes in his own creation. It is
incorrect to argue that the laws of nature make it impossible for us to
believe in the existence of God and the possibility of his intervention
in the universe. That would be like claiming that an understanding of
the laws of the internal combustion engine makes it impossible to
believe that the designer of a motor-car, or one of his mechanics, could
or would intervene and remove the cylinder head. Of course they could
intervene. Moreover, this intervention would not destroy those laws. The
very same laws, that explained why the engine worked with the cylinder
head on, would now explain why it does not work with the head removed.
It is, therefore, inaccurate and misleading to say with Hume that
miracles "violate" the laws of nature. We could, of course, say that it
is a law of nature that human beings do not rise again from the dead
by some natural mechanism.
But Christians do not claim that Christ rose from the dead by such a
mechanism. They claim that he rose from the dead by supernatural power.
By themselves, the laws of nature cannot rule out that possibility.
When a miracle takes place, it is the laws of nature that alert us to
the fact that it is a miracle. It is important to grasp that Christians
do not deny the laws of nature, as Hume implies they do. It is an
essential part of the Christian position to believe in the laws of
nature as descriptions of those regularities and cause-effect
relationships built into the universe by its Creator and according to
which it normally operates. If we did not know them, we should never
recognise a miracle if we saw one.
And that also puts paid to Hume's idea that accounts of miracles "are
observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations." You
cannot recognise an abnormal event, if you do not know what is normal.
This was recognised long ago.
The brilliant ancient historian Luke, a doctor trained in the medical
science of his day, begins his biography of Christ by raising this very
matter. He tells the story of a man, Zechariah, and of his wife,
Elizabeth, who for many years had prayed for a son because she was
barren. When, in his old age, an angel appeared to him and told him that
his former prayers were about to be answered and that his wife would
conceive and bear a son, he very politely but firmly refused to believe
it. The reason he gave was that he was now old and his wife's body
decrepit. For him and his wife to have a child at this stage would run
counter to all that he knew of the laws of nature. The interesting thing
about him is this: he was no atheist; he was a priest who believed in
God, in the existence of angels, and in the value of prayer. But if the
promised fulfillment of his prayer was going to involve a reversal of
the laws of nature, he was not prepared to believe it.
Luke here makes it obvious that the early Christians were not a
credulous bunch, unaware of the laws of nature, and therefore prepared
to believe any miraculous story, however absurd. They felt the
difficulty in believing the story of such a miracle, just like anyone
would today. If in the end they believed, it was because they were
forced to by the sheer weight of the direct evidence presented to them,
not through their ignorance of nature's laws.
To suppose, then, that Christianity was born in a pre-scientific,
credulous and ignorant world is simply false to the facts. The ancient
world knew the law of nature as well as we do, that dead bodies do not
get up out of graves. Christianity won its way by dint of the sheer
weight of evidence that one man had actually risen from the dead.
Most of our evidence comes from the New Testament and it may surprise
many that, in comparison with many other ancient works of literature,
the New Testament is by far the best-attested document from the ancient
world. Sir Frederic Kenyon, who was Director of the British Museum and a
leading authority on ancient manuscripts, wrote:
"The number of manuscripts of the New Testament, of early
translations from it, and of quotations from it in the oldest writers of
the Church is so large that it is practically certain that the true
reading of every doubtful passage is preserved in some one or other of
these ancient authorities. This can be said of no other ancient book in
the world."
The empty tomb
It is the constant and unvarying testimony of the Gospels that the
tomb was found to be empty when the Christian women came early in the
morning of the first day of the week, to complete the task of encasing
the body of Jesus in spices. And when the apostles went to investigate
the women's report, they likewise found the tomb empty.
If the tomb had not been empty, the authorities would have had no
difficulty in producing the body of Jesus, demonstrating conclusively
that no resurrection had happened. If they had had the slightest
evidence that the tomb was empty because the disciples had removed the
body, they had the authority and the forces to hunt down the disciples,
arrest them and charge them with tomb-robbing, which at the time was a
very serious offence.
Tomb-robbers would not have taken the corpse, and left the valuable
linen and spices. And even if, for some unfathomable reason, they had
wanted only the corpse, they would have had no reason whatever for
wrapping all the cloths round again as if they were still round a body,
except, perhaps, to give the impression that the tomb had not been
disturbed. But if they wanted to give that impression, they would surely
have done better to roll the stone back into its place! But here we
meet another matter: how could any tomb-robber have removed the stone
when the guard was there? The noise would have been considerable. The
rolled-away stone was a complete give-away that the tomb had been
disturbed.
But it was the way in which the grave-cloths were lying that
convinced St. John of a miracle. So, could someone have taken the body
and rewound the cloths deliberately to give the impression that a
miracle had happened? But who could this have been? It was morally
impossible for the followers of Christ to have done it. It was also
psychologically impossible, since they were not expecting a
resurrection. And it was practically impossible, because of the guards.
It would be absurd to think of the authorities doing anything remotely
suggestive of a resurrection. After all, it was they who had ensured
that the tomb was guarded, to avoid anything like that!
The early Christians did not simply assert that the tomb was empty.
Far more important for them was the fact that subsequently they had met
the risen Christ, intermittently over a period of forty days. According
to Paul's list in 1 Corinthians 15, there were originally well over five
hundred people who at different times saw the risen Christ during that
period.
But it is not only the number of eyewitnesses who actually saw the
risen Christ that is significant. It is also the widely divergent
character of those eyewitnesses, and the different places and situations
in which Christ appeared to them. For instance, some were in a group of
eleven in a room, one was by herself in a garden, a group of fishermen
were by the sea, two were travelling along a road, others on a mountain.
It is this variety of character and place that refutes the so-called
hallucination theories.
Psychological medicine itself witnesses against these explanations.
Hallucinations usually occur to people of a certain temperament, with a
vivid imagination. But Matthew was a hard-headed, shrewd tax-collector;
Peter and some of the others, tough fishermen; Thomas, a born sceptic;
and so on. They were not the sort of people one normally associates with
susceptibility to hallucinations.
Again, hallucinations tend to be of expected events. But none of the
disciples was expecting to meet Jesus again. The expectation of Jesus's
resurrection was not in their minds at all. Instead, there was fear,
doubt and uncertainty - exactly the wrong psychological preconditions
for a hallucination.
Hallucinations usually recur over a relatively long period, either
increasing or decreasing. But the appearances of Christ occurred
frequently, over a period of forty days, and then abruptly ceased.
Hallucinations, moreover, do not occur to groups and yet Paul claims 500
people saw Jesus at once.
In any case, hallucination theories are severely limited in their
explanatory scope: they only attempt to explain the appearances. They
clearly do not account for the empty tomb - no matter how many
hallucinations the disciples had, they could never have preached the
resurrection in Jerusalem, if the nearby tomb had not been empty.
To anyone who knows anything about the ancient laws regarding legal
testimony, it is very striking that the first reports mentioned in the
Gospels of appearances of the Risen Christ were made by women. In
first-century Jewish culture, women were not normally considered to be
competent witnesses. At that time, therefore, anyone who wanted to
invent a resurrection story would never have thought of commencing it in
this way. The only value of including such a story would be if it were
both true and easy to verify. Its very inclusion, therefore, is a clear
mark of historical authenticity.
The evidence of the empty tomb, the character of the witnesses, the
explosion of Christianity out of Judaism and the testimony of millions
today are inexplicable without the resurrection. As Holmes said to
Watson: "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
John Lennox
is Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, a Fellow in
Mathematics and the Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College,
Oxford and an Honorary Fellow at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford. He is the author
of several books, including Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are Missing the Target and God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?
