Debate:For non-Christians, did Jesus really rise from the dead?

The Catholic Encyclopedia equips us on Evangelization based on the historical fact of Christ’s Resurrection: “Briefly, therefore, the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by more than 500 eyewitnesses, whose experience, simplicity, and uprightness of life rendered them incapable of inventing such a fable, who lived at a time when any attempt to deceive could have been easily discovered, who had nothing in this life to gain, but everything to lose by their testimony, whose moral courage exhibited in their apostolic life can be explained only by their intimate conviction of the objective truth of their message. Again the fact of Christ's Resurrection is attested by the eloquent silence of the Synagogue which had done everything to prevent deception, which could have easily discovered deception, if there had been any, which opposed only sleeping witnesses to the testimony of the Apostles, which did not punish the alleged carelessness of the official guard, and which could not answer the testimony of the Apostles except by threatening them "that they speak no more in this name to any man" (Acts 4:17). Finally the thousands and millions, both Jews and Gentiles, who believed the testimony of the Apostles in spite of all the disadvantages following from such a belief, in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, for the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.”

The core Miracle underpinning the Truth of the Christian Faith is the Miracle of Christ’s Glorious Resurrection from the dead: “[19] Jesus answered, and said to them: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (Jn 2:19).

Also, we know that, in both Old and New Testaments, many people were converted to God, or to Christ Our Lord, when they saw the miracles that He alone could work: Thus Naaman the Syrian, [15] “And returning to the man of God with all his train, he came, and stood before him, and said: In truth, I know there is no other God in all the earth, but only in Israel: I beseech thee therefore take a blessing of thy servant.” (2 Kgs 5:15) and Nicodemus the Pharisee, “[2] This man came to Jesus by night, and said to him: Rabbi, we know that thou art come a teacher from God; for no man can do these signs which thou dost, unless God be with him.” (Jn 3:2)

Laying out the Case – how to invite secularists to belief in the Resurrection:

A time tested and proven method used by many Catholic Apologists and Christian Evangelists, New Testament scholars and theologians, is to first establish some basic (natural) historical facts taken for granted by almost everybody. (1) Christ’s Death on the Cross. (2) His Empty Tomb. (3) The origin of the Apostles’ conviction that Jesus had risen (4) The Tomb Guard. (5) The Apostles’ testimony and martyrdom.

A key component of establishing the historicity of these five facts (although Christ’s Death on the Cross under Pilate can also be shown from Roman historians like Tacitus and Jewish historians like Josephus) is showing the holy Gospels were written early and by Apostles or their disciples. Now, it can be independently shown that the First Three Gospels, the Synoptics, were written within 15 years of the Resurrection. The Gospel of St. John was written shortly afterward by the beloved Apostle St. John.

The next step is to show that, of all competing hypotheses, (the (i) “Swoon Theory”, the (ii) “Imposition Theory”, the (iii) “Vision Theory” etc mentioned in the C.E. Article) the testimony of the Apostles being correct is by far the best explanation.

This can proceed in several ways, but we will mention just one here. There are three cumulative and exhaustive possibilities. (I) The Apostles’ were insincere liars, when they all testified that Christ rose from the dead. (II) The Apostles were sincere, but sincerely mistaken. (III) The Apostles were sincere, and also sincerely correct.

Let us examine each of these three possibilities.

I: Were the Apostles just lying? Did they supposedly die for a known lie?

This opinion is so ridiculous it is hardly held even by the avowed enemies of Christianity. N.T. scholar Gerd Ludemann, who is an agnostic, writes “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the Risen Christ.”

If the Apostles had invented the Resurrection as a deliberate lie, why on earth would they all die for a known lie? How did they overcome the guards at the Tomb? How did they preach a life of righteousness and holiness if they founded it all on a total lie? How is it that they were unanimous in their testimony, that not even one of the Apostles ever retracted their preaching about Christ, even under oppression, persecution, death and martyrdom? It is clear that this opinion cannot stand.

If we let P(AL)=Probability that the Apostles were lying, given each new data point, P(AL) would move closer and closer to zero. Thus P (AL/Apostles were unanimous[AU]) would be a fraction of P(AL) independently considered. P(AL/Apostles were martyred[AM]) would make it even more unlikely etc. That is, the Probability that the Apostles were lying given they were martyred is low.

For e.g. even if P(AL] were assigned a value like 0.9, P(AL/AU) would be like 0.0009 and so on.

Note that P(AL)+P(ASM)+P(ASC)=1 since the three possibilities together are cumulatively exhaustive.

Thus if P(AL)~0 (app. Zero), then P(ASM)+P(ASC)~1. The Apostles weren’t lying, but were they right?

II: Were the Apostles truly sincere but really mistaken? Was it just an inner vision that they had?

The second opinion is that the Apostles were sincere but deluded. The Resurrection was something like a hallucination of one or two Apostles. This opinion admits the sincere convictions of the Apostles but, because of a prior commitment to naturalistic limitations, denies the supernatural.

This opinion is almost as absurd as the first. If the holy Apostles were supposedly deceived by a vision, what explains the data points that (1) the Tomb was Empty (TE); (2) Multiple Eyewitnesses, even together, all saw Jesus Risen in the flesh (ME). (3) He ate and drank with them and touched His Wounds etc (EDW)? These data points are inexplicable on the hypothesis of a natural hallucination.

Once more, even assuming the prior probability of P(ASW)=0.9, P(ASW/TE) would already be virtually zero. The additional data point of ME makes this an absolutely inadmissible hypothesis.

III. Therefore, by the exclusion of the above possibilities, the Apostles were both sincere and right.

Now with P(AL)~0 and P(ASW)~0, we are left with the conclusion that P(ASR)~ 1. That is to say, the probability that the Apostles were sincere in reporting that Christ rose, and actually correct that He had objectively Risen from the dead, leaving an empty tomb behind Him, is demonstrably true.

The Word of God in the Old Testament had said, “in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall stand.” (Deut 19:15). Our Lord quoted this approvingly in Mat 18:16. It is a basic legal principle.

Our Lord expected St. Thomas to believe the testimony of His 10 Apostolic Friends (Jn 20:24-29). When numerous eyewitnesses testify to a fact, when they are all unanimous in their testimony, and when they are clearly credible and honest men, then their testimony should be believed even if it is but 2 or 3 witnesses. How much more rightly should the testimony of 11 Apostles, 120 disciples, with whom the Church began on Pentecost, and 500 eyewitnesses to the Lord’s Resurrection from the dead – with many martyrs - be believed?

Conclusion: Why it matters for us and how we must use it in getting back to Evangelization:

Lack of Evangelization seems to be one of the characteristic flaws in the way many modern Christians practice their Faith. A religion that does not evangelize has no future and is destined to die a natural death; unless God intervenes. And let us take it as God’s Call to His Church today – including competent and involved laity and lay families – to evangelize more effectively and more frequently among our non-believing friends.

Today, in the West, the most serious intellectual challenges to Christianity hardly arise from e.g. Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam. They come mostly from a neo-pagan atheistic/agnostic secularism.

The Resurrection of Jesus is the basis of our faith. As St. Paul says, if Christ were not risen, our faith would be vain. But because He is risen, unbelief is vain, and faith is obligatory. If we believe and are baptized, we will be saved from sin and delivered from death. If we do not believe, we will be condemned. It is time we begin to believe and preach the Gospel again as the Apostles did.