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Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel

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Chapter 7: Jesus’s Resurrectionsearchmore_vert

Chapter 7Jesus’s Resurrection

In 458 BC the Greek poet Aeschylus’s Eumenides, which portrays the legendary trial of Orestes for the murder of his mother, was first performed. In a pivotal scene before the Areopagus, an ancient court on the outskirts of Athens, Apollo asserts:

Once the dust drinks down a man’s blood,

he is gone, once for all. No rising back,

no spell sung over the grave can sing him back—

not even Father [Zeus] can.[1]

Just over 500 years later, an equally compelling scene unfolded before the Areopagus: the apostle Paul there proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth had, in fact, been raised from the dead (Acts 17:31). Is Jesus’s resurrection fact or fiction?

If true, the resurrection of Jesus is the central event of human history. The truth and meaningfulness of the Christian faith rests on this event. As Paul says in 1 Cor 15:14, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty” (NET). For their part, opponents of Christianity for centuries have rejected the resurrection, dismissing it as a fabrication of the early church. Our task in this chapter, therefore, is to consider the historical evidence—this is a historical inquiry, after all—for the resurrection of Jesus. As we will see, Jesus’s resurrection is a well-attested historical event.

Curiously, many people dismiss Jesus’s resurrection out of hand, without even considering the evidence. Why? Because it is a miracle, and, they assume, miracles are impossible. As we saw in chapter 4, though, miracles are impossible only if God does not exist. But we established in chapter 3 that there are convincing reasons to think God does exist, which means miracles are possible and we cannot rationally write them off. And if God exists, and God chooses to intervene in history by performing some miracle, then there is no reason why that miracle cannot be the object of historical and scientific study—that is, there is no reason why a genuine miracle cannot be known from the standpoint of history.

Before turning to the historical evidence, it is interesting to realize that Jesus actually predicted his resurrection on several occasions (Matt 12:40; 16:21; Mark 8:31; John 2:19-22), thus casting the event in a theological frame. If Jesus claimed to have divine authority, and if he predicted that he would rise from the dead, and if he in fact did rise from the dead, then it seems we have genuine evidence of a miracle and historical verification of Jesus’s claims about himself.

Three Established Facts

What evidence is there that Jesus rose from the dead? There are three “minimal facts,” agreed upon by almost all biblical scholars (including many who deny the resurrection), which must be explained.[2] Like a detective whose theory of a crime must account for all the relevant clues, we must insist on an explanation that adequately accommodates all three facts. These are the empty tomb, the postmortem appearances of Jesus, and the disciples’ coming to believe in the resurrection. Each of these enjoys the support of several evidences which must be taken seriously. In light of the evidence that Jesus’s tomb was indeed empty, that Jesus did make multiple appearances following his death, and that the disciples’ faith cannot be accounted for apart from their coming to believe in the resurrection, these facts point to one explanation: God raised Jesus from the dead.

Three Minimal Facts:

The empty tomb

Jesus’s postmortem appearances

Disciples’ belief in the resurrection

Since we cannot travel back in time, though, how can we possibly establish any historical facts? To begin with we can agree that the past is fixed—what has happened has happened, and nothing can change that. We may sometimes wish we could change the past, but because it is “mindindependent” we cannot. We may, of course, refuse to believe something has happened (e.g., that the San Antonio Spurs lost the 2013 NBA finals), but alas, we cannot thereby change history. As responsible historians, rather, we must consider the evidence left behind by history. Like detectives seeking to understand certain clues, we examine the historical evidence available to us, draw inferences from what this evidence suggests must have happened, and accept the explanation that best accounts for the evidence.[3]

The Empty Tomb

According to the canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—Jesus was killed on a Roman cross and buried in a sealed and guarded tomb, and yet on Easter morning his tomb was found empty by several of his followers. That the tomb was found empty is scarcely in dispute—the question, rather, is why it was found empty. By itself an empty tomb, after all, does not immediately prove Jesus was raised from the dead—although an empty tomb is essential to the resurrection theory. Let us unpack the evidence for the empty tomb.

All four Gospels explicitly affirm that Jesus’s tomb was found empty (Matt 28:5-7; Mark 16:4-6; Luke 24:3-6; John 20:1-8). The first supporting evidence for the empty tomb account is that it is found in multiple, independent sources. Why does that matter? For a couple of reasons. First, historians consider an account more reliable if it is found in independent sources because this provides corroboration of the account. As the ancient historian Paul Maier explains, “Many facts from antiquity rest on just one ancient source, while two or three sources in agreement generally render the fact unimpeachable.”[4] In addition to the four Gospels, the empty tomb is assumed in 1 Cor 15:3-8, Peter’s sermon in Acts 2:29-32, and Paul’s sermon in Acts 13:36-37. Even if Matthew and Luke used Mark’s earlier Gospel as a common source (as seems possible, given their frequently identical wording), it’s likely both also drew from independent sources, as well.[5]

Not only is our first fact widely corroborated, the earliest account that the tomb was found empty dates to within five years of Jesus’s death—again, astonishingly early! The claim of an empty tomb is contained in the pre-Pauline creed found in 1 Cor 15:3-7. As we emphasized in chapter 5, this creed dates to within five years of Jesus’s crucifixion.

The second supporting evidence for the fact of the empty tomb is that the Gospels tell us it was several of Jesus’s women followers who made the initial discovery (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:11). In today’s culture this seems inconsequential, but in first-century Jewish society the testimony of women was not well-regarded. The Talmud (a collection of traditional rabbinic teachings), for example, says, “Sooner let the words of the Law be burnt than delivered to women” (Sotah 19a). Or again: “Any evidence which a woman [gives] is not valid (to offer). . . . This is equivalent to saying that one who is Rabbinically accounted a robber is qualified to give the same evidence as a woman” (Rosh Hashanah 1.8). The ancient Jewish historian Josephus likewise records, “But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment.”[6]

Given their low social status, why would the Gospel writers portray women as the first discoverers of a fact as momentous as the empty tomb? If the testimony of women was of no more account than that of criminals, then this portrayal threatens to undermine the credibility of that fact. If the early church had been attempting to save face by inventing a legend about Jesus, selecting women as the first to encounter the empty tomb would have been foolish given the availability of far more credible witnesses (e.g., Peter, Nicodemus, or perhaps one of the priests mentioned in Acts 6:7). Selecting women would seem calculated to convince no one! As if the testimony of women were not “embarrassing” enough, disciples are portrayed as not even believing the testimony of his resurrection (Mark 16:11; Luke 24:11). The presence of such “embarrassing facts” (i.e., claims or details that may be perceived as awkward or discomfiting to an author or, in this case, the church, because they “embarrass” one’s position) indicates truthfulness because they are unlikely to have been invented and included by the early church.

The third supporting evidence for the fact of the empty tomb is, ironically, the earliest Jewish polemic against the resurrection itself. In Matt 28:11-15 we read:

As they were on their way, some of the guards came into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. After the priests had assembled with the elders and agreed on a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money and told them, “Say this, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him while we were sleeping.’ If this reaches the governor’s ears, we will deal with him and keep you out of trouble.” They took the money and did as they were instructed, and this story has been spread among Jewish people to this day.

Empty Tomb—Supporting Evidence

Found in multiple, independent sources

Initially discovered by women followers

Presupposed in earliest Jewish polemic

No doubt Matthew responded to this story because it was being spread around Jerusalem (for if there were no empty tomb, it’s difficult to imagine a body-stealing story arising). Indeed, his response is pointless unless it was common knowledge in Jerusalem that Jesus’s tomb had been found empty. But focus on the Jewish leadership’s allegation: that the disciples stole Jesus’s body. If Jesus’s corpse had remained in the tomb, wouldn’t the authorities simply have produced the body, thereby squashing any resurrection rumors? Of all the imaginable charges (e.g., that the disciples were crazy or simply had gone to the wrong tomb), the priests tellingly chose one that presupposes the fact of the empty tomb.[7] In light of these three supporting evidences, we regard the fact that Jesus’s tomb was found empty as well established. By itself, does this fact prove the resurrection theory? No, it does not—but it does mean that whatever theory we arrive at must be able to explain why the tomb was found empty.

Jesus’s Postmortem Appearances

It is unlikely, as we have seen, that the early church fabricated the empty-tomb reports. To suggest they lied about our second fact—namely, that following his death, Jesus made numerous appearances—would give a whole new meaning to the expression “go big or go home.” The fact is that on multiple occasions after his death and burial, Jesus appeared alive to different people. Imagine it! “Well,” you’re perhaps thinking, “Jesus was dead—they must have imagined it.” But does not such thinking reveal a biased assumption of naturalism? There are at least three telltale features of the appearance accounts that prompt scholars to regard the fact of Jesus’s postmortem appearances as authentic.

Paul reports in 1 Cor 15:5-8 not only that Jesus made numerous postmortem appearances to others, but that he personally saw the Lord Jesus alive after his death (cf. Acts 9:1-9). This is no less than a list of eyewitnesses to the risen Jesus.[8] This “most important” report, Paul says, was entrusted to him—and in light of its extremely early date, he must have received it shortly after his conversion to Christianity.[9] The contents of the report are compelling: in addition to appearing separately to Cephas (Peter), then the twelve disciples, then to James, then to all the apostles, and then to Paul, Jesus is said to have appeared to more than 500 people at one time. If this is a lie, its audacity is breathtaking! Yet in his next breath Paul notes that “most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep” (v. 6). Why include this detail? Surely because this group was available to corroborate his claim, which is our first supporting evidence of this fact. In short, Paul invited those skeptical of his claim to go and question the witnesses themselves. Paul could never have said this if his report were a fabrication, for in that case there would be no witnesses to interview.

In addition to Paul’s claims in 1 Corinthians 15, the Gospels report postmortem appearances of Jesus to several of his followers, thereby providing multiple, independent sources for this fact. We have already seen that historians consider an account more reliable if it is found in independent sources because this provides corroboration of the account. Interestingly, the Gospels include appearances that Paul did not mention—for example, to the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-15), to the women at the empty tomb (independently attested in Matt 28:9-10 and John 20:11-17)—and vice versa (e.g., to the group of 500 people). However, we do find that some of the same appearances Paul listed are referred to in the Gospels: to Peter (Luke 24:34) and to the twelve disciples (Luke 24:36-43; John 20:19-20).[10] Such independent corroboration provides strong evidence that many of Jesus’s followers did in fact experience appearances of Jesus alive after his death. Notice that these appearances were not vague, ghostlike apparitions (such as the wispy phantom of Creusa’s appearance to Aeneas, who tried in vain three times “to encircle her neck with my arms”).[11] Jesus’s postmortem appearances, rather, were markedly physical in nature: in addition to being visible, Jesus walked and talked with people, touched people, and even ate meals with them.

A third piece of evidence that supports this fact is that Jesus appeared to unbelievers as well as to believers. Most of the people to whom Jesus appeared alive after his death were among his followers. James (the half brother of Jesus) and Paul (known then as Saul of Tarsus), however, were not followers of Jesus before his death. We know from John’s Gospel (7:1-5; cf. Mark 3:21, 31-32) that Jesus’s half-brothers did not believe him to be the Messiah, and by his own admission Paul ardently persecuted those who followed Jesus (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil 3:5-6).[12] That James and Paul were not believers when Jesus appeared to them is important for at least two reasons. First, it means neither of them, at the time of their respective experiences, was predisposed to believe Jesus to be the risen Christ. Quite the contrary, in fact. Yet incredibly James became a leader in the Jerusalem church (Acts 15:13-21; Gal 2:9), and Paul became a Christian missionary. This means, secondly, that we must ask what precipitated their changes of heart? This question becomes especially poignant when we recall that both men eventually were put to death for their faith in Jesus as the Christ.[13] Surely their having seen the risen Lord is the only explanation for such dramatic conversions, and—not coincidentally—this is precisely the reason we find at the center of Paul’s own testimony.

Before turning to our third fact, perhaps it would be helpful to contrast the postmortem appearance accounts with legendary accounts. In its popular usage today, the word “legendary” means “awesome” or “impressive,” and is frequently used as a superlative. When historians use the word, however, it is to contrast a fictional, mythical, or otherwise distorted account from a historically reliable account. Recall our earlier example of the ever-growing fish from chapter 5. Is it possible that the postmortem appearance accounts found in the New Testament are similarly nonhistorical, being based on legend that (at some point) crept into the Christian tradition?

Jesus’s Postmortem Appearances—Supporting Evidence

Many of the 500 were available to corroborate

Found in multiple, independent sources

Jesus appeared to unbelievers as well

It seems not.[14] As we have seen, the appearance accounts are not based on hearsay transmissions. Paul personally spoke with James, Peter, and John about their experiences. Paul recounted his own experience firsthand, and given his knowledge that many of the 500 witnesses were still alive, it seems reasonable to assume he had firsthand accounts from at least some of them, as well. Not only are these accounts based on firsthand experience; they date to within a few short years of Jesus’s crucifixion—remember: Paul received the creed of 1 Cor 15:3-7 and met with James and Peter in Jerusalem within five years of Jesus’s death. Why does that matter? It matters because, as William Lane Craig explains, “even the span of two generations is too short to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical fact.”[15] In short, five years is nowhere near sufficient time for the growth of enough legend to obscure the fact(s) of Jesus’s postmortem appearances. Add to this the presence of living witnesses—people who knew what did and did not actually happen—who would have prevented the spread of false legend, and we see there is no reason whatsoever to confuse the postmortem appearance accounts with legend.

The Disciples’ Belief in the Resurrection

For several years Jesus’s disciples faithfully followed him, believing, as Peter exclaimed to Jesus, that “You are the Messiah” (Mark 8:29; cf. John 1:41). They traveled extensively with Jesus, believed his teaching, and observed him performing miracles. They were his friends. Our third fact—that Jesus’s disciples came to believe that God raised Jesus from the dead—may therefore seem odd. These men were, after all, Jesus’s disciples—of course they of all people would believe in his resurrection—big surprise!

When we consider the full story of the disciples, however, we find it is something of a surprise, actually. Immediately following Judas’s betrayal and the arrest of Jesus, the disciples all “deserted him and ran away” (Matt 26:56; Mark 14:50). Peter, at least, followed furtively behind the arresting party (Mark 14:54), but when confronted altogether disowned Jesus (Mark 14:66-72; John 18:15-27). Following Jesus’s death, the fearful disciples hid out in a locked room (John 20:19). Although we must be careful not to read too much into this, it is somewhat surprising to find that seven of the disciples are off fishing in Galilee—afterhaving seen the risen Lord (John 21)![16] No doubt the two disciples on the road to Emmaus vocalized the shared sentiment of Jesus’s followers when they lamented: “We were hoping that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). In the disciples’ minds, though, these hopes had been dashed on the rocks of Jesus’s death. And yet each of the disciples soon after came boldly to preach (e.g., Acts 2:32-36) that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. Tellingly, they came to preach this despite tremendous risk to their own well-being, including threats, imprisonment, beatings, murder attempts, and in most cases, violent death.[17] Their momentous change of mind is our first supporting evidence that the disciples did indeed come to believe in Jesus’s resurrection—for apart from believing in Jesus’s resurrection, the disciples’ belief in Jesus as the Messiah cannot be explained.

Disciples’ Belief in Resurrection—Supporting Evidence

Disciples’ momentous change of mind: willing to preach resurrection

Disciples’ momentous change of mind: once again regard Jesus as Messiah

It is worth asking, though, why Jesus’s death on the cross was such a defeating event in the minds of the disciples. The death of an intimate friend is, of course, crippling—but something deeper is going on here: the disciples understood Jesus to be “the Messiah.” The concept of the Messiah is rich with meaning in Judeo-Christian thought, but in short the Messiah is the person specifically chosen by God to save his people.[18] By the time of Jesus, the Jewish people long had anticipated the arrival of the Messiah—and over time their anticipation came to include certain moral, political, and religious expectations. Significant, though, is what we do not find amidst their expectations. As N. T. Wright explains: “Jewish beliefs about a coming Messiah, and about the deeds such a figure would be expected to accomplish, came in various shapes and sizes, but they did not include a shameful death which left the Roman empire celebrating its usual victory.”[19] It was simply unthinkable that the Messiah would die (much less that he would die a shameful death on a Roman cross[20]). This is why when Jesus foretold his impending suffering and death, Peter “took him aside and began to rebuke him, ‘Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!’” (Matt 16:22). Yet against all expectations Peter and the other disciples, after Jesus’s death, came once again to regard Jesus as the Messiah. That their change of heart simply cannot be explained apart from their believing they had seen the risen Jesus is strong supporting evidence that they firmly believed in the resurrection of Jesus.

Explaining the Facts

These three facts—the empty tomb, the postmortem appearances of Jesus, and the disciples’ belief in Jesus’s resurrection—each enjoy strong support and are therefore historically well-established. Our task, like that of a detective, is to identify which theory best explains these facts. The best theory, of course, must explain all the facts, not just one or two of them. A detective who theorizes that I am the thief because (1) a witness spotted me in the vicinity and (2) footprints matching my shoes were found in the vault does have a theory of the crime, but not a good theory of the crime because he has ignored (3) the surveillance video of you running out of the bank, carrying sacks of cash. Like detectives, we must insist on a theory that can explain all three of our facts. Further, it must not only explain them; the best theory must make sense of the facts in a way that no competing theory can match. The theory that God miraculously raised Jesus from the dead obviously explains all three facts, but what about alternative explanations of the facts?

Naturalist Explanations

Over the course of history, alternative explanations for each of these three minimal facts have been offered. Space does not permit a full-scale appraisal of each, but a brief consideration of the most common naturalistic explanations of our three facts will prove instructive.[21]

When it comes to the three minimal facts canvassed here, skeptics of the resurrection theory have typically appealed to five alternative explanations:

1. Jesus’s Disciples Stole the Body

This is, in fact, the explanation we encountered in the earliest Jewish polemic in Matt 28:11-15. If true, this would explain why Jesus’s tomb was found empty. For a handful of reasons, though, this suggestion is implausible: not only does it envision the disciples—most of whom were fishermen or tax collectors—subduing the Roman guards at the tomb, this explanation would also require that the disciples knowingly perpetuated a lie. Not only is there no positive reason to think this, there is every reason to doubt it: while someone may be willing to die for something he wholeheartedly believes, as we noted in the last chapter, no one willingly dies for something he knows to be a lie. In short, if the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus, they never would have come to believe in Jesus’s resurrection.

2. The Jewish Leaders Stole the Body

Whereas the previous suggestion stumbles on the disciples’ sincere belief in Jesus’s resurrection, if the Jewish leadership stole the body, then the tomb would, of course, be found empty by Jesus’s followers, which would explain their coming to believe in and preach the resurrection, leading to the growth of Christianity. But this is precisely what the Jewish leaders wished to avoid! Even if the Jewish leadership simply did not foresee that stealing Jesus’s body would spark such a response among Jesus’s followers, they could have easily squashed such preaching by producing Jesus’s body. Such a move would have stopped the early spread of Christianity in its tracks, so why did the Jewish leadership not do so (instead accusing the disciples of stealing the body)? Their inaction undermines the suggestion that they had stolen the body.

3. Jesus Was Not Actually Dead

Although somewhat popular in the nineteenth century, the claim that Jesus physically survived his crucifixion (traditionally called the “swoon” theory) is almost universally rejected today. Beyond the virtual impossibility of surviving a scourging of such severity followed by crucifixion, this suggestion would require that the Roman executioners were mistaken in declaring Jesus dead. Not only this, but Jesus—severely wounded and on the verge of death—somehow unwrapped his own burial shroud, made his way to the tomb entrance, rolled away the stone, and crawled out without attracting the guards’ attention. From a merely physical standpoint, this stretches the imagination, yet nineteenth-century theologian David Strauss (who himself rejected the resurrection theory) shows that an insuperable difficulty remains:

It is impossible that a being who had stolen half-dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who required bandaging, strengthening, and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his sufferings, could have given the disciples the impression that he was a Conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of Life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression he had made upon them in life and in death, at the most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship.[22]

4. The Women Went to the Wrong Tomb

One final alternative explanation for the empty tomb is that on the first day of the week, Mary and company mistakenly went to a tomb other than that of Jesus. Although this would explain why the women followers initially found an empty tomb, it introduces further questions: even if Jesus’s women followers so quickly forgot the location of his tomb, are we to believe that all of Jesus’s disciples went to the wrong tomb? Even if so, it is highly unlikely none of them would have realized—or, what is even more probable, the Jewish leadership would have all too happily corrected—their mistake and discovered Jesus’s body where it was buried in the correct tomb.

None of these alternative explanations for why Jesus’s tomb was found empty is plausible. Not only do they raise more questions than they purport to answer, none of them addresses the postmortem appearances of Jesus to both followers and non-followers alike or the disciples’ belief in the resurrection. Saul, for example, did not come to believe in the resurrection on the basis of anyone’s (correct or mistaken) testimony of an empty tomb. His belief, rather, was due to Jesus’s postmortem appearance to him. This leads to our fifth naturalistic hypothesis.

5. The Appearances of Jesus Were Hallucinations

Those who deny the resurrection account almost universally attribute both the fact of Jesus’s postmortem appearances and the disciples’ coming to believe in the resurrection to hallucination. In the absence of any principled reason for doing so, it is virtually impossible to deny that the disciples (and James and Paul) had experiences that they took to be the risen Jesus appearing to them. These experiences, according to this suggestion, were actually misapprehensions. If true, this would explain the disciples’ testimony that Jesus appeared to them alive after his death, as well as the disciples’ coming to believe and preach the resurrection account. As with the attempted naturalistic explanations of the empty tomb, however, the hallucination theory is deeply problematic.

It is worth observing that in suggesting the hallucination theory one steps out of the historical and into the philosophical arena. As we have seen, the postmortem appearance accounts are straightforward: the disciples and others claim to have seen Jesus alive after his death, and there is no historical reason whatsoever to gainsay them. There is, of course, nothing wrong with psychological consideration—but again, it is worth asking whether the attempt to undermine these historical accounts as hallucinations belies a biased assumption of naturalism.

Much could be said about the hallucination theory, but several obstacles render it implausible.[23] First, as we have seen, the appearances were taken to be physical in nature. Recall that the disciple Thomas initially did not believe those who claimed to have seen the risen Lord, yet he came to believe after touching Jesus. Could this, as well as sharing meals with him, be possible if Jesus’s appearances were really hallucinations? Second, the number and nature of the witnesses do not comport with hallucination. Clinical psychologist Gary Sibcy explains, “I have surveyed the professional literature . . . written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and other relevant healthcare professionals during the past two decades and have yet to find a single documented case of a group hallucination, that is, an event for which more than one person purportedly shared in a visual or other sensory perception where there was no external referent.”[24] In other words, individuals—not groups, much less groups of 500 or more!—experience particular hallucinations. Additionally, even if the disciples were all individually primed to hallucinate, we have already seen that the notion of a dying and rising Messiah was absolutely foreign to them (making a resurrection hallucination far-fetched). Besides, neither James nor Paul was a follower of Jesus at the time of their appearance experiences. This means that neither had any predilection to hallucinate a risen Jesus, much less to come to believe him to be the Messiah. Finally, the hallucination theory cannot explain why Jesus’s tomb was, in fact, empty. As with previous naturalist explanations, if the disciples, James, Paul, and others each hallucinated appearances of a risen Jesus and on that basis began spreading the Christian gospel, then even if none of them thought to confirm an empty tomb, the Jewish leadership surely would have been all too happy to squash the movement by producing the body of Jesus. In short, the hallucination theory cannot adequately explain the postmortem appearances or the disciples’ belief in the resurrection.

Figure 7.1 — Attempted Naturalist Explanations of:

Empty Tomb

Postmortem Appearances and Disciples’ Belief

1. Disciples stole the body.

2. Jewish leaders stole the body.

3. Jesus was not actually dead.

4. Women went to the wrong tomb.

1. Hallucination theory

Beauty and Brilliance of the Resurrection

So, who was right: Paul or Aeschylus? Is Jesus’s resurrection fact or fiction? We have seen that Jesus’s tomb was indeed found empty, that Jesus did make multiple appearances following his death, and that the disciples’ (and others’) faith cannot be explained apart from their coming to believe in the resurrection; these are well-attested historical facts. Given the implausibility of alternative explanations, the resurrection account is seen to explain the facts in a way that no competing theory can match.

Beyond the case for its historicity, take a moment to consider afresh the meaningfulness of this event. By resurrecting Jesus from the dead, God in dramatic fashion vindicates the life and teachings of Jesus. Anyone can make audacious claims (including to be divine), but as the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Having pronounced approval at the launch of his earthly ministry at Jesus’s baptism (Matt 3:13-17), God bookends Jesus’s ministry by underscoring that approval in raising Jesus from the dead; the resurrection is, as Richard Swinburne puts it, God’s signature on the life and teachings of Jesus.[25] What a beautiful picture!

The resurrection is why the gospel story matters—why the gospel is alive. And therein lies its brilliance: the resurrection is not a random anomaly of history, but rather an integral element of God’s intentional plan for redemption. Without the resurrection there could be no atonement and redemption would remain unrealized. Coupled with his incarnation, Jesus’s resurrection therefore brilliantly makes redemption possible. In fact, it’s impossible to exaggerate the significance of the resurrection to Christian thought, not least because it fortifies the hope we have in Christ—hope that all who are in Christ shall likewise be resurrected; that Scripture’s pervasive theme of “making new” (the believer’s eternal state as well as the creation generally) is far from forgotten; and that because of resurrection, death has lost not only its victory but even its sting! Resurrection in God’s brilliant plan is indeed, as J. R. R. Tolkien aptly puts it, “eucatastrophic.” That is, it’s the happy ending—a sort of “good catastrophe”—of the story of the incarnation that denies universal final defeat:

This story begins and ends in joy. It has pre-eminently the “inner consistency of reality.” There is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true on its own merits. For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation. To reject it leads either to sadness or to wrath.[26]

Assignments

Assignment 7-1: Making Gospel Connections

Ask your nonbelieving friend what difference it would make if Jesus really was resurrected from the dead. What are his or her reasons for denying the historicity of this event? Try to answer these reasons in light of the three facts presented in this chapter.

Assignment 7-2

Discuss why people would deny the resurrection before even considering the evidence. What impact do philosophical presuppositions have, and what impact should philosophical presuppositions have on whether one accepts the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus?

Assignment 7-3

Answer the following questions:

What do you consider the strongest supporting evidence for each of the three minimal facts?

Explain how variations between the Gospel accounts of Jesus’s resurrection actually strengthenthe credibility of those accounts.

Do you think the earliest Christians could’ve gotten away with fabricating the key details of the resurrection story (e.g., that women first found the tomb empty, or that 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus at once)?

How important is a literal resurrection to the Christian faith?

Suggested Reading

Copan, Paul, and Ronald K. Tacelli, eds. Jesus’s Resurrection: Fact or Fiction? A Debate Between William Lane Craig and Gerd Lüdemann. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000.

Craig, William Lane. The Son Rises. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1981.

Habermas, Gary, and Michael Licona. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004.

Wright, N. T. The Resurrection of the Son of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

1 Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), 259.

2 There are, in fact, far more than these three facts. For a full-scale defense of Jesus’s resurrection, see Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God (see chap. 6, n. 30).

3 This method, called “inference to the best explanation,” is explained in detail in Michael R. Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 108-14.

4 Paul L. Maier, In the Fullness of Time: A Historian Looks at Christmas, Easter, and the Early Church(Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1991), 197.

5 For fuller discussion of this, see Steven B. Cowan, “Is the Bible the Word of God?” in In Defense of the Bible, 439 (see chap. 5, n. 23).

6 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, in The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, 4.8.15 (see chap. 5, n. 7).

7 William Lane Craig, The Son Rises (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1981), 83-84. Cf. Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 637-38.

8 For more on the reliability of eyewitness testimony, see chapter 5.

9 As eminent New Testament scholar C. H. Dodd shows, it’s likely Paul received this creed from Peter and James during his stay (Gal 1:2-18) in Jerusalem. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1936), 13. Dodd shows that Paul must have received this creed no more than seven years after Jesus’s crucifixion (Dodd, 16).

10 Jesus appeared multiple times to his disciples (cf. Matt 28:16-17; Mark 16:7; John 21). As William Lane Craig notes, “Taken sequentially, the appearances follow the pattern of Jerusalem—Galilee—Jerusalem, matching the festival pilgrimages of the disciples as they returned to Galilee following the Passover/Feast of the Unleavened Bread and travelled again to Jerusalem two months later for Pentecost.” Craig, Reasonable Faith, 381 (see chap. 2, n. 6).

11 Virgil, Aeneid, trans. Frederick Ahl (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 2.771-94.

12 Cf. the accounts in Acts 7:58; 8:1-3; 9:1-2; 22:3-5; 26:4-11.

13 James’s martyrdom is described in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20.197-203. Cf. Eusebius, The Church History, trans. Paul L. Maier (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 2.23. Paul’s martyrdom is described in Bryan Litfin, After Acts: Exploring the Lives and Legends of the Apostles (Chicago: Moody, 2015), 174-81.

14 For more on this question, see Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2004), 84-92.

15 Craig, The Son Rises, 101 (Craig’s emphasis).

16 It is significant that this occurs in the interim before the arrival of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 2:1-4).

17 See, for example, Acts 4:1-31; 5:17-42; 7:57-60; 12:1-5; 14:19; 21:13; 25:11, 2 Cor 4:7-14; 11:23-32. See also McDowell, The Fate of the Apostles.

18 For more, see N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 307-20; and Herbert W. Bateman IV, Darrell L. Bock, and Gordon H. Johnston, Jesus the Messiah: Tracing the Promises, Expectations, and Coming of Israel’s King (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2012).

19 Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, 559.

20 Martin Hengel explains the particular shamefulness of public execution by crucifixion in Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977).

21 Fuller treatments of these alternative explanations may be found in Habermas and Licona, Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, 93-119; Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 470-610; and Craig, Reasonable Faith, 361-99 (see chap. 2, n. 6).

22 David F. Strauss, A New Life of Jesus (London: Williams and Norgate, 1879), 1:412.

23 Gary Habermas, “Explaining Away Jesus’s Resurrection: The Recent Revival of Hallucination Theories,” Christian Research Journal 23, no. 4 (2001): 26-31, provides a succinct and helpful treatment.

24 Quoted in Licona, Resurrection of Jesus, 484.

25 Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 85-87.

26 J. R. R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories,” in The Tolkien Reader (New York: Ballantine Books, 2001), 89

Chapter 8

Is Jesus the Only Way?

Most religious believers think their religious tradition is true and all others false where they disagree. An atheist of course thinks that all religious claims (those about God and salvation) are false. There is no God, and thus there is no ultimate salvation. It used to be common that one either held to a specific religious tradition or one was an atheist (or perhaps agnostic). There were clear disagreements, and everyone argued for their respective views. Today the situation is a bit more muddled. In fact, it is popular today to be a pluralist and claim that all (or most) religious beliefs are true or at least provide a way to God. This idea poses a challenge for any view that claims to provide the one and only way to God. In this chapter, we defend Christian exclusivism from the challenge of religious pluralism.

The Christians Are Taking Over—or Are They?

An early apologetic argument for Christianity was the so-called miracle of the church. The argument was that the Christian church had become a worldwide phenomenon and virtually universal, or so it seemed. Imagine the perspective of a fourth-century Christian. Jesus’s life and ministry had taken place only about 300 years earlier. In this time, Christianity had gone from being a small, persecuted Jewish sect centered in Judea and surrounding points, to becoming the sole authorized religion of the Roman Empire. It seemed that the whole world was Christian, and the parts that weren’t were well on their way. However, from today’s perspective, especially with the rise of global technology, we know the world hasn’t become Christian (and probably never was well on its way even in the fourth century). There was and still is a rich and varied diversity of religious traditions in the world. This awareness of religious diversity has led many Christians to question whether salvation is found only in Christ. Many have gone on to challenge not the truth of Christianity as a whole, but just its exclusivity. This is the challenge of religious pluralism.

We will first define and defend Christian exclusivism. We will then turn to the challenge of religious pluralism.

Christian Exclusivism

What is Christian exclusivism? According to Alvin Plantinga, Christian exclusivism amounts to two claims:

The world was created by God, an almighty, all-knowing, and perfectly good personal being (one that holds beliefs; has aims, plans, and intentions; and can act to accomplish these aims).

Human beings require salvation, and God has provided a unique way of salvation through the incarnation, life, sacrificial death, and resurrection of his divine son.[1]

Though there are of course those who accept claim 1 but deny claim 2, these together comprise Christian exclusivism.

We have, throughout the course of this book, already provided a variety of reasons for believing claims 1 and 2. We have, for example, offered explicit arguments for God’s existence (chapter 3) and Jesus’s resurrection (chapter 7). The one term that we haven’t explicitly argued for, thus far, is the term unique.

There are at least two reasons to think that Jesus is the unique and only way of salvation. The first is that Jesus himself and his apostles, in no uncertain terms, claimed that Jesus is the only way to God. In John 14:6, Jesus says: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In Acts 4:12, the apostle Peter says: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved.”

The second reason to believe that Jesus is the only way to God follows straightforwardly from the nature of the gospel itself. The gospel says that we all stand as sinners before God. No amount of works, religious or otherwise, can reconcile us to a holy God. It is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that paid the penalty for our sin. It is on the basis of his work on the cross that we may be saved. Given the radical claims here, it simply doesn’t allow for some other way to God. If in Jesus, God sent his son to die on the cross for our sins, it seems to follow that salvation is in no one else. Christ’s work on the cross is sufficient but also necessary for salvation. This is to say that the gospel, if true, by its very nature is exclusively true.

Religious Pluralism Defined

What, then, is religious pluralism? Religious pluralism is the view that there are many (i.e., a plurality of) ways to God—where “God” is broadly construed to mean any ultimate reality beyond the natural world—and that many (if not most or even all) of the religions of the world provide these ways. It follows from this that, for the pluralist, there is no one religion that is exclusively correct.

There are many ways to be a pluralist. Let’s first look at what we will call simple religious pluralism (simple RP) according to which all or most religious views are literally correct. Though the view is simple and even somewhat naive, it is very common among students (and most Hollywood celebrities!). There is something attractive about simple RP in the sense that we never have to say someone’s view is wrong. We never have to rain on anyone’s religious parade. Everybody is right about everything!

Sounds great, right? Well, get your umbrella; it’s about to rain. The problem with the view is it is logically incoherent!

Christianity says that God is trinitarian (three persons in one). Islam says that God is strictly unitary (no division at all). Buddhism says that there is no personal God. The obvious problem here is that, just as a matter of logic, these couldn’t all be true. It couldn’t be that God is trinitarian, strictly unitarian, and nonexistent.[2] If God is trinitarian, then this logically entails that God is not strictly unitary. If the Muslim is right that God is unitary, then it follows that the Buddhist is wrong in thinking God does not exist. Each of these could perhaps be false (i.e., polytheism could be true), but they cannot logically all be true. In sum, simple RP is logically incoherent since religious traditions make mutually incompatible claims.

If this weren’t bad enough, simple RP is also self-refuting. Suppose one had the religious view (as most Christians arguably do) that simple RP is false. Given the thesis of simple RP—that all religious views are true—this would mean that it is true that simple RP is false (let that sink in!). Thus the truth of simple RP would have the logically incomprehensible consequence of falsifying simple RP.

So, though simple RP is a common view, it is not a defensible view. The view literally collapses under its own logical weight.

But why do people hold this view? It is sometimes claimed that religious exclusivity is arrogant and that simple RP is a position of tolerance. But these claims are unsustainable as well. Exclusivism can’t be thought arrogant merely because the exclusivist claims that his or her view is true. To see why, consider that pluralists also claim their view is true and would then also be arrogant. Moreover, it is difficult to understand what it means to say that a claim itself is arrogant. This seems to be a category error—this is where a property or attribute is ascribed to something that can’t possibly possess that property or attribute (e.g., to say, “The color red is heavy”). Claims are either true or false. It is people (or, more specifically, the way people act) that are either arrogant or humble. Though one may defend exclusivism in an arrogant way, one may defend it with humility as well. The pluralist can also act arrogantly (or humbly). The views themselves are neither arrogant nor humble, and it is a category error to think they are.

How about tolerance? Is it intolerant to be an exclusivist and tolerant to be a pluralist? Tolerance has become something of a contemporary buzzword. It is often taken to mean that we are tolerant insofar as we believe all views are equally valid. That is, it is intolerant to claim that one view is true and the rest false. If this is how we understand tolerance, then of course the exclusivist is intolerant. However, is the pluralist tolerant in this sense? No, not even close. The pluralist claims our view, the view of Christian exclusivism, is false. It claims that all exclusivist views are false. Given that the pluralist disagrees, this makes the pluralist, by definition, intolerant as well.[3]

But this is not what tolerance really even means. A more sensible definition is the idea that even though we believe others have false beliefs, we respect their right to hold to and defend alternate beliefs (i.e., we do not silence them, inflict violence on them, unfairly tax them, etc.). We are all for this idea of tolerance, since it allows for meaningful discussion. But this definition assumes that we in fact disagree with (i.e., assert the falseness of) contrary views. After all, if we didn’t disagree, then there wouldn’t be a reason to tolerate them.

Sophisticated Religious Pluralism

There is a more sophisticated version of religious pluralism (henceforth RP). Here the view is that all religions are, strictly speaking, false. That is, all religions, insofar as they make specific claims about God and transcendent reality, are false regarding those specific claims. Now, this might sound like atheism. But the sophisticated religious pluralist thinks, unlike the atheist, that there is a reality to which the religions of the world point. Though they believe that the specific claims of specific religions are, in their literal sense, false, most religions do provide a way to reach, in some sense, this supernatural or transcendent reality. That is, each religion provides a valuable and helpful framework for approaching transcendent reality with none being the exclusively right way of approach. That Jesus died to secure our salvation with God, though literally false as the means of salvation, helps Christians approach this supernatural reality. Whereas, following the pillars of Islam, though not literally currying favor from Allah, is valuable for getting in touch with the ultimate reality for Muslims. And so on, for the religions of the world.

What reasons are there for thinking there is a plurality of ways to approach God? Even though the view is more sophisticated, the arguments for this thesis are not always very compelling. Consider Columbia University professor Paul Knitter’s defense of RP, for example: “I suspect that one of the few things that all Christians—no matter what their denominational or theological colorings—would agree on is the recognition that God is a reality that no human mind can fully grasp.”[4] He quotes certain church councils and the likes of Thomas Aquinas and Paul Tillich where they each make the point, in effect, that “God will always transcend, always be more than, what human beings can know or what God can give them to know.”[5] He goes on:

Now, if this is what all Christians believe, if God for them can really be known but never fully be known, then it follows with both logical and theological necessity that there cannot be only one way to know God. Why? Because there is always more to know about God. To hold to only one way is to close oneself to knowing more of the depths of divine truth. The “more,” the excess, the transcendence of the God of Jesus calls us, therefore, to be open to “more ways” to know God.[6]

In response, it’s difficult to see premises here from which the claim “there are many ways to God” follows as a matter of logical necessity (there seems to be no theological necessity here either), much less a plausible argument. Logical necessity means, given the premises, the conclusion is the only logical possibility. But surely it is logically possible that God is not fully known by finite minds (with which we completely agree) and yet faith in Christ is the exclusive way to God. God’s incomprehensibility doesn’t even seem plausibly to suggest there are many ways to know God. It suggests that there are many other truths about God, but this says nothing about whether there are therefore many ways to know God.

John Hick

One of the foremost defenders of sophisticated RP in recent years was the late philosopher of religion John Hick. Having grown up in a largely nonreligious household, Hick, in his own words, “underwent a powerful evangelical conversion under the impact of the New Testament figure of Jesus” in his college years.[7] This conversion was so significant that he planned to enter Christian ministry. As he began study in preparation for this ministry, he began drifting from his evangelicalism toward pluralism. He said:

As I spent time in mosques, synagogues, gurudwaras and temples as well as churches something very important dawned on me. On the one hand all the externals were different. . . . And not only the externals, but also the languages, the concepts, the scriptures, the traditions are all different and distinctive. But at a deeper level it seemed evident to me that essentially the same thing was going on in all these different places of worship, namely men and women were coming together under the auspices of some ancient, highly developed tradition which enables them to open their minds and hearts “upwards” toward a higher divine reality which makes a claim on the living of their lives.[8]

What Hick found across a wide range of experiences is that religious devotees all sought some sort of transcendent reality. He conceded the “externals” (and languages, concepts, scriptures, and traditions) are incompatibly different. However, its structure, in its most basic form, he thought was the same. On the basis of this, Hick retained the belief that there is ultimate reality beyond the natural world. Is this God? No, not necessarily, as this would commit Hick to more descriptive content than he thought we can give for the supernatural. Instead Hick referred to this reality as the “Real.” The Real cannot be literally understood or described. It goes beyond our concepts and our language. The Real is, for Hick, “transcategorial,” which means that God is beyond our ability to apply categories and concepts. But every person is, in a way, aware of the Real. Each culture, in attempting to describe the Real, has given expression as experienced by them in their specific religious claims that they make. But these should be seen only as the Real-as-experienced and not the Real-as-it-truly-is. No religion or individual has access to supernatural reality as it is in itself, but only the phenomenological experience of the Real. We can experience it, but this experiential reality, for Hick, is ambiguous, in the sense that it can be explained and described in many different but equally valid ways. Notice these are valid descriptions and not true descriptions. Again, he, along with other sophisticated pluralists, would say that all religious claims about the Real are literally false.

Now, when Hick said that claims about the Real are literally false, he didn’t mean these claims are simply nonsensical or false in every sense. Though he believed religious claims are, in a literal sense, false, they may be true in a mythological sense. There are a variety of ways to understand the term myth. It is sometimes used to simply mean false or fictional. But this is not the way Hick used the term. What, for Hick, distinguished a literal truth from a mythological truth? He said, “The literal truth or falsity of a factual assertion . . . consists in its conformity or lack of conformity to fact: ‘it is raining here now’ is literally true if and only if it is raining here now. . . . A statement or set of statements about X is mythologically true if it is not literally true but nevertheless tends to evoke an appropriate dispositional attitude to X.”[9]

Hick seemed to think of myth as something like a metaphor. We use metaphors to communicate not literal truths, but to communicate certain impressions and attitudes. Take, for example, when in Shakespeare’s famous play, Romeo says of Juliet:

What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.[10]

We immediately understand, given the context of the assertion, that Romeo doesn’t mean to claim that Juliet is a giant ball of burning gas! Rather he is, in a way, painting a picture in words of her radiance and beauty. We can almost feel what Romeo is pointing us to. Putting this in Hick’s terms, the Shakespeare quote gives us the appropriate dispositional attitude toward the character and scene. Likewise, Hick thinks that when a religious figure attempts to describe the Real, she is not saying something literally true, but only something that gives us the appropriate attitude and disposition toward that Reality.

What’s the appropriate dispositional attitude toward the Real? Hick believed that what we see in each world religion is a move away from self-centeredness. He wrote:

The great world faiths embody different perceptions and conceptions of, and correspondingly different responses to the Real from within the major variant ways of being human; and that within each of them the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness is taking place. These traditions are accordingly to be regarded as alternative Soteriological “spaces” within which, or “ways” along which, men and women find salvation/liberation/ultimate fulfillment.[11]

So, the appropriate dispositional attitude toward the Real is becoming centered not on ourselves but on the Real. For Hick, any religion that takes the focus off ourselves is producing the appropriate dispositional attitude and, thus, is one of many appropriate religious frameworks.

Assessment of Hick’s RP

Hick was not a universalist in the sense that all approaches to the Real are appropriate.[12] That is, his version of RP does not entail that all religious individuals are “saved.” He seemed to think that only those whose religious beliefs evoke Reality-centeredness rather than self-centeredness are appropriate.

The first problem with Hick’s RP is that many religious traditions seem to be fundamentally self-centered. That is, contrary to Hick’s claim, it is not clear that all or even most religions are truly Reality-centered. Consider, for example, the traditions that make heaven (or paradise, or enlightenment, etc.) the ultimate goal in being religious. This seems to be fundamentally self-interested, and transcendent reality is simply a means toward that gain. A religious devotee of this sort is seemingly only in it for himself or herself.

Second, Hick believed that the Real is indescribable and transcategorial, and yet he seemed to give descriptions of and categories for understanding the Real. In other words, why shouldn’t we understand his account as providing categories for how to think of the Real? But if this is what he has done, then the Real is not transcategorial. We just have a new set of categories by which we understand the Real.

Third, there is a problem of intention. Romeo intended for his claim to be understood metaphorically and it, for this reason, can be said to be metaphorically true. If Romeo meant that Juliet was the sun in a literal sense (i.e., she actually was a massive ball of burning gas), it wouldn’t be correct to call it a metaphor. He would not be saying something metaphorically true, because he was not using it as a metaphor. It seems to us that most religious people intend their claims quite literally. Abraham, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhārtha Gautama, the Hindu guru, and religious people everywhere arguably intend a literal understanding of the claims they make. So these claims can’t be mythologically true unless they are intended to be understood in a mythological sense.

Fourth, Hick believed that a claim is (mythologically) true insofar as it produces an appropriate disposition toward the Real. But given the fact that the Real is transcategorial, it seems one could not know what the appropriate disposition is. In other words, what’s available to us that makes our disposition appropriate or inappropriate? Even if all religions do move us to be Reality-centered, why think this is the appropriate way to approach the Real? Maybe the self-interested religious terrorist is approaching the Real in an appropriate way by his mass killing. How could Hick say that he is not?

When it comes to metaphors (such as Romeo’s description of Juliet), we know that the sun is an appropriate metaphor for a beautiful woman since we already know what it’s like to see a beautiful sunrise. We could give a more or less literal description of a sunrise, and for this reason we know the metaphor is appropriate. However, if the Real is completely indescribable and completely beyond our ability to comprehend, then we really don’t know if the specific (mythological) approach is appropriate or not.

Thus, it seems that Reality-centeredness as a fundamental moral of all religions is unwarranted. Even if we grant the rather dubious claim that all religious traditions move people from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness, this doesn’t seem to constitute a good reason to think that this is the path of salvation. If Hick wants to say that the Real is indescribable and transcategorial, then he has no good reason for thinking that becoming Reality-centered is the path of salvation. For all we know, the Real doesn’t want us to be Reality-centered!

The Myth of Inclusivism

Perhaps the most attractive part of RP is its supposed inclusivism. Religions are not exactly known for coming together on almost anything. It appears all religions can come together under the big tent that is RP. However, this appearance is not quite right. In fact, we’ll argue RP is no more inclusive than the Christian exclusivist! To see this, we should notice that the thesis of RP says that RP is true and everyone else is wrong—everyone else is excluded in that sense.

Imagine we were convinced that everything Hick says about RP is true and we begin to take his writing as prophetic and divinely inspired. We could even start calling ourselves Hickians. John Hick has, after all, shown us the true way to the Real. Imagine that we begin to meet regularly to study and discuss his writings, and even begin to hit the streets getting people to accept the “good news” of Hickianity.

What we should notice is that this is no more inclusive than any religious view. In fact, it is just another religious tradition with its views about ultimate reality and the way to reach it. If one doesn’t accept the claims of Hickianity, then one is excluded from the view (i.e., we do not accept it). The point of this thought experiment is to show that RP is no less exclusive in the claims it makes than any other view about ultimate reality. If you disagree with the pluralist, she will say that you are wrong. The pluralist believes that it is only she who has the full view of reality, and the rest of the world, both now and historically, is just flat wrong about what they believe religiously.

To see this even more crisply, RP is often illustrated by the children’s story of the blind men and the elephant. In the story, a group of blind men come upon an elephant for the first time. Since they are blind, they each attempt to understand what is before them by feeling the elephant. The first feels the side of the elephant and takes it to be like a wall. The second happens upon the trunk of the elephant and takes it to be long like a snake. The third touches the tusk and thinks an elephant is like a spear. The fourth feels the leg of the elephant and takes elephants to be like tree trunks. The fifth feels the ear and thinks elephants are like fans. And the sixth thinks an elephant is like a rope, given that he feels the tail.

What we are supposed to learn is that though different religious accounts may seem extremely different and contradictory, they are unknowingly approaching the same reality. Each of the views is, on the whole, literally wrong—an elephant is not very much like a snake or spear—but these are all getting at what an elephant, or at least parts of an elephant, is like.

Indeed, this nicely illustrates RP, especially its exclusivism! To see this we should, first, notice that each religious tradition is described as being blind. If one is religious, one might find this more than a little insulting. Each religious tradition only has a small, mostly false piece of the puzzle. But notice who we’re told isn’t blind, namely, the religious pluralist. The pluralist, it seems, can see reality as it really is. Whereas the rest of us are blind and inaccurately describing one small piece of what the Real is like, the pluralist has the full picture.

As it turns out, inclusivity is impossible. This is a consequent of the nature of a truth claim. Whenever we make a claim, we are claiming that it is true, and this implies that its contraries are all false. One can try to be perfectly inclusive, but it will always exclude someone. Imagine we assert the following view: “Everyone, no matter what they believe, is right.” If anything is inclusive, this is it. But wait: doesn’t this exclude everyone who says there are only some who are right? This extremely inclusive statement excludes all those who disagree (which, by the way, is almost everyone on the planet, since hardly anyone believes that everyone is right about everything). The claim, though it seems inclusive, actually excludes almost everyone! Anyone who makes a truth claim, given the nature of truth, is an exclusivist. Thus, if being exclusive is a problem, it is a problem for everyone!

But there’s no reason to think that being exclusive, all by itself, is a problem. Indeed, there seems to be no way to have meaningful dialogue without it.

Religious Disagreement

We began the chapter pointing out that RP has grown in popularity given the rich and varied diversity of religious traditions in the world. We’ve argued that RP suffers from many challenges and should therefore be rejected. But there is still the radical diversity in the world. Can we claim that Jesus is the only way to God even though most of the world does not believe this? It is sometimes objected that the radical diversity and disagreement in the world makes Christian exclusivism unjustified.

What’s the objection? The first point is there seem to be adherents of other faiths who are our epistemic peers. What is an epistemic peer? According to Thomas Kelly, epistemic peers, as it relates to a specific question, are “equals with respect to their familiarity with the evidence and arguments which bear on that question.”[13] It is also often added that peers are, on the whole, equals in terms of intellectual ability. The Christian’s epistemic peer is one who has considered all the same evidence, is equally intelligent, and yet rejects the truth of Christianity. The objection to Christian exclusivism, then, is that given the radical disagreement among epistemic peers, the evidence for Christianity is not compelling. If epistemic peers are looking at the same evidence and coming to radically different views, then the evidence must not be definitive. The Christian exclusivist has a broad set of defeaters, then, for her claims. What are the defeaters? The defeaters are all the inumerable epistemic peers of the world!

In response, it is important to point out that the diversity of opinion is not simply a phenomenon of religious inquiry. There is incredible diversity among epistemic peers in disciplines, such as philosophy, science, economics, morality, politics, and so on. The diversity here is not often seen as reason to deny any specific view in these disciplines. Why should it be different for religious topics? Moreover, one will be hard-pressed to find beliefs for which there is no dissent from some epistemic peer somewhere. For example, suppose that Smith believes that white supremacy is false and a morally abhorrent view. Let’s say that Smith has arrived at this view as a matter of careful reflection and it is a matter of strong conviction. However, suppose one points out that there are white supremacists out there, some of whom are presumably epistemic peers. Should this diminish Smith’s conviction that white supremacy is false? He might (like us) be at a loss to understand why someone would find white supremacy plausible. But it would seem to be intellectually irresponsible of Smith to lessen his conviction on the mere fact that there is peer disagreement. Thus, the mere fact that there is disagreement does not seem to constitute a defeater for one’s belief.

It is also unclear that all participants in the discussion have the same evidence available to them. It is our experience that unbelievers have often not fully appreciated the arguments the Christian exclusivist makes.

There are some who have carefully and thoughtfully considered the evidence, but these are few and far between. The writings of the new atheists strike us as a good example of this. In fact, Michael Ruse (keep in mind he is an atheist) has said:

I have written that The God Delusion made me ashamed to be an atheist and I meant it. Trying to understand how God could need no cause, Christians claim that God exists necessarily. I have taken the effort to try to understand what that means. Dawkins and company are ignorant of such claims and positively contemptuous of those who even try to understand them, let alone believe them. Thus, like a first-year undergraduate, he can happily go around asking loudly, “What caused God?” as though he had made some momentous philosophical discovery. . . . There are a lot of very bright and well informed Christian theologians. We atheists should demand no less.[14]

The point here is not to return the favor and merely ridicule Dawkins and company. It is to say that there are few who take the time and care to understand the opposing view, and this makes it less plausible that everyone in the discussion is an epistemic peer.

But there are some who thoughtfully reject Christian exclusivism. These seem to have carefully considered the case for Christianity and they have rejected it. But are they truly epistemic peers? It seems not, at least, in a strict sense. This is not to say that unbelievers are epistemically inferior to Christians. Rather, the point is that there is so much that goes into forming our fundamental beliefs that it is at least plausible that we do not share a strictly identical epistemic situation with anyone, even other Christians. To see this, we should first emphasize our limitations as knowers. There is only so much one can carefully consider in a lifetime. Also, arguments are almost always complex, with important subtleties that must be appreciated to see the full force of the argument. It is just not possible to fully consider every argument relevant to one’s view. In addition to this, we make subtle but important decisions about logic, arguments, and evidence that bear on the conclusions we reach.

There are also many non-epistemic factors that affect our belief formation. We are not mere logic machines. In fact, this is sometimes used as an argument for pluralism. Hick said, “It is evident that in some ninety-nine percent of cases the religion which an individual professes and to which he or she adheres depends upon the accidents of birth. Someone born to Buddhist parents in Thailand is very likely to be a Buddhist, someone born to Muslim parents in Saudi Arabia to be a Muslim, someone born to Christian parents in Mexico to be a Christian, and so on.”[15]

This, it seems, is true, but the question is, what follows from it? Should we be inclined to think that Christian exclusivism is false just because we were born in a country in which Christianity is common? It seems not, so long as we have carefully considered the case for Christianity vis-à-vis other views. Plantinga has responded to this claim, saying, “For suppose we concede that if I had been born in Madagascar rather than Michigan, my beliefs would have been quite different. . . . But of course the same goes for the pluralist. Pluralism isn’t and hasn’t been widely popular in the world at large; if the pluralist had been born in Madagascar, or medieval France, he probably wouldn’t have been a pluralist. Does it follow that he shouldn’t be a pluralist?”[16] This would be a bad reason to reject pluralism just as it would be a bad reason to reject a specific religious view.

But still, our upbringing and prior experiences certainly figure in to our belief formation, as do our hopes, fears, and desires. Atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel has said:

I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time.[17]

Now we don’t think that Nagel is irrational in his atheism. He still presumably holds to his atheism on the basis of evidence. But the point is, we don’t share his desire for atheism to be true. It looks as if his approach to the world is very different from ours.

Where does this leave us? It is our view that given the subtlety of the evidence and the way we bring our desires and background to bear on what we believe, there are no identical epistemic peers. We might be equals in our general ability to discover truth, but this need not mean that we are identical epistemic peers. Rather, it seems we all have a limited but nonidentical view of the world.

The point of all of this is to say that we can do no better than doing our level best to believe in accord with our evidence. After careful inquiry and reflection, we should believe those things that are best supported by the evidence that we have. If our best evidence points to atheism, then we should be atheists. If our best evidence points to Christian exclusivism, then we should so believe. The radical diversity of the world should, it seems to us, foster an attitude of intellectual humility in the realization that we may be wrong about some of what we believe. However, it is an overcorrection to think we cannot rationally believe something in the face of disagreement.

Concluding Thoughts

In closing, there is one piece of evidence that the Christian claims to have that the unbeliever does not. It is part of Christian doctrine to believe the Christian has something available to her that is unavailable to the unbeliever. This is the fact that Christ has revealed himself to the Christian through the ministry of the Holy Spirit as we have found our rest in him. If this is right, then Christian believers and unbelievers are never epistemic peers since the evidence for the genuine Christian is necessarily different. As we mentioned in chapter 2, “Truth, Knowledge, and Faith,” we think of the testimony of the Holy Spirit as evidence. But it is not evidence that is sharable in a public defense of Christianity. However, this is not a discussion about the defense of Christianity. It is a discussion of the epistemology of Christian belief. In that sense, the fact that Christ has revealed himself to the Christian constitutes a very good reason to believe that Christianity, on top of the rest of the evidences we have, is true even in the face of radical disagreement.