Chapter Twelve

Miracles: Signs and Wonders or Fakes and Mistakes?

 

The word supernatural has acquired rather negative connotations in recent times. Thanks to the popularity of horror films and horror stories, for many people, the word supernatural will conjure up, so to speak, images of ghosts and ghouls, zombies, vampires, werewolves, twirling heads, green projectile vomiting, and sinister dolls which do unpleasant things. It’s a word that needs to be rehabilitated. The word supernatural does not, in itself, imply anything malign. The way we use the word supernatural in this book has nothing to do with the any of the items in above list, or anything like them.

Literally, the word supernatural means above nature. It means anything that is not part of nature, anything beyond nature. The word nature in this case does not refer only to world of living things, or the weather, but the whole physical universe, made of atoms, molecules, electrons, protons, neutrons, and the other more exotic, but nevertheless still natural, particles.

His 13-part TV series Cosmos, first transmitted in 1980, and seen by over 600 million people in more than 60 countries, scientist Carl Sagan came up with a phrase that has become proverbial amongst many atheists:

The cosmos is all that is, was, or ever will be.

By cosmos Sagan meant the whole physical universe. Sagan declared that there is no supernatural, nothing beyond or above nature. For many people this is simply an indisputable fact – but is it really just a statement of faith?

God is supernatural by definition, of course, so if there is no supernatural then there is no God. Equally, though, if there is a God, then the supernatural does exist.

In this book we have argued that it is reasonable to believe that the universe, the cosmos, was created by God i.e. that its creation was a supernatural event. Here’s a summary.

We began with the cosmological argument:

1. Everything which came into being has a cause
2. The universe came into being
3. Therefore the universe has a cause

There are no examples, as far as we know, of anything that came into being without a cause. The idea of cause and effect is of central important in science. Big bang cosmology strongly indicates the universe had a beginning.

It is reasonable to believe that this cause is a personal being who is uncaused, beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and unimaginably powerful for the following reasons:

• The universe appears to be fine-tuned for the existence of life. Whilst there are other options, this fact is consistent with the idea that the universe was created for a purpose. Only a personal, rational being can create purpose.
• The universe has an underlying rational, reliable, intelligible order. The cause of the universe must be the source of that rational order. This fact is consistent with the idea that this cause is a personal, rational being.
• The existence of the universe and its observed properties are contingent: it is not logically necessary for the universe to exist, or for it to have the properties that it does. Our universe just happens to be, and it just happens to be as it is. Whilst there are other options, for example it is possible that everything that can exist does exist, this contingency is consistent with the idea that creation of the universe was a matter of free choice. A free choice can only be made by a personal being.

Does this mean then that the creation of the universe was a miracle, the first great miracle? Now, there’s a question that might cause some vigorous debate! If the definition of a miracle is a ‘supernatural event brought about by God’ then it fits the definition. To be fair, though, if it is a miracle, then clearly, as a miracle, it belongs in a category of its own. Amongst other things, if it is a miracle, then it is the only one which is readily available for scientific investigation. We may observe, test, and analyse it at our leisure.

If the creation of the universe was a miracle, then it shows that there has been at least one miracle. If so, then no one can object to belief in miracles on the grounds that no miracle has even been observed by a sufficiently reliable group of witnesses, since this particular miracle has been observed by everybody. Equally, of course, just because this one miracle occurred, that doesn’t mean that any others have. If we are looking for other miracles, though, then we should be looking for something which fits the pattern set by the first. We are looking for something which is a work of God; there is no justification here for thinking that humans can perform miracles. We are also looking for something which has a rational order to it, that is, which makes sense as part of God’s purpose.

 

Is belief in the possibility of miracles unscientific?

… the creation itself excepted. I will stop saying ‘the creation itself excepted’ from now on. We’ll take that as read!

An idealised version of the scientific method would look something like this. Scientists come up with a hypothesis, that is an attempt to explain some phenomenon or observation. A scientific hypothesis is one that makes a testable prediction. A controlled experiment is then designed and carried out to test this prediction, usually by making measurements of some kind. A team performs the experiment, and then publishes a description of the method and their results in a peer reviewed journal. Other scientific teams then repeat the experiment using the same method to see if they get the same results. If they do, this is strong evidence for the hypothesis, and new experiments can then be designed to further test the hypothesis. Evidence is built up in this way and in due course, when there is enough evidence, the hypothesis can be promoted to the level of a theory. A scientific theory is a hypothesis which is supported by a body of evidence. Well, that’s the story I tell my physics students anyway. Real science is nothing like that simple, as we know. The story does work quite well with physics though.

As we saw in earlier chapters, Einstein’s theory of general relativity provides an example which comes close to the ideal in the story. The theory, technically only a hypothesis before it was tested, not only explained the strange orbit of Mercury in way that Newton’s Mechanics could not, but also predicted the bending of light around the sun, discovered by Eddington in 1919, the expansion of the universe, discovered by Hubble and others, the existence of black holes, and time dilation as tested by Hafele and Keating in 1971 during their double round the world trip.

This story shows why the scientific method cannot be applied to miracles. No one will try to formulate a hypothesis to explain how a miracle occurred because no one expects to find any explanation. The story also shows the importance in science of the repeatability of the results of experiments and of explanations that predict things. Miracles are not repeatable or predictable. They are one off events.

Another important principle in science is falsifiability. Most people consider that a claim has to be falsifiable in order to qualify as scientific; that is, if a claim is false it should be possible to prove that it is false. We illustrated the problem with unfalsifiable claims, back in the prologue, by using the example of someone who claims that there are fairies at the bottom of their garden. You can’t prove that the fairies are not there, but it would certainly not be scientific to believe that they are. We also gave the more realistic example of a policeman questioning a suspect. If the suspect tells a story which is not falsifiable then that does not mean the story is untrue, but it does raise suspicions. As we noted, the idea of the multiverse is also unfalsifiable; you cannot prove that the universe we see is the only one that exists; but we argued in chapter five that there might be circumstances in the future where it could be considered reasonable to believe in the existence of other, unseen universes. So, a lack of falsifiability is not always the end of the story; but a positive case has to be made for believing a claim which is unfalsifiable.

There are some individual miracle claims which can be falsified. If a modern-day faith healer falsely claims to have miraculously cured someone of cancer, either because they are a fraud, or because they mistakenly believe that they have miraculous healing powers, this claim can be falsified by showing that the someone still has cancer, or that they never can cancer in the first place. Fakes and mistakes can be identified in this way. But the more general claim that miracles have sometimes happened in the past cannot be falsified.

It may be that Jesus did not perform miracles, but you can’t prove that he didn’t. I suppose that if Jesus’ skeleton was found, that would prove that he didn’t rise from the dead, but that is unlikely to happen! In practice, the miracles of Jesus in the NT are unfalsifiable.

Miracles are not repeatable, or predictable, and in general, claims made about miracles are unfalsifiable. So, the claim made by the NT that Jesus did miracles certainly lies outside the realm of the scientific; but it is also actually scientifically impossible?

 

‘Ye cannae break the laws of physics, Captain’

… as all Star Trek fans know.

Purposeful human actions obey the laws of physics, but are not explained by them. My famous walk to the shop to buy a pint of milk was a matter of free choice. The laws of physics did not make me do it. It is explained by my desire to have milk in my tea, not by any mathematical formula. All the atoms in my body rose up in unison, moved to the shop, and then moved back to my house. The laws of physics cannot explain why the atoms in my body did this. This event was a product of design, my design in this case. Nevertheless, the visit to the shop happened entirely in accordance with the laws of physics, and did not violate them in any way. But what about miracles? You cannot object to miracles on the grounds that miracles cannot be explained by the laws of physics. Things which can’t be explained by the laws of physics (but which don’t break them) happen all the time; but actually breaking the laws of physics – that’s another matter.

Probably the most famous argument against belief in miracles is that of 18^th century Scottish philosopher David Hume. Hume is often considered to have been a deist, although there is some debate about that. Deists believe that God exists, but he does not intervene in the universe in any way. Deists believe in the uncreated creator, but not the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Deism is a belief which appeals to a lot of people, especially scientists; after all, as we have seen, there is plenty of scientific evidence for a creator. With deism you get an explanation for that evidence, as well as perhaps an ultimate, if somewhat inscrutable, basis for a belief in rationality, morality, and beauty, without having to deal with the messy and paradoxical business of things such as miracles. You also get an explanation for suffering. God doesn’t intervene to prevent suffering because he doesn’t intervene full stop; brutal, but logical. It all win-win from a certain point of view. Such a God can be admired or even worshiped, but he is of no relevance to human lives. However, for all the neat, logical appeal of deism, there remains a puzzle at the heart of it. If God created the universe for a purpose, why did he then take no further interest in it? Is it not reasonable to suppose that this God, this personal being, continues to care about his creation and perhaps continues to act within in it.

In a deistic vein, Hume writes:

The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion . . . Were men led into the apprehension of invisible, intelligent power by a contemplation of the works of nature, they could never possibly entertain any conception but of one single being, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts, according to one regular plan or connected system . . . All things of the universe are evidently of a piece. Every thing is adjusted to every thing. One design prevails throughout the whole. And this uniformity leads the mind to acknowledge one author. 

David Hume The Natural History of Religion. (Hume, ‘Natural History of Religion’, introduction)

So, Hume would be on board with some parts of our argument above. However, he certainly did not believe in traditional Christianity, especially not in miracles. To the extent that he had any belief in God at all, he believed that God stands aloof and distant. That is not the Christian God, who is a God who intervenes, a God of not just of wonders, but also miracles. Hume famously writes:

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and because firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the case against a miracle is—just because it is a miracle—as complete as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined to be.

― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.  (Hume, ‘An Enquiry’, ‘On miracles’)

Is belief in the possibility of miracles incompatible with science because miracles, if they happened, they would violate the laws of nature; or, as we or engineering officer Scotty might say, because they would break the laws of physics?

The ‘laws of physics’ are not actually laws. If a rock flying freely through the air was caught going up instead of (eventually) going down it would not be arrested and charged with breaking the law of gravity. The phrase ‘laws of physics’ is a metaphorical way of referring to the underlying rational, reliable, intelligible order within the universe, expressed mathematically, that physics relies on. Without this order, physics would be impossible. Of course, without it, the existence of physicists would also be impossible, but that’s another matter. Most of the pioneers of modern science were Christian believers, often very devout ones. It was natural for them to speak of ‘laws’ that governed the universe since, for them, God was both lawmaker and judge. These phrases, once they are established, tend to stick even when times change. We still say that a ship has ‘set sail’ even when it is powered by a diesel engine, and phones still ‘ring’ even though it’s been some time since phones actually contained bells. If we take the legal metaphor literally, then of course God can break the laws of physics if he wants to. He is the one that makes the rules; he can change them too. Even so, having set such great store on the underlying rational order in this book, we could hardly set it aside so lightly, whether we take the ‘laws of nature’ metaphor literally or not.

But would miracles break the laws of physics? Not necessarily. Since we are discussing laws, let’s bring in Clarke’s Third Law: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. The law is named after its inventor, Arthur C. Clarke, the science fiction writer. I read his books avidly as a child. He was one of the people who inspired me to take an interest in science. The law can also be expressed in the form: if technology is distinguishable from magic, it is insufficiently advanced. Magic may or may not break the laws of physics, but technology certainly does not, even if to some it might appear to do so.

Magic is the attempt to make use of supernatural forces by means of words, rhymes, incantations, rituals, symbols, actions, and gestures – or dolls and needles if that’s your thing. A practitioner of magic may believe that the supernatural force can be provided by a supernatural being: a demon, a spirit, that sort of thing; or they may believe that it a comes from a more nebulous power, which can be manipulated with the right knowledge and/or skill.

Advanced technology does not break the laws of physics, it uses them. It does not use magic, but it does use forces: one, some, or all of the natural ones: the strong nuclear, the weak nuclear, the electromagnetic and the gravitational forces. It manipulates them through knowledge and skill. Perhaps Arthur C. Clarke was right then: it is not so easy to distinguish technology from magic. Perhaps we should define advanced technology as magic that actually works! It reminds me of the quip, if alternative medicine worked then it wouldn’t be called alternative medicine, it would just be called medicine. If a new force was discovered which behaved in a regular and predictable way as the natural ones do, and this force could be used to achieve desirable outcomes with sufficient skill and knowledge, we would not call it magic, we would call it nature.

So, would miracles break the laws of physics? Perhaps like advanced technology, the miracles in the NT, appear to break the laws of physics, but they actually don’t. Just like any purposeful human activity, they obey the laws of physics, but are not explained by them. Perhaps we just don’t understand how they work. Our knowledge of the laws of physics is far from complete.

 

Fakes and mistakes

I take the view, for the reasons given above, that although miracles lie outside the realm of science, it is not against science to believe that miracles are possible; but believing that miracles are possible is one thing; to believe that miracles have actually occurred is another matter entirely.

A few years ago, in Britain, there was a problem with one-pound coins. There were so many counterfeit one-pound coins in circulation that, even though many of the fakes were laughably obvious, the real ones were swamped, and the situation became unsustainable. So, a new pound coin was designed which was much harder to imitate, and the old ones removed from circulation, even the real ones. Nevertheless, the real ones were still real, in spite of the mountains of impostors pushing them aside.

Certainly, the vast majority of miracle stories are either fakes or mistakes. The fakes are mostly laughably obvious, like pound coins which spell the late Queen’s name incorrectly; but not all fakes are obvious. Some tricksters are cleverer than others. There are also cases where people honestly, but mistakenly believe that a miracle has occurred, when a surprising, but nevertheless entirely natural event has happened. Fakes and mistakes don’t falsify real miracles, if there have been any, but they do make them difficult to identify.

I take a pragmatic approach to this, as one often has to do in life. If a miracle story is in the NT, I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, whilst I keep an open mind, it would take a lot to convince me that a miracle has occurred. This approach is certainly pragmatic, but isn’t it also rather arbitrary? Well, perhaps so; but there are things to say on the matter.

 

The difference between miracles and magic

A sufficiently advanced technology might be indistinguishable from magic, but miracles are distinguishable from magic.

Magic is an attempt to get what you desire: money, promotion, a nicer car, true love, or indeed unfortunate accidents happening to people you don’t like, if that is what you prefer! Just to be clear, I am not saying that I think magic works, the non-technological kind that is. I am just trying to define what the word magic means.

The miracles in the NT, in contrast, are not ways for people to get what they want; neither are they capricious, arbitrary, or gratuitous displays of power, or expressions of human will. Miracles are not the work of human beings, but only of God.

Can you can ask for miracle? Maybe, but it’s complicated. Jairus asked Jesus to heal his daughter, but generally speaking, miracles are given, or they are not. Miracles come from God, or they don’t come; humans have no say in the matter. After Jesus had fed the four thousand, a miracle obviously, some of the Pharisees heard about it (Mark 8:1-10). The Pharisees were a Jewish group whose members prided themselves on strictly following the Old Testament laws.

The Pharisees came out and began to question him, seeking from him a sign [miracle] from heaven, and testing him. He sighed deeply in his spirit, and said, ’Why does this generation seek a sign? Most certainly I tell you, no sign will be given to this generation.’ He left them, and again entering into the boat, departed to the other side. (Mark 8:11-13).

Miracles are not given so that you can get what you want; and if you’re asking for a miracle as some sort of test, as you can see, you can forget it. The miracles in the NT are signs - for those with eyes to see. Signs of what?

He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. He entered, as was his custom, into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. The book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,

 ’The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the broken hearted,
    to proclaim release to the captives,
    recovering of sight to the blind,
    to deliver those who are crushed,
    and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord’.

He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began to tell them, ’Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’. (Luke 4:16-19)

… ‘Go and tell John [the Baptist] the things which you have seen and heard: that the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. Blessed is he who finds no occasion for stumbling in me.’ (Luke 7:18-23)

The miracles, then, are signs that the ‘acceptable year of the Lord’ has arrived in the person of Jesus.

 

Can we tell the true from the false?

It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either.

Skilled entertainers can create the illusion that they have magic powers, either by using cleverly designed equipment, or by sleight of hand learned through years of practice, or psychological manipulation, or all of the above. Some are astoundingly good at it. Even though we know it’s trickery, and they don’t pretend otherwise, are left wondering: ‘how on earth did they do that!?’

The same skills can be used by fraudsters to fool some people into thinking that they really do have magic powers. Some of these fraudsters masquerade as religious teachers and preachers; some claim to be Christian.  They claim that their ‘magic’ is a miracle. You can watch them on TV if you can bear it. It’s useful, I think, for ministers of the gospel to force themselves to watch their performances, excruciating as they are, as a kind of cautionary tale; that is if, as Kipling put it:

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken …

If. Rudyard Kipling.

In the early days of Christianity, Jesus’ opponents, instead of simply denying that he performed miracles, seem to have accused him of performing them by using magic of one kind of another. In his lifetime, some of the Pharisees accused him of using the power of demons.

Then one possessed by a demon, blind and mute, was brought to him; and he healed him, so that the blind and mute man both spoke and saw. All the multitudes were amazed, and said, ‘Can this be the son of David?’ [i.e. the Messiah]. But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, ‘This man does not cast out demons except by Beelzebul, the prince of the demons’.

(Matt 12:22-24)

Our old friend Celsus, who we met in chapter 11, accused Jesus of sorcery or ‘juggling’. Jesus, being poor, went to Egypt to find work, and that’s where he learned his magic tricks, so Celsus says. Origen, also of chapter 11, writes:

Celsus concedes that the scriptures might be true when they mention miracles like cures, resurrection, or feeding many with a few loaves, which he considers as exaggerated tales told by the disciples … However, he quickly equates these accounts with the feats of sorcerers who claim to perform miraculous acts, and the tricks of those trained by Egyptians, who create illusions of grand banquets and animate objects that only appear real in the imagination. He then questions whether these men should be regarded as sons of God or as wicked individuals influenced by an evil spirit.

Origen, Against Celsus i.28,68 (adapted from Stevenson, 134)

So just like the religious charlatans that you can see on TV today, some in Celsus’ day used trickery to persuade some people that they could perform miracles; or even more outrageously, to claim that God was doing wonders at their behest, thus endorsing their activities. The ultimate celebrity endorsement! Not only do they commit fraud, but they also break the third of the Ten Commandments: ^‘Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain’. Such people should heed the warning attached to the commandment: ‘for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain’.

Celsus’ objection to belief in miracles is as relevant today as it was then. Origen’s retort is likewise just as sharp.

[Celsus] compares the stories about Jesus to tales of magic for his own advantage. However, this comparison would only be valid if he had provided sufficient evidence of similarity to those who use trickery. In reality, no sorcerer uses their tricks to call for moral reformation. Sorcerers lack both the ability and the will to do so, as they are often filled with shameful and infamous sins. It is likely that someone who used miracles to inspire moral reformation would also exemplify the best life, not only to their genuine disciples but to others as well. If Jesus' life was of this character, it would be unreasonable to compare him to sorcerers and not believe that he was God in human form, as promised by God, for the benefit of humanity.

Origen Against Celsus i.68 (adapted from Stevenson, 208-209)

So, a charlatan who uses magic tricks to pretend to miraculous powers is necessarily an immoral person; but not only was Jesus demonstrably a man of the utmost moral integrity, he had the ability to inspire the same integrity in others. So, his miracles cannot be tricks. Touche.

I use Celsus and Origen as my examples here partly because it enables us to decouple our discussion from the issue of whether or not belief in miracles is scientific. They lived long before the invention of modern science and neither of them can possibly have been influenced by it. It’s also kind of fun. There have been some great rivalries in history; Origen vs Celsus is up there with the best of them!

On the subject of the resurrection, Celsus points out that many legends and myths contain stories of gods or heroes returning from the dead. What is so different about Jesus?

Celsus serves:

Many others have performed wonders to deceive simple listeners. They claim that Zamolxis, Pythagoras' slave, did this among the Scythians, Pythagoras himself in Italy, and Rhampsinitus in Egypt, who played dice with Demeter in Hades and returned with a golden napkin. Additionally, they say Orpheus did this among the Odrysians, Protesilaus in Thessaly, Heracles at Taenarum, and Theseus. However, we must question whether anyone who truly died rose again with the same body. Do you believe these stories are mere legends, while the conclusion of your narrative is noble and convincing?

Origen Against Celsus, ii.55 (adapted from Stevenson, 133)

Origen returns:

Let us endeavour to show that the account of Jesus being raised from the dead cannot possibly be compared to these. For each one of the heroes respectively mentioned might, had he wished, have secretly withdrawn himself from the sight of men, and returned again, if so determined, to those whom he had left; but seeing that Jesus was crucified before all the Jews, and His body slain in the presence of His nation, how can they bring themselves to say that He practised a similar deception with those heroes who are related to have gone down to Hades, and to have returned thence? … [Jesus died in full public view] that no one might have it in his power to say that He voluntarily withdrew from the sight of men, and seemed only to die, without really doing so; but, appearing again, made a juggler's trick of the resurrection from the dead.

Origen Against Celsus,  ii.56 (New Advent, ‘Contra Celsum, book two’)

So, Jesus’ death was not a trick. If Jesus death was not a trick, then, if he did appear bodily afterwards, then it follows, logically, that his resurrection was not a trick either. Modern historians agree with Origen that Jesus death was not a trick. Opinions obviously differ on his resurrection! But if we know anything about Jesus, we know that he died on the cross.

Let’s follow up Origen’s argument that Jesus’ resurrection cannot be compared to these other stories. Origen clearly still has in mind the accusation that Jesus performed his miracles, including the resurrection, by trickery; an accusation you don’t hear very often today. It’s curious that you don’t hear that more often. Given that there is no shortage of examples of frauds today, and throughout history, doing exactly that, you’d have thought that that would be a useful line of attack for those interested in discrediting Christianity. But let’s not give them ideas! It is more common to find modern detractors of the NT claiming that the early church got the idea that Jesus rose from the dead from these pagan myths.  If you do compare these Greek myths in detail with the story of Jesus you can see that they are, in fact, not remotely alike. At the end of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century scholars in comparative religion collected parallels to Christian beliefs in other religious movements, and some of them claimed that Christian beliefs including the resurrection were copies of these other myths. Some opponents of Christianity still claim this even though:

The movement soon collapsed, however, principally due to two factors: first scholars came to realise that the parallels are spurious … secondly there is no causal connection between pagan myths and the origin of the disciples belief in Jesus resurrection … it would be completely unthinkable the original disciples would have sincerely come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead because they had heard of pagan myths about dying and rising seasonal gods. (Craig, 391)

But let’s focus on the most obvious difference between Jesus’ resurrection and these myths. All of the above figures, who supposedly went to Hades, the realm of the dead in Greek mythology, and returned, are either figures from the distant, indeterminate past, whose lives have been turned into legends, or they are entirely mythological. Jesus on the other hand was a real historical person who lived and died in a particular time and place.

It’s hard to come up with precise dates, but let’s have a go. Luke tells us that John the Baptist began his ministry in the 15^th year of the emperor Tiberius i.e. AD27; this was just before the ministry of Jesus (Luke 3:1-2). Luke tells us that Jesus was about 30 years old when he began his ministry (Luke 3:23). Luke and Matthew say, independently, that Jesus was born in the reign of Herod the Great who died in 4BC, so that would put Jesus in his early thirties, confirming Luke 3:23. St John’s Gospel, which as far as we know is independent of Luke, concurs, telling us that the beginning of Jesus ministry was 46 years after the building of the temple at Jerusalem began which, according to Josephus, would be AD28 (John 2:20). With all those dates you need to allow a few months either side. This puts Jesus’ death in the early thirties AD. All four gospels say that Jesus was crucified under the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate (governor AD26 – 36). Roman historian Tacitus confirms that Jesus was active in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius (reigned AD 14 – 37), and was executed in Judea after being sentenced by Pontius Pilate. Looking at things from the other direction, as we showed in the last chapter, Paul had his first meeting with Peter in Jerusalem in the late thirties, and his conversion was three years before that. So, the following tradition dates from around this time or earlier:

For I [Paul] delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. (1 Cor 15:3-5)

So, Jesus died by crucifixion in the early thirties AD in Jerusalem. Shortly afterwards, there existed a group of people, in Jerusalem, who were convinced that Jesus rose bodily from the dead, or at the very least, claimed that they were. There is no good reason to doubt these things.

Jesus’ death is not myth - it’s history - an event which happened in a known time and place, surrounded by eye witnesses. Neither his death nor his resurrection are legends. Legends take a long time to develop. There was nowhere near enough time here for the legendisation of the story of Jesus. We are talking about a few years at most between Jesus’ death and this tradition that Paul reports in 1 Corinthians. It is possible that there are legendary elements in the accounts of the resurrection in the gospels, which were written down 30 to 60 years later. I’m not saying there are; I’m just saying it’s possible. But the resurrection itself is not a legend that developed within the early church over a period of time. It was there right from the start. Belief in the resurrection was not a development within Christianity, it is Christianity. So, if Jesus’ resurrection is not a legend and was not a trick, then what is it?

According to Matthew, at the time the gospel was written, the story told amongst the (non-Christian) Jews was that, after his death and burial, Jesus’ disciples stole his body and then invented the story of his resurrection (Matt 27; 62-66; 28:12-15). Whatever you might think of Matthew’s story about the guards at the tomb, the information that this was the story told amongst the Jews is given incidentally, and is also contemporary with the gospel; so, we can take it that this really was the story told amongst the Jews at the time. The story shows that Jesus’ opponents at the time of the writing of the gospel accepted the death of Jesus, his burial, and the disappearance of his body as historical facts; they considered that his resurrection was not a legend, or a myth, but a deceit. This was their interpretation of the evidence available to them.

But perhaps, as Celsus asserts, reports of Jesus resurrection appearances were down to the ravings of a hysterical woman (please note: it’s Celsus that said that, not me!), or hallucinations, or they were tales told by beggars to make a profit.

I have argued in the book that it is reasonable to regard the books of the NT as good evidence of the life and teaching of Jesus what he said and what he did, and for the early history of the Church. Even if you don’t accept this, clearly the NT is evidence of some kind. The evidence is limited and we wish there was more, but in short, given the evidence that we have in the gospels and the letters of the NT, and the other evidence that is available, it is very likely that the following are historical facts:

• Jesus was executed by crucifixion around AD30 under the authority of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, in Jerusalem on a Friday.
• He was buried by Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish council.
• His tomb was found to empty by some of his women disciples, including Mary Magdalene, on the Sunday morning following. Jesus’ dead body was never found.
• Soon afterwards many of his disciples were convinced that Jesus had appeared to them in bodily form after his death.
• The apostles and his other disciples started the church which spread over the ancient Roman world, whose central belief was that Jesus rose form the dead.

You can find detailed analysis in William Craig’s book (Craig, 333-399), or even more detail in Tom Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God.

Many sceptical scholars who reject belief in the resurrection, such as Bart Ehrman, are happy to accept these things as probably facts or ‘relatively reliable’ and Ehrman puts it! (Craig, 350-351). Why would they not? None of these things involves belief in the supernatural, and the evidence supports them.

The simplest and least contrived explanation of these facts, if that is what they are, is that Jesus did in fact die on the cross and rise bodily from the dead just as the NT claims. Some might exclaim at this point: ‘but how can you just ignore the fact that the resurrection was a supernatural event!’ Bear with me for the moment. I’m not ignoring that. We will come back to it. As we noted in the prologue, the idea that we should prefer the simplest and least contrived explanation of something is only a rule of thumb, not a proof; but it is a good principle to follow.

In spite of the passage of time, as far as I can see, no one has done better than Celsus in coming up with alternative explanations. If we combine Celsus with Matthew then the options for an alternative explanation are:

• The ‘resurrection’ was a conspiracy carried out by the apostles
• The ‘resurrection’ relied on the witness of hysterical people who were mistaken about what they saw
• The appearances of Jesus after his death were hallucinations
• The ‘resurrection’ was a conjuring trick
• The apostles made up tales of the resurrection in order to make a profit

You can make up your own mind about how plausible these alternative explanations are. Alternative explanations that you can safely dismiss include:

• Jesus didn’t really die on cross, but only swooned. He recovered later in the tomb.
• The women accidently went to the wrong tomb on the Sunday morning - blaming the women again!
• Joseph of Arimathea moved the body and then forgot to tell anyone
• Jesus had an identical twin brother who was mistaken for Jesus after his death (yes, seriously!)

You may find it difficult not to laugh at these. I think they’re hilarious, but each one has been seriously proposed a scholar as an explanation.

The evidence is limited, and certainly doesn’t constitute proof beyond reasonable doubt, but that is normal in ancient history. If the resurrection were a non-supernatural event, and was a matter of historical interest only, I don’t think historians would have a particular problem accepting the truth of the resurrection as the simplest and least contrived explanation of the evidence, even if that evidence is limited.

Clearly, for many, the fact that the resurrection is a supernatural event rules it out immediately and completely. If someone believes that God does not exist, and/or that miracles are scientifically impossible, the amount of evidence makes no difference. They cannot accept the resurrection, no matter how much evidence there is. For them, in any viable explanation, events are either entirely down to natural forces, or the result of human design, or they are random; those are the only options. They would have to accept the ‘Joseph moved the body and forgot to tell anyone’ explanation if that was the only natural explanation available. Indeed, they would have to accept absolutely any natural explanation no matter how incredible, well before any kind supernatural explanation, because, for them, no natural explanation could be more incredible than a supernatural one. It’s the Sherlock Holmes principle again: ‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’ This is not intended to be a criticism of those who dismiss the supernatural explanation out of hand, by the way. Logically, belief in God and in the possibility of miracles must precede a belief in an actual miracle; if you believe that God does not exist then you have no reason to believe in miracles. This is why we started this chapter with a summary of our case for saying that belief in God is rational and reasonable.

Even someone who believes in the possibility of miracles, whilst being open to accepting the resurrection as a historical fact will believe miracles to be exceedingly rare, and will be very hesitant in excepting any miraculous claim. Nevertheless, even though the evidence is limited, perhaps in this particular case, it is enough. It’s a question of stepping back from the trees and taking a look at the wood.

As St Peter puts it:

‘Men of Israel, hear these words! Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved by God to you by mighty works and wonders and signs which God did by him among you, even as you yourselves know, him, being delivered up by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by the hand of lawless men, crucified and killed; whom God raised up, having freed him from the agony of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it …  

… ‘Let all the house of Israel therefore know certainly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified’. (Acts 2:22-36)

The resurrection of Jesus is not like the raising of Jairus’s daughter, or of the son of the widow of Nain (Luke 7:11-17), or even of Lazarus (John 11:1-44). These were resuscitations. Jesus’ resurrection was a complete transformation. The others were restored to a natural life and died a natural death. Jesus rose to a life that was supernatural and indestructible. For St Peter, it is the proof that, ‘God has made him both Lord and Christ’.

To believe in Jesus’ resurrection is also, then, to believe that he is both Lord and Christ, the Son of God. We should consider the two things alongside one another; you can’t have one without the other. This consideration should include the whole message of the NT, and the lives and witness of all who have been followers of Christ from that time to this.

As we said before, to consider the claim made by the NT, that Jesus is the Son of God, is clearly a step of faith, or leap of faith if you insist; but this is not ‘believing without evidence’. This is a faith seeking understanding; not a leap into the dark but a leap into the light. Where that leap might take you only you can discover – by making the leap.

Summary.

If it is true that the universe was created by God, then there has been at least one supernatural event in the history of the universe, at least one miracle, a miracle that can be examined scientifically. If the creation is a miracle though, it is in a category of its own, and should be treated separately to any others.

An idealised version of the scientific method would say that the method starts with observations which lead to a hypothesis, an attempt to explain the observations. A scientific hypothesis makes testable predictions and is falsifiable. This hypothesis can be tested by controlled, repeatable experiments. Once thoroughly tested, a hypothesis can be promoted to the status of a scientific theory: that a hypothesis which is supported by a body of evidence. Although this description is very simplistic - real science is nowhere near that neat and tidy - it’s not a bad summary of the idea. Miracles are by their very nature unpredictable, unrepeatable and unexplainable. Whilst some miracles are falsifiable, miracles in general are not. So, miracles lie beyond the scientific method, but that does not mean that belief in the possibility of miracles is unscientific.

Events happen all the time in the universe which, whilst they obey the laws of physics, are not explained by them. The fact that miracles are not explainable by the laws of physics, therefore, does not in itself rule them out scientifically. The miracles of Jesus may break the laws of physics but perhaps they don’t – perhaps we just don’t understand them.

Miracles and magic are not the same thing. They are clearly distinguishable.

It is natural and proper to be sceptical about claims that a miracle has occurred, including the ones in the New Testament – but that does not mean there is no evidence for them, as we see in the case of the central miracle of the gospel: the resurrection of Jesus.

 

Works Cited

Craig, William Lane. Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics. 3^rd ed., Crossway, 2008

Hume, David. The Natural History of Religion. Hume Texts on Line.

https://davidhume.org/texts/n/full. Accessed 14^th October 2024.

---  An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. Hume Texts on Line.

https://davidhume.org/texts/e/10. Accessed 14^th October 2024.

Origen. Contra Celsum. New Advent.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04162.htm. Accessed 20th October 2024.

Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD337. 2^nd ed., revised by W.H.C. Frend, SPCK, 1987.