CHAPTER 15:
THE RESURRECTION
HYPOTHESIS
We’ve seen how poorly the customary explanations of the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances, and the origin of the disciples’ faith fare when assessed by standard criteria for testing historical hypotheses. They’re especially weak when it comes to explanatory scope and power and are often highly implausible.
But does the Resurrection Hypothesis do any better as an explanation of the evidence? Is it a better explanation than the implausible naturalistic explanations offered in the past? In order to answer these questions, let’s apply the same criteria to the hypothesis that “God raised Jesus from the dead.”
1. Explanatory scope: The Resurrection Hypothesis has greater explanatory scope than certain other explanations like the Hallucination Hypothesis or the Displaced Body Hypothesis precisely because it can explain all three of the main facts at issue—whereas, the rival hypotheses try to explain only one.
2. Explanatory power: This is, I think, the greatest virtue of the Resurrection Hypothesis. The Conspiracy Hypothesis and the Apparent Death Hypothesis, by contrast, just do not convincingly account for the empty tomb, resurrection appearances, or origin of the Christian faith; on these theories, the evidence (such as the transformation of the disciples) becomes very improbable. By contrast, on the hypothesis of Jesus’ resurrection, it seems extremely probable that the tomb should be empty, that the disciples should see appearances of Jesus alive, and that they should come to believe in his resurrection.
3. Plausibility: The plausibility of Jesus’ resurrection grows exponentially once we consider it in its proper philosophical context: namely, a theistic worldview, in its historical context, and Jesus’ own unparalleled life/radical personal claims. Given that God exists, the hypothesis that God would raise Jesus of Nazareth from the dead cannot be said to be implausible.
4. Less contrived: The Resurrection Hypothesis possesses great explanatory scope and power, but some scholars have charged that it is contrived. Being contrived, if you recall, is a matter of how many new suppositions a hypothesis must make which are not implied by existing knowledge.
By definition, however, it’s hard to see why the Resurrection Hypothesis is extraordinarily contrived. It requires only one new supposition: that God exists. Surely its rival hypotheses require many more new suppositions. For example, the Conspiracy Hypothesis requires us to suppose that the moral character of the disciples was defective, which is certainly not implied by already existing knowledge; the Apparent Death Hypothesis requires the supposition that the centurion’s spear thrust into Jesus’ side was just a superficial poke or is an unhistorical detail in the narrative, which again goes beyond existing knowledge; the Hallucination Hypothesis requires us to suppose some sort of emotional preparation of the disciples, which predisposed them to project visions of Jesus alive—again, not implied by our knowledge. And there are many more examples that could be listed—the aforementioned are just a few.
It should be noted, too, that scientific hypotheses regularly include the supposition of the existence of new entities, such as quarks, strings, gravitons, black holes, and the like, without those theories being characterized as contrived. Moreover, for the person who already believes in God, the Resurrection Hypothesis doesn’t even introduce the new supposition of God’s existence, since that’s already implied by his existing knowledge. So the Resurrection Hypothesis cannot be said to be contrived simply by virtue of the number of new suppositions it introduces.
If our hypothesis is contrived, then, it must be for some other reasons. Philosophers of science have found it notoriously difficult to explain what it is exactly that makes a hypothesis contrived. There seems to be an air of artificiality about a hypothesis charged as contrived, which can be sensed by those who are seasoned practitioners of the relevant science.
Now I think that the sense of discomfort that many people, even Christians, feel about appealing to God as part of an explanatory hypothesis for some phenomenon in the world is that doing so has this air of artificiality about it—just seems too easy when confronted with some unexplained phenomenon to throw up one’s hands and say, “God did it!” Is the hypothesis that “God raised Jesus from the dead” contrived, in this sense?
I don’t think so. A supernatural explanation of the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith is not contrived given the context of Jesus’ own unparalleled life, ministry, and personal claims. A supernatural hypothesis is appropriate in such a context. It’s also precisely because of this historical context that the Resurrection Hypothesis does not seem contrived when compared to miraculous explanations of other sorts; for example, that a “psychological miracle” occurred, causing normal men and women to become conspirators and liars who would be martyred willingly for their lies; or that a “biological miracle” occurred, which prevented Jesus’ dying on the cross (despite the spear-thrust through his chest, and so forth). It is these miraculous hypotheses that strike us as artificial and contrived, not the Resurrection Hypothesis, which makes abundantly good sense in the context of Jesus’ ministry and radical personal claims. Thus, it seems to me that the Resurrection Hypothesis cannot be characterized as excessively contrived.
5. Disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs: I can’t think of any accepted beliefs which disconfirm the Resurrection Hypothesis—unless one thinks that, say, “Dead men do not rise” disconfirms the hypothesis. But this generalization does nothing to disconfirm our hypothesis that God raised Jesus from the dead. We may consistently believe both—that men do not rise naturally from the dead and that God raised Jesus from the dead. By contrast, rival theories are disconfirmed by accepted beliefs about, for example, the instability of conspiracies, the likelihood of death as a result of crucifixion, the psychological characteristics of hallucinatory experiences, and so forth, as we have seen.
6. Exceeds other hypotheses in fulfilling conditions 1—5: There’s certainly little chance that any of the rival hypotheses will ever exceed the Resurrection Hypothesis in fulfilling the above conditions. When confronted with the facts of the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith, the stupefaction of contemporary scholarship suggests that no better rival is anywhere on the horizon. Once you give up the prejudice against miracles, it’s hard to deny that the resurrection of Jesus is the best explanation of the facts.