A Legitimate Question?
A Legitimate Question?
Some would end the discussion of the “historical Jesus” with the empty tomb, arguing that history cannot pass judgment on whether God really raised Jesus. 16 Whether this claim is true or not depends partly on which of several definitions of “history” one employs: historiography does when possible explore causes, including personal causes, and to a priori exclude God from legitimate consideration as a cause is to presuppose atheism or deism — that is, to begin with a theological judgment about the nature of history. That is, it rigs the outcome, especially for those who conflate different meanings of history: “historically” God could not raise Jesus from the dead, since “history” by (one) definition excludes God a priori from the discussion.17 Likewise, the argument from lack of analogy would problematize much of history, including the rapid rise of the early movement exalting Jesus within Judaism.18
Having registered that objection, we must recognize that discerning such causes is not an easy exercise. Moreover, to enable dialogue among all historical inquirers, be they various forms of atheists, agnostics or theists, we typically declare a “truce” and focus on those minimal historical assumptions that we can all agree on. A “neutral,” agnostic starting point should allow for the possibility of divine activity without requiring it, and atheists and theists alike should be ready to grant this exploration, at least on the level of dialogue, whatever their personal convictions.
To conclude, however, that Jesus returned immortal after death, and then to attribute that resurrection to divine activity, is to come to a conclusion that is not agnostic. As such, it appears to break the “truce” and end any dialogue on the point, at least the sort of dialogue in which opinions outside the minimal consensus are unwelcome. (Not all dialogue requires consensus, of course, and scholars are often able to disagree charitably about their conclusions.) To observe this feature of the dialogue is not to decide the case, but it helps us understand a factor in making this part of the discussion particularly controversial.
Yet when a scholar denies that resurrection is “verifiable in principle by believer and nonbeliever alike,”19 definition of the terms “verifiable” and “nonbeliever” are important. That nonbelievers would not accept any verification for resurrection could be true to the extent that the nonbeliever refuses to accept the possibility of divine or supernatural phenomena, but this definition almost treats “nonbeliever” as “anti-believer” in such possibilities, which is not always the case (and not always to the same degree). An agnostic must by definition remain open-minded, and even an atheist might be willing to respond to evidence that challenged their own position, depending on their level of conviction and certainty. (When I was an atheist, I found theism quite unlikely and reckoned that Christianity had only a 2% likelihood of being true, but I was not absolutely immune to challenge. That I am not an atheist now may make the latter point obvious.) Some non-theists might also admit evidence for a highly unusual phenomenon without granting the common theistic explanation for it.
What everyone should agree that one can explore historically is whether eyewitnesses claimed that they witnessed Jesus alive from the dead. We have focused on this approach in our discussion of the resurrection narratives. Nevertheless, I believe the question of causation is legitimate as well, although I recognize that some readers will from the outset demur from my conclusions. I believe that a genuinely “neutral” interpretation should not disallow the question of suprahuman activity (since disallowing the question commits one in a non-neutral manner to the position that no deity or force could ever resurrect someone). I defend the “supernatural causation” position in more detail in this book’s sequel.
At the same time, I recognize that my own belief — that God did act in history in Jesus’ resurrection — is a conclusion that de facto defines my own belief as “Christian.”20 (This statement could be qualified; a few scholars have concluded that God did raise Jesus to vindicate him as a prophet, without becoming Christians. But at the least the premise that God acted requires one to be a theist.) This was my conclusion before it was my premise, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I do hold to this Christian conviction now. In my youth, however, I was an atheist who ridiculed Christians as foolish. Out of commitment to what I came to believe was true, I have chosen to wear the label I had once derided as intellectually vacuous. Is my vantage point necessarily more biased than it was before, or than that of others who rule out of court the possibility of divine or other suprahuman explanations?
Yet when I was once a convinced atheist I was not ashamed to state my atheism (I was in fact proud of my “intellectual” position). I will not apologize for holding a different conviction now. Atheists, theists, and other combinations of dialogue partners can still come to the table and dialogue about the evidence, discussing which ways they think the evidence points.21 Dialogue should include the ability to disagree respectfully without dismissing another’s reasoned position as a priori illegitimate because it does not rule out the possibility of a deity or divine agency. I believe that divine activity best explains the resurrection appearances. That some readers who have followed the book to this point will decline to follow in this section is understood; freedom to choose what to agree with in another’s argument is part of the character of dialogue.