Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

[quote='Neimenovic' pid='984571' dateline='1436299861']
But what I do know is that there hasn't been one documented case of a human being coming back to life after being dead for three days.

Of course there has. We're discussing it now.

And based on that information and the unconvincing nature of your evidence, I reject your theory of resurrection.

And this is your mistake.

Sure, although natural causes should be considered first, a supernatural cause may be considered when all natural theories fail, and there is credible evidence in favor of divine intervention.

You have no credible alternatives that are without objections, and in light of these, the resurrection is the BEST explanation of the information we have to consider.

A ridiculous violation of basic laws of biology is not the best explanation. Ever heard of Occam's razor?

I have.

Moreover, the laws of nature would be no match for an omnipotent God who chooses to act by superseding those laws. Thus, the entire naturalistic mindset misses the forest for the trees. The issue here is not whether everything can be explained by the laws of nature. The crucial question is whether there is a God who may have superseded nature by a superior power. Scientific reliance upon natural processes to explain everything does not answer the question of whether all things that happen are controlled by natural processes. God may have stepped in to do something that nature or science cannot explain. Futher, if we had evidence that such an event occurred, this data would actually be superior to the natural working of nature's laws, since that would mean that god performed an act for which nature cannot account. The result of this circumstance is that historical evidence might, for a brief time, actually supersede scientific evidence, since it means that at that very moment, God intervened in nature.

Finally, certain miracles have characteristics that show that they are actually caused by interferences with the laws of nature. Professor Richard Swinburne suggests that the best case for recognizing a miracle would include:

1. It has never happened before or since;
2. the event definitely cannot be accounted for by a current law of nature; and
3. no foreseeable revision of our statements concerning the laws of nature could explain the event in natural terms.

Randy is simply aping what skeptics do.  The problem is that he's placing far more weight on the bible (which is really the claim and not the evidence for it, anyway) than anyone else otherwise would.  Our knowledge of biology certainly trumps heresay and myth, even if they're partially based on real events.  He thinks that varying degrees of historical evidence for places, people and events = divinity.  But that's not how it works.  Especially when the part he wants to prove - the resurrection - has the least going for it.

Your incomplete knowledge of real events causes you to undervalue the evidence for the resurrection.

If the sort of God described in the New Testament exists, there is no reason to reject the possibility of miracles as the explanation of well-attested events for which no plausible natural explanations exist. To say that we should deny Jesus' resurrection, no matter how strong the evidence, is to be biased against the possibility that this could be the very case for which we have been looking.