Explaining the Resurrection

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Learner1969

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There is someone I know who believes in God but she says she cannot get past the Resurrection, how can I explain it to her scientifically?
 
It can’t be explained scientifically. Did your friend say that she wanted scientific proof? It’s simply not possible. I would turn the question around and ask how she knows scientific proof is the standard of truth. Science itself cannot arrive at such a conclusion, which is necessarily a philosophical claim.

That said, there is a strong historical argument. The briefest form of this is that we have it greatly attested to that Jesus rose from the dead. There were people who knew him claiming this, and they went around teaching it, and some of them were put to death for it. Why would people risk death for a lie?

-Fr ACEGC
 
I don’t think science can play a role in any explanation. I have believed in the Resurrection all my life and have heard many different commentaries on it. The best one for me came from John Shelby Spong who said simply, “clearly something earth-changing happened in the first century or Christianity could not have become what it did”. Charles Colson put it this way; “I’ve been with the toughest, hardest men I could imagine, and not one of them could have continued lying about a supposed resurrection for the rest of their lives. The apostles maintained this story through torture and death”.
 
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CelticWarlord said:
“clearly something earth-changing happened in the first century or Christianity could not have become what it did”. Charles Colson put it this way; “I’ve been with the toughest, hardest men I could imagine, and not one of them could have continued lying about a supposed resurrection for the rest of their lives. The apostles maintained this story through torture and death”.
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To go along with this, I’d suggest that she read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel for some good, logical reasons why the Resurrection must be true.
 
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It cannot be explained scientifically but then there are other things that cannot either. For example, ask your friend to find an explanation for how dark matter and dark energy interact to hold the universe together. All scientists know is that they have to exist and interact otherwise the universe could not keep accelerating in its expansion.
 
I would explain to them if they were old enough that religion came first, science second. So one is there to explain the other. Once they came up with a formula to explain the amount of energy in an atom or atomic compound, only technology would be needed to rearrange compounds and “buy wickedness”. Energy = Energy or something like that. There is definitely a Creationist/ Intelligent design argument here but I dont want to scare you so if you do not see it thats fine.
 
You can’t. The scientific method is built on the premise of induction. That what has happened in the past, can be replicated through repeated performance. Given that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was a miracle that flies in the face of natural law, you cannot explain it scientifically. It is properly outside the bounds of scientific explanation. Science has limits.

That being said, we have multiple authoritative and independent witness accounts of the resurrection.
 
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Perhaps this thread will be helpful:
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The Science of the Resurrection Philosophy
Carbon fourteen analysis is usually thought of as a scientific method of determining the age of an artifact. However, if that age is already known, the carbon fourteen data can be proof of an event. Suppose that a piece of linen cloth made in 1963 is subjected to C-14 testing. The result would not indicate a date anywhere near 1963. In fact, that linen cloth would have so much carbon fourteen in it that, if its C-14 data were taken as indicating a date, that date would be far into the futu…
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edward_george1 said:
It can’t be explained scientifically. Did your friend say that she wanted scientific proof? It’s simply not possible. I would turn the question around and ask how she knows scientific proof is the standard of truth. Science itself cannot arrive at such a conclusion, which is necessarily a philosophical claim.
-Fr ACEGC
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Sir, science has indeed arrived at this conclusion, and our Lord’s resurrection is scientifically proven just as much as our solar system is proven to be heliocentric. Of course there are still those who are members of the Flat Earth Society and also those who cling to their denials of this miraculous proof.
I would refer you to Mark Antonacci’s excellent work on this subject:

TEST THE SHROUD, 2015.
 
Sheez! If she believes in God why would the resurrection be a problem? Why shouldn’t it be anything more or less than a profound proof of the God she says she believes in?
 
fhansen said:
Sheez! If she believes in God why would the resurrection be a problem? Why shouldn’t it be anything more or less than a profound proof of the God she says she believes in?
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I think she believes in God the Creator and nothing else
 
I’d steer clear of this one. Clearly people all over are willing to die for belief in all kinds of gods, ideologies etc. That doesn’t mean the thing is true or “of God”. It just means that it is of primary importance to the person willing to die for it.

Huge numbers of religions have believers who were either martyred for them or willingly gave themselves as sacrifices. This is a dangerous rabbit hole to go down. The idea that a religion only lasts because God put his stamp of approval on it is bogus. There are faiths that are far older than Christianity and worship different gods.
 
Explain that the resurrection refers to a new creation, not to the restoration or recreation of one’s former body.
 
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undead_rat said:
I would refer you to Mark Antonacci’s excellent work on this subject:

TEST THE SHROUD, 2015.
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The Shroud of Turin proves nothing. It’s possible that one day scientists on both sides of the debate may arrive at an unchallengeable conclusion, but it hasn’t happened yet. The debate is conducted in terms of the balance of probabilities, not of certain knowledge, which remains as elusive as ever.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/new...ises-new-study-casting-doubt-on-authenticity/
 
Ok but, then, what’s her reason for not being able to “get past the Resurrection”? A God who creates can certainly resurrect. Her main problem is whether or not this creator-God might actually care, and care to act, personally.
 
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BartholomewB said:
The Shroud of Turin proves nothing. It’s possible that one day scientists on both sides of the debate may arrive at an unchallengeable conclusion, but it hasn’t happened yet. The debate is conducted in terms of the balance of probabilities, not of certain knowledge, which remains as elusive as ever.
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Simply because some so-called “scientists” have an agenda to prove that the divine image on the Shroud is man-made does not mean that the Shroud’s image has not been conclusively proven to be miraculous.
Pia’s shocking 1898 photo of the Shroud proved that its image was not the work of man, and Pope Pius XI came to that conclusion in 1936. The intensive STURP investigation in 1978 confirmed what Pius XI said: the Shroud’s image of Jesus is not a painting or any other work of a human hand. No other religious artifact has been examined with the intensity that STURP conducted on the Shroud. Eight tons of data gathering equipment was brought to Turin, and the STURP scientists needed three years to analyze their data. Their conclusions are as unchallangeable as were those of Copernicus and Gallileo, but intellectuals with agendas continue to challenge them nontheless as is pointed out in your quoted article.

The Shroud’s 1988 C-14 data was interpreted by an atheist. This data does not by any means prove that the Shroud has a medaeval date. On the contrary, as the Shroud was already known to be of 1st century origin, any C-14 data that was not consistent with that fact had to be evidence that the Shroud had been subjected to a neutron flux at some point in its life. Man-made neutron fluxes have become available in the 20th century, but we have no indication that the Shroud was ever taken to any nuclear reactor. We know from Matthew that Jesus’ corpse vanished from the inside of His tomb. That vanishing then must have been the source of the neutron flux that enhanced the Shroud’s C-14 content. Associated with that flux would have been a proton radiation that caused the formation of Jesus’ image on the Shroud. This explanation is termed the Historically Consistent Hypothesis, and it has been developed by Mark Antonacci in collaboration with nuclear physicist Robert Rucker.

Sir, I respectfully suggest that you familarize your self with the latest interpretations* of the Shroud’s marvelous scientific evidence before you claim that “The Shroud proves nothing.”
In reality, my friend, the miraculous image of Jesus on the Holy Shroud of Turin proves everything.

*TEST THE SHROUD, Antonacci, 2015
 
Calliope said:
The idea that a religion only lasts because God put his stamp of approval on it is bogus. There are faiths that are far older than Christianity and worship different gods.
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You are quite correct, my friend, and if I were not on the eve of a vacation that will see me far, far from any and all internet connections I would love to give this conversation the attention it deserves. Alas, I am leaving tomorrow and will be gone for over a week, with a huge amount of work to be done before I log out and close my office. I also had to leave with only a quick “like” to your post so I wasn’t late for Daily Mass. 🙂

But your post has a great deal of merit and I have trodden those paths myself not that long ago. I’ve read Peter Gandy, Timothy Freke, Bart Ehrman and others (Tom Harpur and Dom Crossan also come to mind) and, though I was very open to what they had to offer, came away unconvinced. There’s no question that many Christian-like stories of salvation, resurrection, and even crucifixion predate the first century. The fact that I toss my hat in with the Catholic point of view does not negate these things, it just means I have found what are to me more plausible ways of approaching the issue of the divine. Not everyone is born with the sense of urgency toward connecting with the unknown, but I was and have wanted to find expression for that all my life. I don’t see this as a dangerous rabbit hole at all, but rather a way of giving voice to that need.

If I were to formally become Catholic I would have to revisit many of these issues you raise, as I still hold to some of them as being credible. But as an outsider looking in I am under no pressure to do so. If we were to sit and drink beer together for an evening, I’m sure we would both come away more enlightened than we were going in. Or at least not as thirsty. 🙂
 
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We have faith in what our Lord teaches us and he shows us many times that he is the way, the truth and the light. I know through my own reflection on the word of God that heaven exists.
 
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