Science does not contradict the Resurrection of Christ

I have often heard people claim  the resurrection of Jesus contradicts science and thus must be wrong.  Yet this argument is seriously misguided, as it depends on a faulty understanding of both science and Christianity.

If you want science to have a say on the resurrection, then you need to a) consider what Christians actually believe and b) show how science can address it through experimentation.

As for a), Christians believe Jesus was God incarnate and that his death/resurrection were a miraculous confirmation of the salvation work that took place on the cross. In other words, the theology clearly makes sense of the resurrection as a one-time event that is a promise for our resurrection at the end of history.  Nothing in Christian theology would have us predict God would continually incarnate and resurrect throughout human history.

And science cannot address the actual Christian belief, for how could you possibly test this with an experiment? For example, does the resurrection of Jesus lead us to predict lots of people would be resurrected between then and now?  If you think so, you need to make the case.  And if you cannot make the case, there is no basis for scientific investigation.

Evolution Fails to Support the Argument from Evil

Jason Rosenhouse argues with Michael Ruse, trying to show that evolution somehow amplifies the argument from evil.  Yet he fails.

Rosenhouse introduces Ruse’s argument as follows:

After quoting Darwin, who plainly did think that the general awfulness of nature militated against a belief in God, and after writing a bit about free will Ruse continues:

“In the case of physical evil, the dreadful earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, the traditional Christian answer, for all that Voltaire parodied it, is that of Leibniz — working by law results in good things and bad things, but overall the good outweighs the bad. God is constrained in what He does and in total He does the very best possible. Now of course there are questions about whether God had to create through law, although if He had not done so, it would be a very different world (and not arguably better) than the one we have now. For a start, He would have had to eliminate the thousands of pieces of evidence of evolution, or He would be a deceiver along the lines that Philip Gosse rather foolishly welcomed in the nineteenth century (on the grounds that God was testing our faith).”

The key point is this: “Now of course there are questions about whether God had to create through law, although if He had not done so, it would be a very different world (and not arguably better) than the one we have now.” This point is key because those who push the argument from evil almost always assume God could create our world in a way such that it retains all that we cherish (including ourselves), yet have all the evil cleanly stripped out of it.  Yet this cannot be done.  Rosenhouse’s reply fails because he has not come to this realization yet.  Watch.

The Story of Noah

Over at the BioLogos blog, philosopher Michael Ruse makes an interesting point:

I personally think the Noah story is pretty good also, not as an exercise in shipbuilding and navigation, but because of the bit at the end, where Noah is found drunk in the tent and his kid makes fun of him. To me, the whole story shows that simplistic solutions – let’s wipe out humankind and start again – just don’t work.

While this is very good, I think it goes deeper.

How does He see us?

While I certainly cannot claim to know the mind of God, I sometimes wonder how God sees us.  A key point to keep in mind is that God transcends our space-time reality, yet we exist within time.  This would mean that at this very moment, not only does God see me typing away, God also sees me in my mother’s womb, he sees me when I graduated high school, and sees me at the moment of my death.  It’s all there before him.  What might this be like?  Let me offer a crude analogy.

It Can’t Happen!

Jerry Coyne writes:

Indeed.  Well, here are two more things that can’t happen, given what we know about modern biology: a human female can’t give birth to offspring unless she is inseminated, and people who are dead for three days don’t come back to life.

It is interesting to note the sense of certainty that Coyne possesses, as if science has delivered the Absolute Truth that the virgin birth and resurrection of Christ “can’t happen.” Of course, long before modern biology was born, common experience (dogma?) have taught us that a human female can’t give birth to offspring unless she is inseminated, and people who are dead for three days don’t come back to life. Christians did not need to wait for modern biology to discover these claims about Jesus were miracle claims. They have always been acknowledged as miracles from the beginning. So it is hard to see the relevance of modern biology when it comes to this question.

More significant, however, is the manner in which Coyne contradicts himself.

The Wisdom of Haldane?

New Atheists are often proud of the fact that their familiarity with theology is so superficial. For example, philosopher Anthony Grayling rationalizes flippant dismissal of theology as follows:

For example, if one concludes on the basis of rational investigation that one’s character and fate are not determined by the arrangement of the planets, stars and galaxies that can be seen from Earth, then one does not waste time comparing classic tropical astrology with sidereal astrology, or either with the Sarjatak system, or any of the three with any other construction placed on the ancient ignorances of our forefathers about the real nature of the heavenly bodies.

Of course, such arrogance comes at a price and that price can be the flaunting of one’s ignorance. For example, Lawrence Krauss kicked off his WSJ defense of New Atheism with a quote that both Coyne and Myers embraced with glee:

My practice as a scientist is atheistic. That is to say, when I set up an experiment I assume that no god, angel or devil is going to interfere with its course; and this assumption has been justified by such success as I have achieved in my professional career. I should therefore be intellectually dishonest if I were not also atheistic in the affairs of the world. – JBS Haldane

Yet the Haldane quote demonstrates profound theological ignorance.

Fringe views of science

To make the case that science can determine whether or not God exists, Coyne believes that miracles can be part of a science. Yet the majority of scientists and philosophers insist that miracles can never truly be part of science. For example, philosopher Theodore Drange expresses this mainstream position:

It could never be a scientific finding that a miracle occurred, for science is the attempt to understand reality in terms of the laws of nature. To say that a miracle occurred is to abandon the scientific (= naturalistic) perspective on the matter. If a scientist were to end up with such a belief, then it would be incompatible with the scientific point of view. It would be as if to say, “Here is something that could never be naturalistically explained and so it lies outside the domain of science.”

Another way to think of a miracle is that it represents a Gap – something that cannot be explained by natural laws.

Coyne’s willing to include miracles in science

Coyne writes: “In a common error, Giberson confuses the strategic materialism of science with an absolute commitment to a philosophy of materialism. He claims that “if the face of Jesus appeared on Mount Rushmore with God’s name signed underneath, geologists would still have to explain this curious phenomenon as an improbable byproduct of erosion and tectonics.” Nonsense.”

Actually, Giberson has a better handle on science that does Coyne. Lets’s imagine that we wake up tomorrow, turn on the TV, and find reporters from all over the world excitedly showing pictures of Mt. Rushmore which now has a fifth head that appeared sometime during the night – the face of Jesus with God’s name signed underneath. Millions of Christians would see this as a sign from God and when Coyne himself traveled to see it in person, he would fall on his knees.

But what about the role of science?

Science and metaphysical commitments

Jerry Coyne writes, “Scientists do indeed rely on materialistic explanations of nature, but it is important to understand that this is not an a priori philosophical commitment.” Yet this is a rather odd assertion given what Coyne claimed toward the beginning of his article:

A meaningful effort to reconcile science and faith must start by recognizing them as they are actually understood and practiced by human beings. You cannot re-define science so that it includes the supernatural, as Kansas’s board of education did in 2005. Nor can you take “religion” to be the philosophy of liberal theologians, which, frowning on a personal God, is often just a hairsbreadth away from pantheism. (emphasis added)

If we cannot “re-define science” to include the supernatural, it stands to reason that there is indeed an a priori philosophical commitment to materialistic explanations. It does not bode well for Coyne’s case if such a fundamental contradiction is laid out in the very same essay.

Coyne and the nine-hundred-foot-tall Jesus

Prof. Jerry Coyne writes, “Despite Gould’s claims to the contrary, supernatural phenomena are not completely beyond the realm of science. All scientists can think of certain observations that would convince them of the existence of God or supernatural forces.” We’ve already seen that Coyne changes the focus from science and its realm to people who happen to be scientists and their perceptions. So let’s consider the fall-out from this change in focus.