I was asked to reply to this post entitled “My reply to “Five Reasons to Doubt the Resurrection by Matthew Hartke, Debunked”. This is the first and last time I will respond to anyone that does not have the respect and integrity to identify themselves and provide some background information. My counterargument is the doctoral paper on the Historicity of the Resurrection that I recently submitted (attached at the bottom). I will not address everything that “Barry” writes, but will make a few observations.

I must first say that I have no idea what a “homosexual atheist Christian apologist” is——an oxymoron par excellence. That’s a new one for me. I can find no information on the author “Barry” so I have no idea about his background. He admits that he is an atheist who can “happily embrace the permanent extinction of [his] consciousness at physical death.” I’m amazed at the time and effort that many atheists put into refuting the Christian God whom they claim does not exist. While many people do in fact believe in nonexistent things, I’m not going to spend enormous amounts of my valuable time refuting their fantasy (but I will offer my perspective if asked). My time and effort is better spent elsewhere. Hinduism believes in a plethora of nonexistent gods, but I’ve never seen any atheist rebutting Hinduism with the same kind of ferocity and tenacity, despite the fact that Hinduism has produced far more pain and suffering——i.e., the notorious caste system which is now outlawed by the Indian government. The time and effort that some atheists spend figuratively shaking their fist at what they believe is a nonexistent God, speaks volumes. Paul is clear that everyone has knowledge of the existence of the one, true God . . . a knowledge that they willfully suppress (Rom 1:18-20). The time and effort that atheists like Barry expend is evidence that they do in fact subconsciously know that God exists and are in reality, trying to convince themselves. The fact that atheists frequently use God’s name in vain when under stress (God d****t) while they simultaneously and vociferously proclaim His nonexistence, speaks volumes. “The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, spoken by Queen Gertrude. It suggests that someone who insists too strongly on an issue is probably hiding what they know to be true. Barry, me thinks you doth protest too much.

His reference to “the good stuff constantly hawked by Christianity’s carnival barkers” is unfortunately sometimes true, particularly with some of today’s crop of popular televangelists. Point well taken. I will point out that the early church some 16 centuries ago condemned as heresy what is now known as the “prosperity gospel” (historical commentary in the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture). Today, I along with many others, also condemn the “prosperity gospel preachers.” It is a false gospel that Paul warns us about – “For we are not like many, peddling the word of God, but as from sincerity, but as from God, we speak in Christ in the sight of God.” (2 Cor 2:17).

He asks “So even if Jesus really rose from the dead, why would it matter?”. Why? Because if it didn’t happen, then we can throw our Bibles away and “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”. All Barry has to do to put the final nail in the coffin and bury the faith is come up with irrefutable proof that the Resurrection is a hoax. Frank Morrison was also a skeptic and set out to refute the resurrection, but instead became convinced of its veracity after examining the evidence, writing “Who Moved The Stone?”. You can find similar accounts here, a couple of which I’ve extracted below.

Gilbert West (1703-1756) was included in Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. As a student at Oxford, West set out to debunk the Bible’s account of Christ’s resurrection. Instead, having proved to himself that Christ did rise from the dead, he was converted. West published his conclusions in the book Observations on the History and Evidences of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (1747). On the fly-leaf he had the following printed: “Blame not before thou hast examined the truth.”

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853, Royall Professor of Law at Harvard University, was one of the most celebrated legal minds in American history. His Treatise on the Law of Evidence “is still considered the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure.” As a law professor, he determined to expose the “myth” of the resurrection of Christ once and for all, but his thorough examination forced him to conclude, instead, that Jesus did rise from the dead. In 1846 he published An Examination of the Testimony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts of Justice.

CS Lewis is one of the most famous and well educated atheists who converted late in life (professor at Cambridge and Oxford). More information is here.

Barry writes that in rejecting Christianity, he is “also rejecting further sources of stress and misery.” Yes, following Christ sometimes incurs great cost. You have to be willing to give up everything, if necessary. The early Christians understood this quite well. And in the 20th century, more Christians have been martryed than in all previous centuries combined.

He writes “skepticism is not some completely 100% bummer.” True! In fact, Christians sometimes should to be more skeptical——particularly with outlandish claims for truth. I deal with skepticism at length on this blog. He refers to “William Miller’s proclamation that Christ would return to the earth on October 22, 1844—a date commonly referred to as the Great Disappointment” which sadly should have been immediately rejected and refuted by Christians of that era since Scripture is explicit that no man knows the day or hour of Christ’s return (Matt 24:35-37).

Barry writes, “I keep Jesus in the ground even assuming the gospel accounts are talking about physical resurrection external to the disciples’ minds.” But how does he explain the historical fact that all the apostles (except John who died of old age but still suffered persecution) willingly died proclaiming a bodily resurrection to their dying day?

In his argument, Barry is essentially “begging the question” – a logical fallacy where an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion. In other words, Barry begins by assuming the resurrection never happened and that Jesus is “still in the ground.” In contrast, my paper considers what I term “minimalist facts” that even skeptics should be able to agree on, and then uses Occam’s Razor (a principle well known to science) to decide on the most preferable solution to the question whether Jesus actually rose bodily from the dead.

Barry lays his cards on the table when he asserts, “My theory is that the earliest resurrection belief was entirely spiritual in nature, and over time began to become more physical in order to make it less implausible.” This does not explain how Jesus ate with his disciples (Luke 24:43) and invited them to touch him and see that he had bodily returned from the dead (John 20:24-28). Thomas was so incredulous that he proclaims Jesus to be God after seeing and touching Jesus. This is literally one week after the resurrection, not nearly enough time for the event to morph from a spiritual event to physical reality.

Let me deal with something else that Barry claims. He writes, “Sure there are: authentic Mark doesn’t ever say anybody saw the risen Christ, and most Christian scholars say Mark is the earliest gospel.  That makes it reasonable to say the more detailed resurrection narratives in the later gospels are mere legendary embellishments.” Barry conveniently forgets that 1 Thessalonians predates all the gospels and twice explicitly mentions the resurrection – something I dealt with responding here to someone else.

While Barry is quite prolific, let me make just one more point. He asserts that Jesus is a “failed” Messiah. Consider the impact and influence of Christ on the 20 succeeding centuries. It was Christianity that produced the first hospitals and institutions of higher learning. It was Christianity that produced the foundation for modern science. Why did modern science arise in Europe, and not elsewhere where there were far more ancient civilizations? It was because Christianity made modern science possible——a point that James Hannan deals with quite nicely here. If that’s what “failure” looks like, I can’t imagine what Barry’s version of “success” looks like.

Death has a shocking, irrefutable way of violently reorienting one towards reality. Consider the death of the notorious atheist Voltaire in 1778 who died with a long and terrible cry that struck terror into his nurses, one of who said she would never attend the death of another atheist. His last words were reported to be “I am abandoned by God and man! I shall go to hell! O Christ, O Jesus Christ!” Interesting.

Let me close with a noteworthy incident that is related about Albert Camus, one of the principal architects of existentialism. This story is told by Howard Mumma, the summer pastor of the American Church in Paris, who dealt with Camus shortly before his death. Noteworthy is the attitude of Camus as he approached the end of his life . . . It may be that in the last two years of his life Camus recognized his failure to go beyond nihilism. Howard Mumma, the summer pastor of the American Church in Paris, recounts private talks with Camus during these two years in which Camus gradually came to feel that the Christian explanation was true. He asked Mumma what it meant to be “born again” and whether Mumma would baptize him. The baptism did not take place, first, because Mumma considered Camus’s childhood baptism valid and, second, because Camus was not yet ready for a public display of his conversion. The issue was not resolved when Mumma left Paris at the end of summer, expecting to see Camus again the following year. Camus died in an automobile accident the following February.

Attached is the paper on the Historicity of the Resurrection of Christ.