Can We Know the Resurrection Happened?

We can know the Resurrection happened. Assenting to the reality of the Resurrection, like assenting to the objective truth of all Catholic doctrine, does not require us to turn off our minds and stop thinking.

At stake with the Resurrection is the truth of all Catholic doctrine. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, the Catholic Faith falls apart.

We cannot prove directly that the Resurrection happened. However, there is a process of reasoning known as the process of elimination, which proves something INDIRECTLY by ruling out or eliminating the alternatives. For example, many of us have used the process of elimination when we answered multiple-choice questions on tests:

Because the answer must be A, B, C, D, or E;

and because it cannot be B, C, D, or E;

therefore it must be A.

In the Handbook of Christian Apologetics, Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, SJ, have worked out how the process of elimination can prove indirectly that the Resurrection happened. This column is heavily indebted to their work. Here in effect is their reasoning:

Because there are only five possibilities about the Resurrection – one PRO-Resurrection possibility (the Resurrection DID happen) and four ANTI-Resurrection possibilities (four possibilities the Resurrection did NOT happen),

and because only one of these five possibilities can have happened,

therefore if the four ANTI-Resurrection possibilities did NOT happen,

then the Resurrection DID happen.

In order to conclude that the Resurrection DID happen, we will need reasons for concluding that each anti-Resurrection possibility did NOT happen.

THE RECOVERY POSSIBILITY

One ANTI-Resurrection possibility is:

Jesus did not die on the cross but only seemed to be dead. Since His apostles thought Jesus was dead, they buried Him. While Jesus was in the tomb, He recovered from His injuries. The apostles rejoiced on the first Easter because Jesus surprisingly showed up after they thought He was dead. The “Resurrection” is a recovery from severe injuries.

Here are the reasons for concluding that Jesus really died on the cross:

• Ancient anti-Christian sources (Tacitus, Seutonius, Pliny, Josephus, and the Talmud) support the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and no expert in ancient history doubts it.
• The procedure of being crucified made survival impossible. Furthermore, Roman soldiers assigned to crucify someone would have been put to death for failing to kill the crucified person, and we can assume the Roman soldiers who crucified Jesus did not want to be put to death. There is no record of anyone ever surviving crucifixion.
• The Romans wanted to get the Crucifixion over with. They broke the two thieves’ legs in order to quickly kill them. The Romans did not break Jesus’ legs since they were sure he was already dead (John 19:31-33).
• When Jesus was stabbed, blood and water came from His side (John 19:34-35) – a sure sign of death due to collapsed lungs.

Here are the reasons that even if Jesus had not died on the cross, He could not possibly have recovered from crucifixion:

• After Jesus was crucified, and brutally tortured before that, He could not have survived the approximately 39 hours (3 PM Friday to 6 AM Sunday) that He was in His tomb without water, medical treatment, and nourishment.
• A near-dead, severely wounded man would have had great difficulty getting out of the shroud in which he was wrapped (Mark 15:46; John 19:38-42). There is no way He could have moved the stone closing His tomb (Matthew 27:60; Mark 15:46) or overpowered the Roman guards that Pilate had stationed there (Matthew 27:62-66).
• The New Testament writers portray the Risen Jesus as NOT having a merely recovered natural body, but as having a glorified supernatural body that would never die again. A near-dead, severely wounded man who staggered out of His tomb would not have been worshipped by the apostles as Lord and God.
• There is no evidence that anyone except Jesus’ apostles ever saw Him after His burial, even though sooner or later someone besides His apostles would have seen Him if He were simply a person who recovered from near-death.
• If Jesus only recovered from His crucifixion, then He would have really died sooner or later. Jesus’ body has never been found even though Jesus’ enemies would have resorted to any means to find it, including torturing His followers, once His apostles started preaching that He had risen.

So we can eliminate the Recovery possibility. Keep in mind that concluding that a particular anti-Resurrection possibility did not happen does NOT require agreement with all of the reasons against it. It only requires enough reasons against it.

(According to logic, the reasoning which eliminates each ANTI-resurrection possibility is inductive – I propose strongly inductive with very probable conclusions. The reasoning above with regard to Kreeft and Tacelli and the “summary reasoning” below are deductive with conclusions that must follow their premises. The second premise in the “summary reasoning” is itself an inductively reached conclusion.)

THE HALLUCINATION POSSIBILITY

The second ANTI-Resurrection possibility is:

Jesus did die on the cross, but He did not rise from the dead. His apostles so wanted Him to be alive that they hallucinated that He rose from the dead. The “Resurrection” is a hallucination.

Here are the reasons for eliminating the Hallucination possibility:

• A hallucination would explain only the post-Resurrection appearances. It would not explain the empty tomb and the rolled-away stone (Matthew 28:1-8; Luke 24:36-43; John 20:1-10) because Jesus’ corpse would still have been in His tomb and the stone would still have been closing His tomb.
• If the apostles were hallucinating, they would have left Jesus’ body in the tomb and not hidden it (as in the Conspiracy possibility below), yet Jesus’ body was not found in the tomb by His enemies.
• If the apostles were hallucinating, the Roman guard would have still been posted; and yet after sunrise on Easter, the Roman guard was no longer at His tomb (Matthew 28:11-15) because there was no corpse to guard.
• The apostles were aware that they might be hallucinating, they did not want to hallucinate (Mark 16:9-13; Luke 24:36-43), and so they proved to themselves they were not hallucinating by looking in the tomb (Luke 24:11-12; John 20:1-10).
• No two people have the same hallucination and yet over 500 people saw Jesus at the same time after His burial (1 Corinthians 15:3-8).
• Hallucinations usually last minutes, not 40 days (Acts 1:3), which was the length of time Jesus’ apostles saw Him after He rose (until the Ascension).
• Hallucinations cannot take food and consume it, but Jesus took food and consumed it (Luke 24:42-43; John 21:1-14).
• Hallucinations cannot be touched, but Jesus was touched (Matthew 28:9; Luke 24:39; John 20:27).

THE CONSPIRACY POSSIBILITY

The third ANTI-Resurrection possibility is:

Jesus did die on the cross, and His apostles knew He did not rise from the dead, but they agreed among themselves to lie to everyone else and say that He rose from the dead. The “Resurrection” is a conspiracy.

Here are the reasons for eliminating the Conspiracy possibility:

• Those who said they saw Jesus risen from the dead were known to be loving, virtuous people who would not lie.
• The apostles would not have expressed their admiration of Jesus and loyalty to Him by doing something (lying and conspiring) that He would not have approved, just like George Washington’s admirers did not, after his death, work to get America to become a colony of Great Britain or Abraham Lincoln’s admirers did not, after his death, try to bring back slavery and encourage the South to secede from the Union.
• There was no advantage to the apostles for lying that Jesus rose from the dead. Preaching the Resurrection got the apostles scorned, hated, persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, or executed in horrible ways (stoned, crucified, stabbed, beheaded).
• Not one of the over 500 apostles who said they saw Jesus after he had risen, even when tortured and facing horrible execution, ever “cracked” and confessed to a conspiracy.
• Jesus’ enemies never produced His body, which would have been there somewhere, if it had not been glorified and ascended.
• In order for the apostles to have gotten away with the conspiracy that Jesus “rose from the dead,” they would have had to get rid of Jesus’ body, but the apostles could not have gotten away with stealing His body since they could not have overpowered the Roman guard.
• The apostles could not have gotten away with the “lie” that Jesus rose by proclaiming it a mere seven weeks after the Crucifixion (on Pentecost) at the very scene of the “crime” (Jerusalem) since there would have been too many “eyewitnesses” to disprove the “lie” that Jesus “rose.”

THE MYTH POSSIBILITY

The fourth ANTI-Resurrection possibility is:

Jesus did die on the cross, and his apostles knew he did not rise from the dead. They created a myth that Jesus rose from the dead in order to express figuratively Jesus’ meaning to them, but their myth became misinterpreted as literally true. The “Resurrection” is a myth.

This is the theory that is currently most popular with those college professors who do not believe in the Resurrection and worship the cleverness of their own minds instead of worshipping the Truth. Here are the reasons for eliminating the Myth possibility:

• If Jesus did not rise from the dead, the New Testament writers would not have written a myth glorifying Jesus. They would have been beyond bitter toward the One Who had led them to believe He was the Messiah and, even more, “the son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).
• First Century people (both Christians and non-Christians) knew the difference between myth and fact. Luke (Luke 1:1-4), John (John 21:24-25), Peter (2 Peter 1:16), and Paul (Galatians 1:11-12; 1 Timothy 1:3-7; 2 Timothy 4:3-4) explicitly affirm that the Resurrection is a fact and not a myth.
• There was not enough time for the New Testament writers to be misinterpreted since their writings were being read and quoted by others while they and those who knew them were still alive and able to “clarify” their “myth.”
• The first witnesses of the Resurrection were women (Matthew 28:1-10; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-11; John 20:1-2) in a society which did not accept women as legal witnesses. Myth-makers would not have based their myth on “unreliable” sources, whereas those committed to the truth hold to the truth no matter how socially or legally unaccepted it is.
• As already noted, there was no advantage to the apostles for spreading their “myth.”

THE REASONABLE CONCLUSION

The fifth and last possibility is:

Jesus did die on the cross, and He did rise from the dead with a glorified body. The Resurrection is an objectively real event.

Here is our summary reasoning:

Because only one of these five possibilities about the Resurrection can have happened,

and because the four anti-Resurrection possibilities cannot have happened;

therefore the Resurrection really happened.

We believers in the Resurrection are not anti-intellectual, superstitious simpletons clinging to the pre-scientific era. We can give reasons for the Resurrection when it is questioned. It is more reasonable to believe in the Resurrection that to disbelieve in It. We can be confident that Jesus rose from the dead in a glorified body. Confidence in the Resurrection gives us confidence in all other Catholic doctrines. Reason supports Catholic Faith, even though God’s Revelation gives us knowledge which Reason is unable to give by itself.

Remaining doubt about the Resurrection can be alleviated by growing in a personal relationship with Christ in which He becomes the most real and important person in one’s life, as He has for countless people over the last two thousand years. The Risen Lord is best encountered and the best response to Him is made in the doctrine, worship, prayer, and morality of the Catholic Church.

Alleluia!  Alleluia! He is risen, as He said! Love and truth conquer evil and sin! Jesus Christ is Lord and God! Alleluia!