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Resurrection compatible with science?
I'm not fond of labels, particularly pejorative labels, but sometimes they are well deserved. I do not like to use the word "accomodationist" but Jerry Coyne is justified in using it this time. Psychologist (evolutionary psychologist?) Matt Rossano argues at the HuffPo that the resurrection of Jesus is not really incompatible with science. Why, because Pope Ratzi wrote in a book that Jesus's resurrection is not as banal as giving back life to a corpse (as if that would be "banal"), it is something else altogether, something that naturally we cannot comprehend, because it is a "different state". Matt Rossano takes the Pope at his word and therefore concludes that skeptics and believers can then talk nicely about the resurrection because it does not contradict science, it is simply something "new" that science has not yet explained. This is moving the goal posts at its best. This is serious, serious nonsense. I detest it when somebody uses seemingly complicated concepts that are totally made up and give them an aura of intellectual credibility buy simply stating that it is something "we cannot comprehend yet".
Here is the core of Rossano's argument, judge for yourself:
The scientific case against resurrection is pretty straightforward: once dead you stay dead -- that's just the way it works. Coming back to life after having been dead (I mean really dead) would constitute a violation of natural law -- a miracle -- and miracles just don't happen. Fair enough. But in his recent book on the last days of Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth Holy Week: From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection), Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) argues that reckoning Resurrection as resuscitation of a corpse is to misunderstand its true significance. Jesus' Resurrection, he contends, was an utterly singular event, straining the very limits of human understanding:
"Anyone approaching the Resurrection accounts in the belief that he knows what rising from the dead means will inevitably misunderstand those accounts and will then dismiss them as meaningless" (p. 243).
In fact, if Jesus' Resurrection were "merely" coming back to life in any way that we might comprehend, then it would be of little significance.
So what then does Resurrection mean? For Benedict it represents a new dimension of reality breaking through into human experience. It is not a violation of the old; it is the manifestation of something new.
"Jesus had not returned to a normal human life in this world like Lazarus and the others whom Jesus raised from the dead. He has entered upon a different life, a new life -- he has entered the vast breadth of God himself..." (p. 244).
I love this kind of discourse! The Pope says that anyone who thinks they understand what "raising from the dead" means will misunderstand the accounts of the resurrection. This must include the Pope himself, doesn't it? If he misunderstand it too, why should we take his word seriously? It's just another misunderstanding! And if he understands it (because he is the Pope, or something), then he should be able to explain it to us.
Rossano then continues with this:
Thus, in this view, Resurrection (as with all true miracles) is not contrary to science, but an indicator that science does not (yet?) describe the full expanse of reality. Indeed, some may argue that science itself contains similar "indicators." The 11 (or so) dimensional universe required by some versions of string theory, the multiverse theory of the universe where ours is but one of an infinite array of universes with variable physical laws, quantum entanglements, "spooky" action at a distance, the mysterious emergence of consciousness from inorganic matter -- all push the limits of human reason and imagination, suggesting to some that reality may be far more complex than the human mind can grasp.
OK, so "true miracles" are those that one day will be able to be explained by science. Doesn't this make them NOT MIRACLES? Then of course, he throws in the words quantum, string theory and multiverses, to make it all sound very scientific. Yes, that's it! Jesus must have disappeared through a portal to another universe? All possibly explained by strings and quantum entanglement!
He concludes his piece by saying:
The believer's argument, however, remains unconvincing to the skeptic. However impressive they might be, a change of heart and steadfast commitment do not necessarily add up to a new dimension of reality. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Fair enough. So a key question regarding the interpretation of Resurrection is this: Is the post-crucifixion history of Christianity extraordinary? Does it compel the dispassionate observer to concede that a categorically unique event could plausibly be its best explanation?
There's a message here, one quite in keeping with the Easter season when the notion of something radically new breaking through is uppermost in our minds. It ought to be upon questions such as those above that skeptics and believers respectfully engage one another, rather than the simplistic and often acrimonious sloganeering that has increasingly become the norm.
Happy Easter, everyone!
Please, Rossano, this is just kissing up to the believers, feeding their delusions by giving them a patina of a possible scientific explanation. If he wanted to wish Christians a happy Easter, just do so without all the pseudo-scientific platitudes.
Read Jerry Coyne's deconstruction of the Rossano article here.
Tags: Easter, pseudoscience, psychology, resurrection, science
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jean Marie on -
//"....and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves"//
and thus, Michael Jackson's Thriller video was conceived....you gotta zoom along to about minute 6 or 7 to get to the dancing zombie part...who knew? it was an xtian film all along...
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Permalink Reply by Jean Marie on
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Permalink Reply by Jean Marie on
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i havent' posted any pancakes in a while....
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Permalink Reply by Marianne on -
I haven't seen your pancakes for a while, would like to see some... !
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Permalink Reply by Mark Plus on -
I've wondered what happened to Lazarus after Jesus resurrected him. Either Lazarus died again later, which makes Jesus' stunt seem kind of pointless. Or else in our year 2011, Lazarus wanders the earth in his deathless body like a character from Highlander.
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Permalink Reply by Claudia Mercedes Mazzucco on -
Regarding Lazarus, one day I made a little of Sherlock Holmes work. There is another version of the raising of Lazarus in a longer, esoteric version of Mark’s Gospel. It is inserted immediately before the request for positions of honor by James and John, which is to say after Mark 10: 34.
Scott G. Brown, who wrote the first doctoral dissertation on the longer Gospel of Mark, called this 13-verse story LGM 1 (Longer Gospel of Mark 1). It is written in Mark’s style and contains none of the theological discoursed found in John’s story, in fact no direct speech by Jesus at all.
In Longer Mark, the dead man is not named; he is simply described as a young man, which likely means a man in his early twenties. Both accounts begin in a location called Bethany (John 11: 1, LGM 1:1). But whereas in John’s Gospel Jesus hears about the illness from messengers – sent by Martha and Mary – he remained for two days in the place where he was waiting for Lazarus to die, and then journeys for four more days before he actually goes to Bethany in order to perform the miracle, in longer Mark Jesus encounters the sister in Bethany – only one sister appears in Mark’s story – and the miracle occurs immediately.
The miracle is different too. In John, Jesus orders others to remove the stone and then shouts from a distance: “Lazarus, come out!”; in longer Mark, the loud cry comes from the dead man while Jesus is still walking to the garden, and Jesus removes the stone himself, raising the man by the hand. Where John has the dead man walk out wrapped in grave clothes, longer Mark has the dead man look at Jesus, love him, and plead to be “with him.” Finally, the story in longer Mark has an addendum not found in John.
We are told that Jesus and the young man left the tomb and went into the man’s house; after six days Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. Surprisingly this instruction occurs at night, and the young man wears nothing but a linen sheet over his naked body. Stranger still, this is apparently the same young man who appears in canonical Mark at the moment of Jesus’ arrest, again wearing only the linen sheet (Mark 14: 51 – 52)
So immediately after Lazarus is resuscitated, they buried him alive actually, John said that from that day on they planned to kill him (John 11: 53 – 57); Jesus no longer walked about in public among the Jews, retreated into the desert and there he remained with his disciples. In the meantime, the chief priests and the Pharisees gave orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should inform them, so that they might arrest him. Hence Passover was near.
According to Clement of Alexandria, Mark wrote his first gospel in Rome for catechumens. But when he ventured to Alexandria following Peter’s death, Mark brought with him “his own and Peter’s notes” and from these transferred into his former writing “things suitable to those studies which make for progress toward knowledge.”
I wonder, however, if Mark received direct testimony of Peter, didn’t Peter know the dead-man’s name? Had Peter not witnessed the Lazarus’ resurrection? How comes it that he is "unknown" for Mark? And why is it that the dead-man Lazarus appears in the Canonical between Jesus’ arrest (43 – 52) and Jesus condemnation before the great council of the Jews?
Because, I perceived, they brought Lazarus to Jerusalem, so that he could give false witness against Jesus but Lazarus run-away (Mark 14: 51 – 56). And because Lazarus refused in the last minute, the religious authorities wanted also to kill him. Yes, it was a dangerous matter – so dangerous that even Mark dared not to reveal Lazarus’ identity in his account of the Bethany’s miracle. But when he described Lazarus as a “young man wearing a linen cloth” and inserted him in the middle of the plot to kill Jesus, Mark gave John a “clue.” Don't you think? So John may take it that Lazarus was the dead man.
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Permalink Reply by Bernie Klein on
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Another example of how bible writers and copiers got a word wrong. Just as "celibate" was orginally "celebrate" I would argue that "resurection" was orginally "erection"....Lazarus had one and so did Jesus, then the confusion started... that`s why BC stands for Before Confusion and AD means After Delusion.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Sizer on -
Well let's just say I won't volunteer for any clinical trials.
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Permalink Reply by Marianne on
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I think that using science and people new "belief !!!" in science is despicable. truly despicable.
I only read some of the comments here (there are rather a lot) and I agree...
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