Pints With Aquinas - 155: 5 reasons Christ rose from the dead, W/ Trent Horn

Starting point is 00:00:00 Christ is risen. Indeed, He is risen. Happy Easter to everybody. I hope y'all are going to have a beautiful time rejoicing in the Lord. Man, I love this time of year. This is my absolute most favorite time of year. Ever since I went Byzantine, it has just been an absolute joy. I mean, it was a joy when I'd go to the Roman church as well, but there's just something about Easter when you go to a Byzantine church. It's so celebratory that you expect at any moment someone's going to rush out with a plate full of vodka shots and you just start slamming them back. I mean, this is just a wild, powerful, beautiful, beautiful celebration. And today is going to be a wonderful podcast. I'm going to be speaking with Trent Horn, apologist at Catholic Answers,

Starting point is 00:00:45 on Christ's resurrection and why we have really good reasons to think that this is not just a pious story, not just something that we tell ourselves or which the apostles invented. We're going to take a look, a real look at the New Testament and see why, not just the New Testament either, but like from secular scholars and see why we have very compelling reasons to think the New Testament is reliable. So, if you are doubtful of the resurrection of Christ, this is going to really help you. If you know people who are doubtful and are maybe questioning you about it, this is going to really help you respond to them. Before we get to Trent, I'm going to share with you five reasons that Thomas Aquinas gives for why Christ rose from the dead. Here we go. Okay, okay, okay. Let's take a look at Aquinas' five reasons for why Christ rose from the dead, why it was necessary.

Starting point is 00:01:51 This comes from the Tertiopas, question 53. And I'm going to read his respondio, okay? He said, He said it behooved Christ to rise again for five reasons. Let me just tell you what those five reasons are, and then we'll read through Aquinas' main response. Okay, so number one, it reveals God's justice. Number two, it was necessary for the confirmation of our faith in Christ. Number three, it gives us hope for the resurrection of our bodies. Number four, it means death to sin and new life in Christ for us. And finally, number five, it completes the

Starting point is 00:02:33 work of salvation. So, Aquinas says, first of all, for the commendation of divine justice, to which belongs to exalt them who humble themselves for God's sake. According to Luke 1.52, Consequently, because Christ humbled himself even to the death of the cross, from love and obedience to God, it behooved him to be uplifted by God to a glorious resurrection. God, it behooved him to be uplifted by God to a glorious resurrection. Hence, it is said in his person, thou hast known, that is approved, my sitting down, that is my humiliation and passion, and my rising up, that is my glorification in the resurrection. And this again comes from Psalm 138. Here's the second reason. It's for our instruction in the faith. Since our belief in Christ's Godhead is confirmed by his rising again. Because according to 2 Corinthians 13.4,

Starting point is 00:03:35 although he was crucified through weakness, yet he liveth by the power of God. And therefore, it is written, if Christ be not risen again, then is our preaching vain. So, and we also read in Psalm 29, 10 says, Aquinas, what profit is there in my blood, that is in the shedding of my blood, while I go down as by various degrees of evil into corruption, as though he were to answer none. For if I do not at once rise again, but my body be corrupted, none. For if I do not at once rise again, but my body be corrupted, I shall preach to no one, I shall gain no one. So, that's the second point that Aquinas gives for why Christ rose from the dead to confirm our faith in him. And again, that's what the majority of today's episode is going to be about. Thirdly, Aquinas says, for the raising of our hope, since through seeing Christ, who is our head, rise again, we hope that we will likewise shall rise again.

Starting point is 00:04:31 Hence it is written in 1 Corinthians 15, 12. Just notice, by the way, how often Aquinas cites scripture. Powerful, powerful. He says, hence it is written in 1 Corinthians, now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how does some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? And in Job 19, 25-27, I know that is with certainty of faith that my Redeemer, that is Christ, liveth. Having risen from the dead, and therefore in the last day, I shall rise out of the earth. This my hope is laid up in my bosom. Here's the fourth reason. He says to set in order the lives of the faithful, according to Romans

Starting point is 00:05:13 chapter six, verse four, as Christ is risen from the dead by the glory of the father. So we also may walk in newness of life and further on Christ rising from the dead dieth now no more. So do you also reckon that you are dead to sin, but alive to God? And here is the fifth and final reason. The fifth reason that Christ rose from the dead was in order to complete the work of our salvation. Because just as for this reason, did he endure evil things in dying that he might deliver us from evil, so was he glorified in rising again in order to advance us towards good things. According to Romans 4.25, he was delivered up for our sins and rose again for our justification. Hey, I want to say a big thanks to everybody who supports me on Patreon. Right now, we estimate that about 15% of listeners are giving. Just think of how much more I could be

Starting point is 00:06:15 doing if we got up to 20 or 30 or God forbid, 50%. We're doing a lot of exciting things like the Matt Fradd Show. I would love to start doing them weekly, but right now that literally costs me about $40,000 a year and I'm only doing one a month. But I would love to do more. So if you love this show and you love the work that I'm doing, not just here at Pints with Aquinas, but the Bible History Podcast and all the books that I'm putting out, some of which I'm not even receiving any money for, please consider supporting me. Go to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Give me a dollar a month or give me more and you will see right there the free gifts that I will send you for being so great. Or if you hate Patreon and want to just support me directly, that's also appreciated.

Starting point is 00:06:56 You can go to pintswithaquinas.com and click donate there. Really appreciate it. You guys are awesome. If you're one of those 15%, thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, here we go. appreciate it. You guys are awesome. If you're one of those 15%, thank you, thank you, thank you. All right, here we go. Trent, thanks for being on Plants with Aquinas. Thank you for having me, Matt. How have you been? What's been going on? Well, I have been busy as can be, as per usual. I'm finishing my master's degree in bioethics right now at the University of Mary. So I just completed my final thesis. I'm going to go to give a presentation on it in Bismarck here in a few weeks, just shortly right

Starting point is 00:07:31 after Easter. And yeah, so I'm doing that and finishing my other book, Counterfeit Christ, is going to be coming out here probably in a few weeks as well. And that's kind of my coming out here probably in a few weeks as well. And that's kind of my book on who the real Jesus is and how a lot of other people can end up misunderstanding him, both non-religious people and religious people. Yeah, I just saw the pamphlet come in the mail from Catholic Answers. The front cover looks terrific. Well done. Sometimes that's the biggest battle is getting the publisher to put a wonderful front cover on it. I thought that one was terrific. Yes, it really is true that a book is judged by its cover. People do judge a book by its cover.

Starting point is 00:08:09 So if your book gets saddled with a bad cover, that will affect the number of people that end up reading it. But I'm happy with it. If you go online, check it out. It's Counterfeit Christs. And the cover artist did a great job of taking different icons, images of Jesus, but putting behind them all of the symbols of the counterfeit. So we have the socialist Jesus, the gay affirming Jesus, the prosperity theology Jesus, the Muslim Jesus, mythological Jesus.

Starting point is 00:08:37 It's all right there. And yeah, I cover the wide gamut in that book, and I'm happy when it gets out soon. I remember you were telling me that with your book on abortion, a lot of people had the mentality, well, I already know that abortion is wrong, so I don't need this book. So, what do you say to people who are like, well, I already know about the counterfeit Christs, and I know I'm not following them, so why do I need this book? Well, what I would say is, you may know that they're counterfeits, but do you know what you would say if a Jehovah's Witness challenged you and said, well, where does Jesus say, I am God in Scripture? What would you do if someone challenged you with

Starting point is 00:09:13 the Muslim Jesus? Or if an atheist said, if Jesus really lived, then why didn't more ancient historians write about him? Why isn't he the most famous person in the ancient world? So we may know who the real Jesus, for those who know the real Jesus, we also have to be able to defend the real Jesus. But it's also possible that we can slide into subtle heresies. We may think, oh yeah, I know Jesus. I'll say, well, do you have your Christology right? I might say, for example, do you think it's possible Jesus could have sinned? They say, well, I mean, he's a human being. I mean, he could have sinned, but he didn't. I'd say, oh, that's not the case because Jesus is a divine person. That's impossible. So, it's little things like that, that understanding

Starting point is 00:09:53 the mystery of the Incarnation. It's very important and it's intricate in part. So, I think this book will help bring a lot of people up to speed and equip them when they're challenged with different views of who the real Jesus is. Now, one of the things we Christians point to to prove that our faith is the true faith is the fact that Christ rose from the dead. And here we are around Easter time, and we want to talk about that because I think a lot of people think that maybe you can come up with arguments for the existence of God, but they're not really sure why they should choose, say, Christianity over Islam or some other religion. So, let's talk about that. I mean, do you find the evidence for

Starting point is 00:10:29 the resurrection of Christ compelling? Is that one of the primary reasons you chose to be a Christian? Oh, absolutely. I had always believed there was a God out there. I was a deist, but I didn't think God really cared, and so, you know, there's just a God out there, whatever. But I also thought that religion was just a crutch for people. It's just something that you rely on if you don't have good critical thinking skills. And I thought all religions were basically the same. But then I saw that the evidence for Christianity was very different than the evidence that's offered for every other religion. And that central piece of evidence would be Jesus Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead. And that really moved me to see

Starting point is 00:11:10 debates between Christians and atheists and seeing the good arguments that Christians were putting forward for the evidence for Jesus. In fact, it's not just Christians who understands this. You take, for example, Antony Flew. At one time, he was one of the most famous atheists of the 20th century. And in a dialogue with Gary Habermas, the Christian apologist, Antony Flew said, the evidence for the resurrection is better than for claimed miracles in any other religion. It's astoundingly different in quality and quantity. So even Flew, he was not convinced of it, but he knew, he admitted that the evidence for Jesus is very different than we have for any other

Starting point is 00:11:49 ancient or even modern religious figure. Okay, well, where do you begin? How do you begin to convince somebody that Christ rose from the dead? Already, I think a lot of people feel like if you're defending it, you're just kind of biased in favor of your own religion, and there really isn't any evidence. So, where do you begin? Well, there's different ways that you can put forward a defense of Christ's resurrection. One way that I find to be helpful is something that's called the minimal facts approach, and that's been championed by people like Gary Habermas or Mike Lacona. And William Lane Craig also puts forward this approach.

Starting point is 00:12:23 The idea here is, look, we're not going to say, oh, Jesus rose from the dead because the Bible says so, and the Bible is either the word of God or it's an incredibly reliable book, so we can trust what it says, therefore Jesus rose from the dead. Because then, you know, you've already, you're, in order to establish the truth of the resurrection, you're using a premise itself that'll be very controversial to people who don't believe in God. So, saying the Bible's the word of God, or even the lesser claim that the Bible is just extremely reliable so we can trust what it says, many skeptics will say, well, I don't think the Bible's really reliable at all. And so, you've got a lot more to prove there before you can get to the resurrection. So, what I try to say is, all right, let's just look at the Bible like it's a set of ancient Greek manuscripts, a set of ancient documents talking about this man named Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. What are the minimal facts we can agree on? What are the minimal facts we can all agree on, despite our different religious views? So aside from the mythicists who say Jesus never existed, and I can count the number of

Starting point is 00:13:25 scholars with PhDs in the relevant fields who teach at major universities who believe that, I can count them on, I think, one hand. You talk to most people and say, well, yeah, there was a guy named Jesus, and yes, he taught, and yes, he was crucified. Okay, well, there's certain basic facts we can agree on, like that Jesus was crucified, and that the first, his followers, his immediate followers, preached soon after his death that he had risen from the dead. And so you put together these facts, then you ask, okay, look, what explains this? Both of us need to explain these sets of facts. I hold that they're explained well by Jesus rising from the

Starting point is 00:14:01 dead, that that is the best explanation. You may have a different explanation. You've got to give me some kind of explanation for why we have the Christian faith at all, and let's see which explanation best accounts for the data that we have in front of us. Yeah, I mean, I suppose most people may just not care, and to them, trying to defend Christ's resurrection or to argue against it is like arguing that Joseph Smith received those golden tablets from, who was it, the Archangel Gabriel? I forget who gave them. Moroni. Moroni, sorry. Yeah. And so, you know, you wouldn't, like, just like, I wouldn't invest

Starting point is 00:14:33 a bunch of time researching that. So, I wouldn't do a good job arguing against it. But is your argument, that's fine, you don't have to, but if you're going to take me up and challenge me that Christ never rose from the dead, at that point you need to kind of provide some evidence for your position. True. I think that anyone who makes a claim carries a burden of proof, whether your claim is that the end of Jesus' life was a natural end or it was a supernatural end that was completed through his bodily resurrection from the dead. Everybody has a burden of proof. Now, some of you may say, well, I don't really care. Dealing with apathy is probably one of the hardest things one can deal with when it comes

Starting point is 00:15:12 to evangelism. I'll take someone who wants to have a debate any day of the week over somebody who just doesn't really care. But you can still ask, I think, very simple and gentle questions like, who do you think Jesus is? Or why do you think, I guess the most folksy way to, like, who do you think Jesus is? Or why do you think, I guess the most folksy way to put it, why do you think this whole Christianity thing got started? How do you think this got started? And there, you're just asking for their opinion on something.

Starting point is 00:15:34 And they may say something, if they're not scholarly, if they're just, you know, your regular man on the street will say, well, you know, Jesus's followers, they believed in him, and so they wanted to preach this, this message of hope, or it was a legend that developed over a long period of time. And then you should just ask questions, say, well, you know, do you, do you really believe that? Like, is this, because people want to say, well, Christianity is a good thing. It's just, you know, I don't, I don't totally believe in it. They say, well, it can't really be, because if this isn't true, then we're talking. This is crazy pants stuff here.

Starting point is 00:16:07 You know, if you believe if you believe that this guy rose from the dead, you will rise from the dead to death is not the end to say death is not the end that radically changes how you view life. Yeah, because if you think you're going to because I tell you all the time who call Catholic Answers Live, they'll say, especially on the shows, like, why aren't you religious? They'll say, well, I don't care. My life is fine right now. You know, they'll say, I go to work, I have my friends, I have my Netflix, everything's fine. I don't need religion because I'm happy. And, you know, so people sometimes will dispute and debate with them and say, well, are you really happy? I mean, what if you have the fullness of happiness in becoming Christian? And they may not, they say, well, I still feel pretty good right now. So that's why I like to ask the question, well, look, what if, though, you live forever? You know, what if at death that's not the end?

Starting point is 00:16:54 What are you going to do for eternity? Like, I don't want to watch Netflix for eternity. Any earthly activity we engage in for eternity will become hellish. I mean, I love science fiction. There's a lot of great science fiction works that deal with the question of immortality and whether immortality is a great thing. And usually people who have immortality in science fiction come to regret it. They come to regret it. There's a great short story.

Starting point is 00:17:24 I think it was harland ellison wrote it about someone who ends up being immortal now he becomes immortal because of the diabolical uh scheming of an evil mastermind computer but the so the title of it is called it's it's really creepy the title is i have no mouth but i must scream it's You'll have to look it up. I will have to look that up. Yeah. Yeah. I might, I might be transposing it, the title, but, uh, but the, the, the fear, I mean, being immortal, like eventually you would just, you would just start to lose your mind. And the reason for that is we are not in this form, in this stage of life, we are not capable of receiving anything that is infinite or unending because we're broken, fallible, fallen human beings. The only thing, so if we're going to live for eternity, if we're going to have infinite duration of life ahead of us, then I'm going to want something that can satisfy my desires for happiness infinitely.

Starting point is 00:18:22 The only thing that's infinite in its nature is God. desires for happiness infinitely. The only thing that's infinite in its nature is God. So that's where I'm going to say, look, if you're going to live forever, are you right with God or are you not right with God? And so what the Bible teaches is that Christ rose for our justification, Romans 4.25, and then we have hope in Christ's resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15 says that Christ's resurrection is the first fruits. It's an agricultural term. That means in the crops in your farm, there's some fruits when they start to turn and they're ripe and they're ready to be harvested, that signals the rest of the harvest is ready. Oh, that's cool. I didn't know that. Yeah. So that's what Paul uses that reference, that metaphor in 1 Corinthians 15, where he says

Starting point is 00:18:59 that Christ's resurrection, it's the first fruits of the resurrection. And now we can have the promise of our resurrection to rise from the dead. Maybe not immediately, but we've been ushered into that final age of the resurrection, that if Christ is risen, we will rise. Because what Paul was dealing with, and you read in 1 Corinthians 15, the Corinthians are saying, oh, maybe there is no resurrection from the dead, or we've missed it, or there's not going to be, there is no resurrection from the dead. And Paul says, well, wait a minute. If Christ did not rise from the dead, or we've missed it, or there's not going to be, there is no resurrection from the dead. And Paul says, well, wait a minute. If Christ did not rise from the dead, if the way he said, if there's no resurrection from the dead, then that means that Christ didn't rise from the dead. But Christ did rise from the dead. Therefore, there is a resurrection from the dead. So Paul is

Starting point is 00:19:41 using a form of logical argument called modus tollens. So you're probably familiar with modus ponens and modus tollens. So basically, the way you can validly argue, there's two ways you can validly argue. If A, then B. A, therefore B. You can do that, or you can do if A, then B, not B, then not A. Those are the valid ways. If you try to do it any other way, it becomes a logical fallacy. So the way I could explain it to you is, so let's say if I am in San Diego, California, if I'm in San Diego, then I'm in California, if A then B. If I'm not in California, then I'm not in San Diego. So that's modus tollens. So what Paul is arguing here is that if there's no resurrection from the dead, Christ is not risen. But then he does modus tollens. He says, but not

Starting point is 00:20:30 be. Christ has risen. Therefore, there is a resurrection from the dead. So that's the argument he's using. And if you're curious, and your followers can look this up, the way of totally botching modus ponens is the fallacies are called affirming the consequent or denying the antecedent. And we can get into that, of course, another time. Yeah, fascinating stuff. All right, so we've begun to deal a little bit with the apathy that someone might have. Let's take a look at some alternative explanations someone might offer for why Christ didn't rise from the dead. And no doubt you'll see these in some, perhaps, opinion articles in newspapers and online around this time. So, you know, someone will say,

Starting point is 00:21:09 well, it's so fantastic to think that Jesus rose from the dead. Any other explanation has to be more plausible. So, you know, how do we really know that Jesus died on the cross? Maybe he passed out on the cross and was put into the tomb later or something like that. Yeah, that sounds super improbable, but it's a lot more, surely it's a lot more probable than him rising from the dead. What about that one? Right. That deals a little bit with probability theory. And you'll have people, especially atheists, who, I mean, the thing is you'll have people who will argue, they're atheists who will argue there is essentially no chance that Jesus rose from the dead using a probability theorem called Bayes' theorem, which was developed by actually by a clergyman.

Starting point is 00:21:50 I think his name was Robert Bayes. But then you had people like Richard Swinburne, an Orthodox Christian philosopher, Richard Swinburne, who said you can use Bayes' theorem to argue there's a 93% chance that Jesus rose from the dead. So these probability theorems only really work based on the numbers you put in. So, you know, garbage in, garbage out. And with Bayes' theorem and with probability statistics, Bayes' theorem relies heavily on the prior probability of an event. So when someone says, well, it doesn't matter what, we could say, you know, aliens or time-traveling wizards or, you know, there's, or even any other kind of a really strained natural explanation to account for the resurrection. Any of that's going to be better than Jesus rising, and better than a miracle, because miracles just don't happen. But here, I would say, well, how do you know miracles are so

Starting point is 00:22:41 improbable? You're assuming in your prior probability that miracles are the least likely of all events. Why do you think that? So I'm going to want to dive in deeper to see what's driving this assumption. So if you're talking about it strictly saying, well, you use frequency, well, you know, miracles are very infrequent. I would first one dispute that and say, well, how do you know if they're infrequent or not? Miracles are a funny sort ofquent. I would first one dispute that and say, well, how do you know if they're infrequent or not? Miracles are a funny sort of thing. I mean, there's something for a bumper sticker. Miracles are a funny sort of thing? Well, the thing is, a miracle by definition is a suspension of the laws of nature. So, they're not something that's easily replicated in the

Starting point is 00:23:21 laboratory. I mean, if you want to prove that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, it's easy to get a bunch of pots going and set them off and do that. You replicate it. But there's lots of people who have claimed to have had miracles happen to them. Craig Keener, a New Testament scholar, actually wrote a two-volume work on miracles, and he assembles, I think, thousands of reports of miracles, of people having interactions with the deceased, of people whose limbs have been healed, miraculous healings that can't be explained scientifically. So lots of people have claimed to have had some kind of, you know, there's lots of people who claim that. Now, a lot of people say, well, I don't believe that. I think

Starting point is 00:24:00 most of those aren't genuine. Well, that's an open debate we can have. I think that your worldview is going to, and this goes in, it's not so much frequency, your worldview is going to start to claim what you think the probability of a miracle is. If you think that there is no God, then you're going to say, well, there are no miracles. I remember once talking on the radio with an atheist, and he said, you know, I don't believe all these miracle reports. I don't believe all these things. And I said to him, well, let me ask you this. Now, maybe many of those miracles reports are false or disingenuine, but if even one of them is correct, then my view is right, and that there is a God. So I asked him, which is more likely? Every single report of a miracle throughout human history has been false, or at least one of them, one of the millions or hundreds of thousands of accounts, at least one of them is true.

Starting point is 00:24:51 And he said, well, it's more likely they're all false. I said, well, how do you know that? He said, because, you know, there's, God is just made up, you know, there's no one to do miracles. I said, so wait, you're arguing in a circle now. You're saying, you know, I don't believe in miracles, you know, there is no God because there's no miracles to prove it, and there's no miracles to prove it because there is no God. So you have to be careful with probability theory when it comes to frequency because I would say, well, why do you think the Big Bang started the universe? We've never observed Big Bangs.

Starting point is 00:25:18 Any other theory we come up with is going to be better than that. Maybe everything's a simulation. We run simulations on computers right now. So, I mean, that's got to be better than a Big Bang because we don't observe them. That's where I see sometimes the problem with when people appeal just to probability theory in this way. Okay. Well, that's really great. Well, let's say people aren't necessarily talking about probability in that strict academic sense. They just think it seems maybe just Jesus didn't die. What do you say to people who say that? Because I've seen that thrown about on some of these late-night specials,

Starting point is 00:25:49 that he just fainted and then was put in the tomb and then walked out, and they thought he had risen. Right. That one's called the swoon theory. I think there was a German forum critic, Carl Venturini, probably would be one guy who proposed that. The idea that how you explain it. So once again, you're trying, notice the person is trying to explain these facts. We agree Jesus was crucified. We agree that his followers thought he rose from the dead.

Starting point is 00:26:15 And a fair number of people might be willing to even buy that his tomb was empty. Now, if Jesus just awoke in the tomb naturally, he was unconscious, not dead. And then people thought he had risen from the dead. That would explain all the facts. But there's more problems with this theory. One, it would be incredibly unlikely that Jesus would survive being crucified. I mean, the Romans were very good at what they did, and the Gospels describe Jesus undergoing extremely intense suffering leading up to his crucifixion. So, Josephus records three people who, three of his friends were being crucified, and he asked for them to be taken down. And even with the best medical care the Romans could offer them, only one of them survived. Jesus doesn't, we don't see him getting medical care, he's just

Starting point is 00:27:01 thrown into a tomb. So, one, I think it's highly, extremely unlikely Jesus would survive crucifixion. But even if he did, the fact is the disciples aren't idiots. They would see, oh, he hasn't risen from the dead. He's just miraculously cheated death. He would still have holes in his hands. He'd be covered in blood. He'd be weak. He'd be incoherent.

Starting point is 00:27:21 You wouldn't say to yourself, ah, Jesus, I want a resurrection body just like that when I get to heaven. No one's going to say something like that. So I don't think it accounts for the resurrection belief the apostles had, which is not merely a resuscitation or cheating death, but gloriously rising from it. And Paul talks all the time in Philippians 3.21, in his letter to the Romans, he says that we will be changed and glorified, transformed to be like his resurrection body. Well, what do you think of the objection that the disciples made up the resurrection? So, they've been following this Jesus character for three years, they had invested their entire life in him. The idea that he would be so defeated, they just had to come up with a story that was better than

Starting point is 00:28:06 the fact that they had just wasted their last three years. And so, maybe they did die, and they knew it, but they did something with his body, and they just began to preach that he had risen. Well, here's the thing. They would actually fit in well with people of their own time that failed messiahs were something that people were accustomed to. I mean, there were different messiah claimants around the time of Jesus. You had someone named the Egyptian, you had Theudas, you had different individuals who claimed to be the messiah, had followers, and then turned out to be frauds. They turned out not to be the messiah because they were either killed or they were driven into exile.

Starting point is 00:28:46 So what we would say is, look, what would a first century Jew do in the case, in the face of a failed Messiah? It's easy for us to armchair here in the 21st century and say, oh, well, they would go on and just kind of preach this and make up a story to vindicate what they had done. Okay, that's your 21st century speculation. what they had done. Okay, that's your 21st century speculation. But why don't we go back to the historical record and see what first century Jews actually did when this happened to them? And what N.T. Wright has shown is that Jews who came across a failed Messiah, they would recognize it was a failed Messiah. And so they would either go back to their old lives. There's no point in preaching failure because, you know, what's the point? Nothing's been accomplished that you're going to go preach your Messiah.

Starting point is 00:29:30 Guess what? The Romans are still in charge. You know, it seems everything seems to be lost. Most of them either went back to their old lives or they tried to see if perhaps one of the fake Messiah's family members was the true Messiah. So we would expect then that if the apostles were going to follow this pattern, they either would go back to their old lives or maybe say that one of Jesus's relatives, like James, for example, either his cousin or stepbrother James, say maybe he's the real Messiah and elevate him or elevate one of

Starting point is 00:30:02 the other apostles in Jesus's place. Instead, you could get them going out and they're preaching this. And sometimes non-religious people put this out there too. And they'll say, well, they wanted to preach people a good message. I would say, well, how is it a good message? You're selling goods that don't accomplish what they're supposed to do. You're selling something you can't pay, saying, oh, believe in this resurrection, you'll rise from the dead, even though we know this guy's a total failure. I mean, you'd have to be totally out of your mind or a really, really bad person to sell the hope for eternal life on nothing at all, instead of just giving up. And then who was the church historian

Starting point is 00:30:42 that said it's very unlikely that they should all hold to this account and no one would say, okay, we just made it up as they were being either hunted or put to death? I cannot remember. You're talking about a modern historian or an ancient historian? No, it was an ancient church historian. But either way, the point— I mean, it might have been Eusebius is our go-to when it comes to, so yeah, it's probably Eusebius. Yeah, but that's a good point too. I mean, even though we might not have compelling evidence to think that all of the apostles died, except John, although that is tradition, the fact that they put themselves in that kind of danger and were at least hunted, why would you do that and not back down if you just made this up? Right, and that's actually, so the martyrdom of the apostles is an important point that comes up

Starting point is 00:31:25 in defending the faith on the resurrection. And I've seen some people like Richard Dawkins and others who have said that the fact, you know, some people will say this, who would die for a lie? So that's, you know, the idea that let's say some people say just flat out, they're just lying to, you know, increase their notoriety and live off of being preachers, things like that. And the retort to that is who would die for a lie? Now, some critics like Dawkins and others will say, oh, it's easy to answer who would die for a lie, 9-11. And then they just rub their hands, you know, clap their hands and say, oh, there you go, I've answered your argument. And say, well, no, you haven't understood the crux of the argument here. Who would die for a lie? Yes, the suicide bombers, those who

Starting point is 00:32:06 die, for example, for Islam today, people who are martyrs today for something like Islam, I believe they are dying for a lie. But they believe they are sincerely dying for the truth. Who would die for a lie does not prove the truth of what they are dying for, but it proves the sincerity of the believer. So the point of the apostles' martyrdom is that they sincerely believed Jesus rose from the dead. And we would ask, well, what caused that belief in them? Because the people who die today for Islam, or even for Jesus, do not have that immediate encounter with Muhammad or with Jesus to know whether it's true or not. Someone who dies in Islam today, they have no way of knowing if what they're dying for is true or false. But the apostles would have known whether Jesus really

Starting point is 00:32:53 rose from the dead or he did not. Well, then this leads us to the next objection that maybe the disciples were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong. Maybe they just had hallucinations of Jesus and were willing to die because they believed they were right, but Jesus didn't actually rise from the dead. Right, and that's the most common variant hypothesis is to say, well, the apostles just simply hallucinated that Jesus had rose from the dead. I just want to pause here a moment, though, Trent, and point out what you mentioned a moment ago. You notice that all of these objections that we hear from people or we'll read in the newspapers do take into account those minimal facts that you brought up earlier. Oh yeah,

Starting point is 00:33:32 they do. Most people will say, okay, well, I'll grant you this. And so it's important to establish these minimal facts. And a good way for us to do that is through actually, counterintuitively, is not through the Gospels. The Gospels are an important witness, but it's through the writings of Paul. In particular, Paul's letter to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. So even the people who deny Jesus existed, even people like Richard Carey and others will say, well, yeah, of course St. Paul existed. We have it. Well, they call him Paul. They'd say, yes, Paul existed. We have his writings. They would say that Romans and Corinthians are authentic letters of Paul. No getting around that.

Starting point is 00:34:09 And that Paul knew the apostles, because we know that from Galatians, Paul met with them in Jerusalem. And in 1 Corinthians 15 contains a creed in verses three through eight that talks about Jesus, talks about his death and being buried, and then him appearing again to Peter, to James, the rest of the brethren, to 500 believers at once, and then finally to Paul himself. So here we've got the death, we've got the post-resurrection appearances. I would say the Gospels provide good evidence that Jesus' tomb is empty. So yeah, they agree on the minimal facts. The question is, all right, hallucination. Now, there's a lot of problems with this. It doesn't explain all the minimal facts.

Starting point is 00:34:47 First, if this was merely a hallucination, we would expect the apostles to hallucinate just that Jesus were spiritually raised into heaven, not bodily raised. Also, if the apostles were just making it up, we would expect that as well, because it's harder to prove, oh, if you're making up a bodily resurrection, okay, we would expect that as well, because it's harder to prove that, oh, if you're making up a bodily resurrection, okay, we'll go, here's Jesus' tomb, here's his bone box, we found, you know, the bones of Jesus buried outside of Jerusalem, the game is over. Well, no, no, we mean he was spiritually resurrected. Okay, we can't really falsify that. So we would expect them to hallucinate if they were, at their time, they did not believe that there was a bodily resurrection because they didn't believe the end of the world had arrived yet.

Starting point is 00:35:29 They would believe that Jesus was taken into heaven and you would experience him in some kind of a vision. So if you read, for example, there's a gentleman, sorry, there's a first century wonder worker named Apollonius of Tyana. And this is someone Jesus is always compared to. Say, well, Apollonius' followers believe that he rose from the dead too, and how is that any different than Jesus? Well, the story of Apollonius, we got one source written like 200 years later. So it's not reliable. But even if there's a historical core there, in the resurrection account of Apollonius, his followers are sitting around figuring out what to do. He's dead. They're drawing shapes because they're into Greek mathematics.

Starting point is 00:36:10 And one of them wakes up from sleep and says that he saw Apollonius and that he's alive. He has a dream. You know, one person, this is what you think of a hallucination account, something in dreams or something in a vision. That's not what we receive in the Gospels and in Paul. We're talking about actual appearances of Jesus bodily to the disciples, which you can't chalk that up to a hallucination. Pete Yeah, okay. And then I guess, finally, I'd ask, what would you say to people who just want a couple of lines? How would you convince people in a couple of sentences that the New Testament is reliable at all? Because obviously, this could be an entire dissertation. But I'm just like the people out there who are kind of chatting with their friends and co-workers,

Starting point is 00:36:53 and the co-worker says, well, look, even if all that's true, basically, the Bible isn't reliable anyway. So, yeah, maybe you can make the story coherent, like you can make Star Wars coherent, because something's coherent doesn't mean it's factual. So, yeah, what's your kind of soundbite for why the New Testament's reliable? Well, first, I would say, don't worry about defending the New Testament if, you know, I'll give you a soundbite for that, but I would say if someone says it's not reliable, ask them to prove why. Well, why don't you think it's reliable? Because a lot of times they just assume because the New Testament describes miracles, it's not reliable.

Starting point is 00:37:31 But ancient historians like Josephus and Tacitus also describe miracles, but we don't say, oh, we have no idea what happened in ancient Rome because they're not reliable. Historians will say, well, there's reliable parts in here and less reliable parts. So I would ask the person, okay, which parts of the Bible are reliable? Like, was there a Jerusalem? Was there a Pontius Pilate? Was there a Jesus? Which parts are reliable and which aren't? And you'll quickly see sometimes the biases come through. The non-miraculous parts are reliable, but the miraculous parts aren't. So here, it's not a question of history, it's a question of philosophy. You know, what do you consider to be possible in our world? So you want to make them defend their claim that it's not reliable. Now, if they say to you, okay, but why should I believe these stories weren't just completely made up? Why

Starting point is 00:38:15 do you think they're reliable? You're right, there's a lot of evidence as we go forward, but my soundbite would be this. We have multiple sources describing the life of Jesus that were written by authors who are reliable within the lifetime of eyewitnesses. So I would say, look, here's how I'll compare. I know the New Testament. Let's take the Gospel of Mark, for example, which Mark is the traveling pannion of Peter. And we'll compare it to the Gospel of Peter, which Mark is the traveling panyon of Peter. And we'll compare it to the Gospel of Peter written 200 years later. The Gospel of Peter is made up. If you were making up a story, you would pick a really famous person to attribute it to, like Peter. You'd see it was written hundreds of years later. It contains anachronisms or false details. You're trying

Starting point is 00:38:59 to describe a time period you're far removed from. And it clearly has legendary embellishment in it. However, if you look at something like the Gospel of Mark, if I'm going to make up a story about Jesus, who the heck is Mark? Who is Luke? Or why would you pick Matthew, who's on the lower rung of the totem pole of the apostles? Even John, it's not necessarily the case that it's the Apostle John who is the author behind that gospel. You're picking authors here that would make sense if these were just lesser known but real historical figures who had interactions with the apostles. We have evidence that they were written within a few decades of the events they describe, which is great by ancient standards. The first biography of Alexander the Great

Starting point is 00:39:39 was written 400 years after his death, but we still have an accurate account of his life. Finally, there are details in the Gospels themselves that attest to their authenticity. So there are things like the cowardly, stupid behaviors of the apostles you might want to redact if you were making things up. Also, even in the letters of Paul and in the Gospels, Jesus is not used as a ventriloquist dummy to solve the problems of the early church. For example, if you read in Paul's letters, there's a big dispute about whether you could sacrifice, eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Like, could you eat it? Is it, you know, forbidden now because it was used for an idolatrous purpose? Do you have to be

Starting point is 00:40:20 circumcised to be a Christian? These were being debated in the early church, so if the Gospels were being written during that time, we would just expect the authors to use Jesus as a ventriloquist dummy to settle those disputes, but they don't. That editorial restraint shows the Gospel authors were not writing theology for their own time, they were recording history and God's revelation shortly before they were writing. Finally, there's a great... Lydia McGrew is a modern author who's written on this. Oh, she's brilliant. Oh, she's wonderful. Though I will say there's different approaches. Lydia McGrew is critical of the minimal facts approach, and I appreciate her arguments, and so I'm actually

Starting point is 00:41:01 working on a kind of synthesis of understanding the best approach to the resurrection. I'd love to do a whole monograph just on that. So that's my caveat there. But the McGrews have wonderful work on this, and Lydia McGrew wrote a book that brought back an argument from J.J. Blunt that there are undesigned coincidences in the Gospels, that there are details in the Gospels that when you combine all of the accounts together, these separate evangelists, you see they're describing the same events but from different perspectives. And so there are these little coincidences in their writings, like the fact that Philip was chosen during the feeding of the 5,000 to go and buy bread, even though he's a minor apostle, because the one place they could go buy bread,

Starting point is 00:41:43 we learn in another Gospel, was Philip's hometown. Little things like that, these little historical details that when they come together, we see, oh, these are things that a forger would never just come right up and figure out. So that's... Fascinating. Yeah, so you look up undesigned coincidences in the gospels. The first author who came up with that was J.J. Blunt. Lydia McGrew is a more modern treat. Has she wrote a book on it yet? Yes, she has. Let me, let's see, I think I could, you know, find it. Yeah, find that out. I got to check that out. Yeah, for those who are looking to listen to a debate where a theist completely and utterly trounces an arrogant

Starting point is 00:42:19 atheist, it's a bit of schadenfreude, you know when tim mcgrew that's lydia's husband debated an atheist on the english show unbelievable so to our listeners yeah type in tim mcgrew unbelievable question mark that's the name of the podcast and yeah i as i say the point isn't just to make people look bad but we want to put forward your case and show that it can stand up to scrutiny. The book, by the way, is called Hidden in Plain View, Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts. Is this an academic kind of book? Because I'm getting there. Yeah, it's a DeWard publishing. So, Tim and Lydia are a bit more academic of writers but i find them to be

Starting point is 00:43:05 good at communicating yeah they're their perspective so i think it'd be it'd be well worth it for anyone to get yeah yeah but anyway that just just to kind of round up what i was saying there people people gotta go check that that uh debate that tim mcgrew did with the atheist i forget the atheist name but it was so sad because the atheist came out swinging veryantly, like this faith stuff is just a bunch of hogwash. And it was incredible how Tim just dismantled everything he was saying. Well, let's see. Was that with Peter Boghossian? Yes, Boghossian.

Starting point is 00:43:34 Oh, Peter Boghossian is... So, he wrote a book called A Manual for Creating Atheists. Yeah, that's what they were debating. That's what they were talking about. Oh, my goodness. That's terrible. I wrote a critical review of A Manual for creating atheists when it came out. And I'd love to debate Peter Boghossian and have him on my podcast, The Council of Trend.

Starting point is 00:43:53 Oh, yes. I've actually set up a few debates and dialogues here in the future, so people will know once those are online. I'd love to have him come on the show, but I read Manual for Creating Atheists, and there's some good things in there about epistemology, but Boghossian is just so pompous about dismissing theistic arguments. And, well, he basically argues in the book that if someone believes in God, even after having atheistic arguments explained to them, they must be brain damaged. Right. Yeah. And so, yeah, I would love to have him just.

Starting point is 00:44:27 So that's why it was so satisfying to have Tim McGrew just destroy him. It was just, you deserve this. Yeah. So Trent, you got to go listen to it as well. It's fantastic. Oh, absolutely. But yeah, so hubris is a great way to describe Bogosian's work and many other atheists who just simply dismiss

Starting point is 00:44:45 religious claims and are not willing to investigate the arguments that are put forward for them. Yeah. Well, that's terrific. That's a good answer, because I think it's so much easier to tear down than to build up. It's so much easier to dismiss something than to argue for something. So, I like your tactic there, Trent. If someone just says the New Testament's unreliable, they're making a claim to knowledge there. And so, the temptation can be, well, you need to build. But instead, you could turn it back on them and say, okay, well, prove it. And I think that might, not always, but it might show sometimes that that person really doesn't know why. It's just a lot easier to dismiss it than

Starting point is 00:45:23 to perhaps listen to the arguments for why the New Testament's reliable. Right. And so, another great resource I'd recommend on the reliability of the New Testament would probably be Craig Blomberg. Craig Blomberg has written a book called The Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Gospels, and a separate book, The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel. And he goes through, because you can go through and compare what we know from ancient history to say, does this line up with what we know about ancient Judea, the language, the geography, the customs, the internal chronology of the Gospels? Does that make sense? And you put that together and you can actually see that it's very reliable, what it describes. The book of Acts itself is extremely reliable. Colin Hemer wrote a book called The

Starting point is 00:46:04 Book of Acts and the Setting of Hellenistic History. And time and time and time again, Acts will describe unique details such as the depth of harbors or an obscure title for a Roman official in a particular province that was unique to that province. And Acts will get it right, and secular history will back it up. I'll give you a great example of this. In the year 41 AD, in the early 40s, Emperor Claudius expelled all the Jews from Rome. And it's possible he did that because the Jews and Christians were fighting about Jesus. The Roman historian Suetonius tells us it was because of somebody named Crestus they were all booted, which might be a dispute about Jesus. So the Jews were kicked out of Rome in the early 40s AD. Only two historians record

Starting point is 00:46:49 that. One is Suetonius, and the other is Luke. In Acts 18, at the beginning of Acts 18, Paul meets Priscilla and Aquila and says they had just left Rome because Claudius had expelled the Jews. Now, Suetonius had not recorded this. People would say, oh, well, Luke bungled it again. There was no expulsion of the Jews in Rome in 40 AD. That's ridiculous because Tacitus doesn't tell us, Josephus doesn't describe this. Right, but they don't describe everything. They're not infallible historians. And in 1893, Pope Leo XIII was writing his Be Providentis Mus Deus, and he made the point And in 1893, Pope Leo XIII was writing, be providentis imus deus, and he made the point then, in 1893, still the same today, that the Bible, this is my paraphrase, he'll say that the Bible always gets rigorously questioned,

Starting point is 00:47:36 but secular historians are treated as infallible or always given the benefit of the doubt. And that's a double standard we ought to bring out in our conversations. How has learning all of this about the reliability of Christ's resurrection impacted and continues to impact your own faith life and experience of Easter? Well, it gives me peace and it gives me hope. I will tell you, though, that reading this and studying this is one thing, but I was very blessed a few years ago. I've been to the Holy Land twice. The last time I was there was a year ago, and I was there for Easter. I was leading a pilgrimage. And knowing what I've read in the New Testament studies, I actually, it's so

Starting point is 00:48:17 funny, there are two tombs of Jesus in Jerusalem. There's the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is in the old city of Jerusalem, and then you've got one that's kind of called the Protestant tomb. It's the one all the Protestants like to go to because it doesn't have icons. It doesn't reek of Catholicism. It's like a very pristine garden tomb. It looks like something from, you know, a vacation Bible school animated show. But when you look at the history, you'll say, nope, there is no historical evidence this is the tomb of Jesus. the history, you'll say, nope, there is no historical evidence this is the tomb of Jesus.

Starting point is 00:48:48 And yet, but when you go to the actual tomb of Jesus and see the evidence lining up that, oh, this was right outside the city walls, and this lines up with archaeology, this lines up with history, this is not some kind of pious fiction. So I remember on last Easter, when I went there, I took our group. I was actually the only person willing to do this. I got up at five in the morning and walked to the old city. It was still night. And I, you know, just like the women, the Gospels describe, they went up when it was dawn or it was still dark and went to the tomb. I remember walking there, it was quiet to the old city and going to Jesus's tomb and sitting right in front of it. And then three hours later, getting to have sunrise mass or having morning mass with the Latin patriarch and everybody there, though the Eastern Orthodox are celebrating Palm of it. And then three hours later, getting to have sunrise mass or having morning mass with

Starting point is 00:49:25 the Latin patriarch and everybody there, though the Eastern Orthodox are celebrating Palm Sunday, and they always give the Catholics a hard time. It's kind of like watching brothers pick on each other. But otherwise, it was... Gosh, that sounds beautiful. It was. Was it just driven home to you in a new and deeper way? It was. Just both my academic learning has really helped me, but also being able just to feel that and experience it directly. And that was actually with John Paul Tours. They did the pilgrimage, and I organized it.

Starting point is 00:49:52 And if anyone's interested in great pilgrimages like that, they should check out John Paul Tours. Is it John Paul Tours or John Paul the Great Tours? What is it? Paul the Great Tours. Is it? Well, I want to say it. I don't want to get it wrong.

Starting point is 00:50:08 Yeah, John Paul Pilgrimages and Tours. Mark Pierce is the CEO of it. He was a great guy. He attended. Yeah, he's awesome. He did a great job. It's John Paul Pilgrimages and Tours. There you go.

Starting point is 00:50:20 Yeah,.com. Terrific. Well, tell us one more time about your new book, where people should pick it up, and why they should get it. Yeah, so the new book is called Counterfeit Christ, How to Find the Real Jesus Among the Imposters. And you can pick it up. It's available for pre-order on Amazon. You can get it at our website at shop.catholic.com. And I go through there all the false views people have about Jesus, whether it's the non-religious view that Jesus is just your buddy or your friend, that he's a mystery, we can't know anything about his life, it's lost to the sands of time, it's a legend. The atheist view that he was copied from pagan

Starting point is 00:50:54 deities like Horus or Osiris. Also other religions, like the Jewish view that Jesus was just a rabbi, or the Muslim view Jesus was just an imam, how Muslims and Jehovah's Witnesses misunderstand Jesus and deny his full divinity. Also, how ideologues, like people who try to say Jesus was a socialist or Jesus would affirm gay relationships. So you see that in academia all the time. Even popular people would say, oh, Jesus never said anything about homosexuality, so what's the big deal? Well, I show what he really did say about those matters. And then finally, even when Protestants misunderstand Jesus, like that Jesus is a prosperity preacher, he wants you to be wealthy, or that Jesus would condemn Catholics to hell for not worshiping him correctly. I go through all that in the book,

Starting point is 00:51:39 and you can get that at shop.catholic.com. Once again, the name of the book is Counterfeit Christ's How to Find the Real Jesus Among the Impostors. Looks awesome. Yeah, thanks for all your work doing this. This is terrific. How many books is this now? 40? 50? We're getting up there. You're the new Peter Kreeft. Yeah, well, I don't think I'll ever catch up with him. It's the paradox of infinity. I take one step forward, he writes three more books. This would be book number eight. I think Peter Kreeft has written like 80 books. So maybe, and he's still writing, so maybe one day, but yeah, I think this is book number eight. Terrific. Well, thanks for all your work, Trent. And then your podcast, it's so exciting to hear that you're going to be doing some more

Starting point is 00:52:17 debates and things like that, the Council of Trent, hey? Yeah, so that's available at trenthornpodcast.com. You can get it for free on iTunes and Google Play. If you're a premium subscriber, you get access to things like my Catechism Study Series, bonus episodes, being able to suggest show topics, correspond with me. But yeah, so we're doing, you know, we do all kinds of things about theology, apologetics, but hopefully here over the summer, I've already lined up a few guests. We're going to transition into having once a week a debate or dialogue with someone who is not Catholic. And so there'll be debates or chats, you know, it'll run the gamut. Most of the people who are Protestant and even not Christian. And so I'll be letting people know those will probably start here around June or July as we begin taping here at the end of spring. Cool, man. Well, thanks for all your work and God bless. Thanks for being on the show and happy Easter. Oh, happy Easter to you too, Matt. All right, sweet. Thank you so much for tuning into

Starting point is 00:53:14 Pints with Aquinas. Do you know that when you review Pints with Aquinas on iTunes, that actually really helps us? I didn't realize that it did in the beginning. I heard people saying that you should try and get ratings, but I didn't really know why. But someone just told me that when you review Pints with Aquinas, it's more likely to be shown when people listen to similar podcasts. So just by reviewing Pints with Aquinas, you could be responsible for somebody coming across our website, maybe becoming Christian, maybe becoming Catholic. I've certainly got a ton of emails from people who attribute their conversion to the Catholic faith because of little old pints with Aquinas. So if you want to help me out and this work of evangelization, please review us

Starting point is 00:53:55 on iTunes. Give us a five-star review. We really appreciate it. Be sure to check out Trent's book like we talked about, and thank you to all of you who support me on patreon and if you want to again it won't take you more than a couple of minutes go to patreon.com slash matt frad you'll see all the free stuff i'll give you in return for being a great supporter cheers bye And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you And I would give my whole life

Starting point is 00:54:48 To carry you, to carry you To carry you, to carry you To carry you you There were birds in your tears falling from the sky into a dry river bed that began to flow down to a cross tower and high up above the water

Starting point is 00:55:23 and maple trees surrounded It leaves caught flame With golden embers

Pints With Aquinas - 155: 5 reasons Christ rose from the dead, W/ Trent Horn

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