Resurrection: Why it’s not ridiculous

Here’s a helpful explanation for why the resurrection isn’t automatically ridiculous, from Paul Perkin, once a theoretical physicist and now vicar of St Mark’s Battersea.

• You can’t break the laws of nature: and the laws of nature are pretty clear on the finality of death.
• But in unusual or extreme conditions (like travelling at the speed of light, the beginning of time, absolute zero temperature), the laws of nature don’t actually work. There are different laws in operation in these kind of circumstances.
• If God lived in the world as a man, those are pretty unusual conditions. So we’d expect the laws of nature to change. We’d expect the way God entered and exited this world not to fit within the “normal” laws of nature.
• And so a virgin birth or a resurrection stop being ridiculous notions, and become pretty reasonable.

Of course, just because Jesus could have risen doesn’t mean he did. Which brings us onto the wealth of historical evidence for his rising from the dead…

That strikes me as an answer which begins where most people are at, and helps people to see that you don’t have to rule resurrection out as an sensible explanation.

You’ll be able to watch Paul’s full answer, as well as many other great answers to common objections to Christianity, on the new evangelistic Christianity Explored website, which is set to be launched in April along with the new CE DVD and books.