Is It Rational to Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus?
Millions of Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Is this a sign of a widespread delusion or is such a belief rational?
No doubt, there are skeptics who see belief in the resurrection as irrational. That is fine. I respect their right to believe that.
It is true that it is not common for people to rise from the dead and any claims of such a return from death would make most people skeptical.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, rational means “based on clear thought and reason.”
While there are Christians who believe in the resurrection because that is their tradition or because clergy teach them so, there are others whose believe is “based on clear thought and reason.”
For myself, belief in the resurrection is based on the number and variety of witnesses, resurrection claims being in the earliest parts of the New Testament, and the role of resurrection in the birth of the Christian church.
My skeptical friends will want to stop me and say: “There are responses for each of those reasons!”
I know that there are. But here I am not claiming that the resurrection of Jesus is true. I do believe that the resurrection is true but here I am aiming for the more modest goal of the rationality of resurrection belief.
People who are considering the Christian claim that Jesus rose from the dead should look at the evidence. While there are some Christians claim to be able to prove that Jesus rose from the dead, I take the position that we can at best examine the evidence and decide based on what we take to be most likely.
I believe that there are rational skeptics who reject the resurrection and rational Christians who accept the resurrection. There are also irrational skeptics and Christians.
However, belief in the resurrection of Jesus itself is not an irrational claim. Thoughtful people have looked at the reasons and have accepted it for centuries.
I have not talked much about faith. Faith is not intrinsically irrational either. While there may be aspects of Christianity that are taken just be faith, I do not think of belief in the resurrection as a blind leap of faith. It may actually be a rational leap of faith.
