ATHEIST NEED TO BE MORE CRITICAL

What should an atheist apologist do when facing not one, but two specialists in historical Jesus studies, and the topic is the resurrection of Jesus? Should he confront the evidence head-on, knowing perfectly well that the arguments he uses among his hyperskeptical friends are practically useless against people who’ve done the research? Or should he avoid the evidence by diverting the discussion to secondary issues, knowing that if he can’t refute the data, he can at least keep people sidetracked for a while? 

Many atheists would reject the idea that their arguments are useless against scholars; however, I don’t mean this as an insult. It’s a simple fact that there is often a tremendous gulf between popular arguments and scholarly critiques, and this goes for Christians as well as atheists. For instance, a pastor might give members of his congregation a basic Design Argument to use when discussing God’s existence with their skeptical friends. This may help them defend their beliefs, but it would be unwise to use the same argument in a debate with, say, Richard Dawkins. To debate Dawkins, better evidence and a far more sophisticated approach are needed. 

Similarly, an atheist apologist may give his readers a collection of arguments they can use when discussing the resurrection. But it would be quite presumptuous to think that such arguments would be effective against. While I grant that certain important objections may be raised against the resurrection, it’s no secret that practically all atheistic responses are utterly at odds with the facts we know about Jesus and his followers. (Note: If you just thought to yourself, “But we don’t really know anything about Jesus and his followers,” you now have a perfect example of a claim that is thoroughly rejected by scholars, despite what atheists get away with saying). Thus, if an atheist is going to offer a convincing response to the resurrection, he needs something more plausible than “Maybe Jesus passed out on the cross and woke up later,” or “Perhaps the disciples just hallucinated.”

The problem for atheists is that criticisms of the resurrection don’t get much better at the scholarly level. The arguments may become more sophisticated, but this doesn’t mean that they become more plausible. Nor does it mean that they account for the evidence any better. We may contrast this with, for instance, Design Arguments, which can be developed as rigorously as a scientist’s mind will allow. To put it differently, certain Design Arguments seem superficial, but on closer examination they turn out to be thoroughly grounded in science and reason. Criticisms of the resurrection, on the other hand, also seem superficial, but closer inspection only shows that they are superficial.

What, then, should an atheist do when discussing the resurrection with Christian scholars? I’m not sure what the best approach would be, but if I were still an atheist, I would probably go ahead and use the standard atheist responses, even though they don’t fare well under scrutiny.