This is the second instalment in my series on Full Strength Christianity. This time we will look at the Resurrection of the Dead. When we read the Nicene Creed, near the end we find the phrase ‘I believe in the Resurrection of the Dead‘. This is so important, because without the resurrection of Jesus, our faith is ‘in vain’.
Hello! I’m a former atheist with a doctorate in a biomedical science who has a lot of experience making arguments from materialism. I think that it’s not merely materialism that has led many modern western churches to go all metaphorical on “I believe in the resurrection of the dead” and other faith claims. I think that it’s materialism plus accepting current scientific models for reality as the correct ones—a stance that privileges current scientific claims as eternally true and unchanging. This is a bit weird, since how science actually works is by making tentative claims that are always subject to revision or rejection. But as scientific claims are increasingly accepted in western culture as objectively true, and religious claims as (at best) relativistically true, I think that many churches have just run with that cultural understanding, and then try to square articles of faith with the “objective” truth of science, not really internalizing that scientific truths are the ones that are (according to science) the ones subject to change.
An alternative that I’ve embraced more as I’ve come to Christianity is to be more humble about our current scientific models, and know that there is much more that we do not know than what we do (or maybe ever will). So I can believe in Christ’s literal physical death and resurrection and also accept the limited scientific understanding we have of what it means to die, because I know that our current scientific understanding is incomplete.
God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Acts 2:24
There are those who say that the resurrection was impossible . God’s testimony is that it was impossible for Jesus to be defeated by death.
If Christ is not raised we are of all men most to be pitied. It is a pillar of our faith.
Hello! I’m a former atheist with a doctorate in a biomedical science who has a lot of experience making arguments from materialism. I think that it’s not merely materialism that has led many modern western churches to go all metaphorical on “I believe in the resurrection of the dead” and other faith claims. I think that it’s materialism plus accepting current scientific models for reality as the correct ones—a stance that privileges current scientific claims as eternally true and unchanging. This is a bit weird, since how science actually works is by making tentative claims that are always subject to revision or rejection. But as scientific claims are increasingly accepted in western culture as objectively true, and religious claims as (at best) relativistically true, I think that many churches have just run with that cultural understanding, and then try to square articles of faith with the “objective” truth of science, not really internalizing that scientific truths are the ones that are (according to science) the ones subject to change.
An alternative that I’ve embraced more as I’ve come to Christianity is to be more humble about our current scientific models, and know that there is much more that we do not know than what we do (or maybe ever will). So I can believe in Christ’s literal physical death and resurrection and also accept the limited scientific understanding we have of what it means to die, because I know that our current scientific understanding is incomplete.
I worked through some of my thoughts on this here: https://doctrixperiwinkle.substack.com/p/i-believe-in-the-resurrection-of?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2