Applying this to the resurrection, I can describe a body of very ordinary documentary evidence that, if it were discovered, would convince me that Jesus of Nazareth was seen alive by his disciples after his execution. Whether I would infer from that that he was God's only begotten son is another issue, but let's take this one step at a time. I am in no way obliged to accept his divinity until I am first convinced of his resurrection.
Many apologists say that (a) there is no great likelihood that the documentation I want would have been produced, and (b) even if it had been produced, there was little probability that it would have been preserved. In other words, they suggest, for this miraculous claim I am asking for miraculous evidence.
I don't agree that the creation and preservation of those documents would have been improbable to the point of miraculous if the resurrection had in fact occurred, but that's really beside the point. The point is that their existence would have required nothing like the sort of divine intervention that presumably effected the resurrection.
The documents I'm talking about could have been produced in the ordinary course of events. People see things and they write about them. We know it happens. It is part of the common experience of humanity. If it had happened in this case, then those writings could have been preserved the same way all other surviving documents from the past have been preserved.
But let us now stipulate the improbability of there ever having been such evidence of the resurrection or of its having survived into modern times. One of the following must then be true.
- The documents never existed because the resurrection never happened.
- The documents never existed because, although the resurrection happened, nobody who knew about it wrote anything about it at the time.
- The documents were produced but were not preserved.
- The documents were produced and still exist. They will be found someday, but nobody knows where or when.
The apologists claim that #2 is most likely and #3 a possibility. I assume they allow #4 as a theoretical possibility, but they certainly aren't holding their breath.
Anyway, evidence not known to exist must, I would suggest, be treated as nonexistent. We are obliged to base our beliefs only on evidence known to exist. We can always change our minds when the evidence is actually discovered.
That is what I hope I would be honest enough to do if those documents do get found. But they have not been found, and as far as anyone today knows they never will be.
Now some apologists raise an odd argument at this point. We have stipulated the improbability of there being such evidence even if the claim were true. According to those apologists, if evidence for a claim is prima facie unlikely to exist, then I am not justified in rejecting the claim on grounds of insufficient evidence.
But why not? The logical relevance of evidence has nothing to do with the probability of finding it. A belief cannot be supported by nonexistent evidence, no matter what the reason for its nonexistence. If a claim is extraordinary, and the known evidence has an ordinary explanation, then Occam's razor rules against the claim.
The apologist will say that in following this reasoning, I am ruling out a chance at eternal life. Actually, that does not logically follow, but even if it did, it's a risk I am obliged to take. "If you don't believe X, then something bad will happen to you, therefore X is true" is fundamentally fallacious. It cannot justify belief in any X, never mind one that looks improbable on its face.
None of this means that an extraordinary claim must be false if its proponents cannot produce the evidence skeptics ask for. A truly scientific rationalist would never argue, "You haven't convinced me, therefore you must be wrong." But still less can the believer argue, "I could be right, therefore you must be wrong."
We're talking here about justification for one's own beliefs, not about a standard under which any of us is entitled to demonize those who disagree with us. Not that there aren't plenty of skeptics as well as believers who deserve some demonizing. Like any other tool, the methods of critical thinking are susceptible to abuse by those unskilled in their use. But the appropriate remedy is not to blame the tool.
Bio: The writer was a Christian for 13 years, about half of them as an evangelical fundamentalist. His professional background includes electronics, construction, social work, retail sales, and journalism. He is currently a college student majoring in philosophy.
