The biggest objection to the resurrection is simply one of disbelief. The basic argument runs something along these lines:

1) People don’t come back from the dead in my experience

2) Therefore, no one comes back from the dead

3) Therefore, Jesus didn’t come back from the dead

It seems logically flawless to the proponent, but it misses one crucial point: the claim of Christianity is not that resurrection from the dead is normative, but that the resurrection of Jesus was a unique, one-time only historical event that single-handedly changed the entire course of history! Given its unique status as an event, using the argument that it hasn’t happened before or since to disprove the resurrection actually only adds weight to the counter.

Underlying many people’s doubts over the validity of the resurrection is the a prioriassumption that there is no supernatural realm; the natural world is all there is, and so there can only ever be a naturalistic explanation for any given event. If this is the case, then the sceptic is correct; there can be no supernatural occurrences in a purely natural world.

But the burden of proof lies with the challenger; they need to demonstrate conclusively that the natural world is all there is. But this is extremely difficult: naturalistic processes cannot explain self-consciousness, personality, the existence of free will, or our innate trust in our senses. So much of what it means to be a person is unexplainable from a naturalistic perspective: why do we have value? where does morality come from? how did life begin?

This task for the naturalist is impossible, so they have to concede that there might be a God. And if there is any possibility of God existing then they have to allow for the supernatural, and logically, resurrection from the dead.

Craig Keener argues in his book “Miracles” that the evidence for the supernatural is overwhelming: “hundreds of millions of persons alive today claim they have witnessed or experienced miraculous healings. One might disagree with all these claims, but one can’t simply arbitrarily exclude all the claimants from the modern world” (p205). He also shows that the quality of the eyewitness testimony is far higher than for many other claims which are widely accepted.

It is not possible to prove that Jesus’ resurrection did not happen. It is not good enough to simply write off the possibility because of an a prioriassumption; so why are many content to do just that?

It’s because of the consequences. The resurrection claims to be the most important event in history; and if it did happen then it is. Because you have to listen to the only man to defeat death, and some of what he said people don’t like. Ultimately everyone wants to be boss of their own lives, no one wants to be told that they are not the king. If Jesus defeated death then everything he said must be true, which includes all the uncomfortable parts about us being sinful and selfish. If Jesus defeated death then it means we have to radically change our lives. And no one wants to do that – so naturalism wins.