Resurrection Series- Part 5: Psychological Problems?
Welcome to part five of our resurrection series. Please see all preceding parts before reading this one to get a better understanding of what is being discussed. Today, we will talk about the psychological objection to the Resurrection -- the idea that the disciples had some sort of disorder which caused them to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Some like to claim that the disciples experienced some psychological event, and therefore they claim that they saw the risen Christ. Let’s define some of these terms. Illusions are a distorted perception of something, hallucinations are “false perception[s] of something that is not there” (page 105), and delusions are false beliefs when there is evidence to the contrary. For the sake of argument, lets look at each of these as they would apply to the disciples, using an illustration. Suppose a widow’s husband has just died. A delusion would be for her to deny that her husband has just died despite the fact that he did – the...