Investigators: Resurrection #2

Captain's Log: Table Time ~ Monday, August 25th, 2025 ~ Vespers

¹⁴ And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain... ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Second installment of our Investigators series tonight. We continue to prove that returning again and again to things is very profitable for children. The content was new tonight, but being our third evening in the series, they knew the formula and engaged well. 

I noticed the confidence around the table increasing. The resurrection is like this. As the objections line up and continue to be answered, and even embarrassed, confidence cannot help but increase. We answered the objection along five lines of argument.

(1) Hallucinations are private, but Jesus appeared to groups of people. (2) He also did so in different settings, which sounds more like the behaviour of a risen person than a hallucination.

(3) The appearances were also very physical (not imaginary), and we had our first look at Caravaggio's Thomas.

(4) The transformation of the disciples is better explained by a risen Jesus than a hallucinated one.

(5) And even if one is persuaded that the disciples hallucinated the resurrection appearances… What about the empty tomb? The hallucination theory, as well as the stolen body hypothesis, confirm that the tomb was empty. Even if Lucy Nation persuades us that Jesus did not appear to the disciples, she has not touched the fact that Jesus disappeared from His (now) empty tomb. 

We recited questions 11 and 12 of the catechism. I read 1 Corinthians 15 and prayed.