A few years ago, a very influential philosopher named John Searle wrote a book called The Rediscovery of the Mind. Searle is a philosophical naturalist, and as such he has no room for God or anything else supernatural. In his book, he comments on the reactions he receives when people realize that in his worldview there is no God, no soul, and no afterlife. He writes, "When we encounter people who claim to believe [in God], we may envy them for the comfort and security they claim to derive from these beliefs, but at bottom we remain convinced that either they have not heard the news or they are in the grip of faith."

Searle continues, relating a time when he lectured in India and some in the audience objected due to their belief in the afterlife. Their objections did not move him one bit, he says, because their beliefs simply were not "serious candidates for truth." In other words, once you move beyond the material, all you have are pie-in-the-sky fantasies rather than facts.

For some of you, Searle's beliefs may seem shocking. But to those of you familiar with the trends in higher education over the last few decades, this is standard fare. Many will not discuss belief in God or supernatural events because they have already decided, a priori, that things of this nature cannot exist. To put it simply, the existence of all things is due to the purely physical processes of evolution, so there cannot be anything besides matter. People can believe in God or that the moon is made of green cheese if they want to, as long as we all recognize that to be faith, rather than based on reality.

We have been discussing the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Perhaps you are wondering, what does John Searle's book have to do with the resurrection? More than you might think. This drift in academia that I have roughly outlined has incredible consequences for beliefs in events such as the resurrection. Indeed, naturalism has changed the very rules of the debate!

How? If you attend a debate on the resurrection these days, often the opponent will not even argue against the historical record, as you might expect. Instead, he almost ignores the entire topic, and argues that a supernatural belief should not even be considered a viable option for a rational person.

Can a rational person believe in a supernatural event such as the resurrection? Give it some thought, my friend, as we continue to consider this.