Extraordinary Sophistry
Responding to a Common Claim Concerning the Resurrection of Jesus
“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” - Carl Sagan
Since the above quote was first uttered it has been repeated popularly (ad nauseam) by skeptics. I have most frequently heard this statement raised in regard to the Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth rose bodily from the dead. According to the above dictum the quality and quantity of evidence must be proportionate to the magnitude of the claim being made. Upon first impression this quote sounds sensible enough. It certainly sounds witty! Upon further inspection, however, the statement turns out to be a vacuous and unjustified sophism.
A “sophism” is a kind of immoral use of rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art and science of persuasion via the written and spoken word. Quintilian, the famous Roman orator and teacher of Rhetoric, placed emphasis on the “the good man speaking well.” In other words, he believed it was the duty of those who had acquired the skills of rhetoric to use their powers of persuasion for the good of their fellow men and not for evil or selfish gain. Christians should insist on this just as much, and more, than a virtuous pagan did because we are to be ruled by the love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:34-40).
Sophistry is the use of persuasion, through clever word play, towards some desired end, without regard for whether the means of persuasion is either true or just. Carl Sagan may have believed his own statement without any intention of committing a sophism (perhaps he simply failed to be adequately self-critical on the point). Nevertheless, most people who use this claim today use it as a “gotcha” because they find many Christians simply don’t know how to reply to it. This slogan is not repeated because the person saying it has thought it through personally and carefully (and in relation to other things they themselves may believe), rather, it is just a trump card to wield against enemies. It is a use of words as power detached from virtue and is therefore despicable.
Let’s consider the claim itself and show that it is actually an empty claim. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” One needs to define “extraordinary.” What counts as an extraordinary claim? Presumably what most people have in mind when they employ this sophism is anything generally labeled as “supernatural.” This is, however, an assumption in itself worth considering. The fact is, belief in God’s existence and miraculous activity has been the norm throughout history (and remains this way today). This in itself might make us question the claim that belief in the supernatural is extraordinary.
Even so, whether or not God’s existence or the possibility of miracles is rightfully considered an “extraordinary claim” may be set to the side for the moment. The bigger question in regard to this quote is not about which claims are extraordinary but, rather, what counts as extraordinary evidence. This is where the greatest bit of sophistry lies. Why? Because no one can give you a reasonable answer to the question, “What counts as extraordinary evidence?”
As it turns out, if you choose to play the game proposed by those wielding this quote from Sagan, you will always lose. Why? Because no evidence is ever extraordinary enough to satisfy those who wield the argument. They deem whatever the subject matter you are discussing (e.g. God’s existence, the resurrection of Jesus, etc.) to be so extraordinary that they cannot conceive of any evidence which would be sufficient to merit their believing it. This being the case, the claim is itself just a tool they are using to try to silence their opponents while claiming to have the intellectual high ground. It is disingenuous because the statement is not offered as a request for information towards the potential of changing their mind. They are not looking for justification to believe, rather, the statement is one of refusal to believe under any condition. No matter how much evidence you may offer they can simply declare it to be “insufficient” for such an “extraordinary claim.” Game. Set. Match.
People who use sophisms like these are unscrupulous persons who do not love the truth. They don’t have enough personal integrity to be honest about the fact that they are simply committed to unbelief towards certain propositions. Some people simply do not want to believe something is true and their volition limits what they are able or willing to believe. They don’t want to say it like that, of course. The reason why they don’t want to say this is obvious. It sounds rather anti-intellectual to start conversations by saying, “I will never believe something I don’t want to believe, no matter how much reason and evidence you present in its favor, because I don’t want to.” As anti-intellectual as that would be to say, it is far worse for those who hide behind slogans like the one under consideration. Why? Because they are not only being anti-intellectual but they are also being dishonest.
Let’s consider the claim a bit further. What kind of evidence can ever be presented to support anything at all? Is any evidence itself “extraordinary?” Again, we might speak of the quality of evidence and the quantity of evidence.
To some degree it may make sense to speak of the “quality” of a particular piece of evidence. This term still seems relative though. In a murder investigation the quality of a piece of evidence seems to refer to its relevance to the subject under investigation and its ability to persuade a jury towards some end. When a crime scene is processed the technicians collect and note as many details as possible about the scene, many of these lines of evidence will end up being unimportant to the case. The quality of any particular line of evidence is simply relative to the victim and the suspects under consideration and the establishing of what actually took place that resulted in the victim’s demise. The fact that the victim had an appointment in their calendar on the day of their death at 2pm is a piece of information. It becomes “good” evidence if it helps to establish something relevant to the case. Its quality depends on how crucial it is to solving the case. As far as quantity is concerned this is simply a numerical account of the facts which are considered relevant to the case. Together the quantity of information, along with the relevance of the information (quality), will determine the overall strength of the case based upon its persuasive power.
In a murder investigation if someone were to say, “that is an extraordinary piece of evidence” what would they mean by this other than, “that piece of evidence is very persuasive towards establishing someone’s guilt or innocence?” We might be able to say that some particular piece of information has more weight in demonstrating the truth of a particular claim. We might also prefer to have many pieces of information that seem to demonstrate the truth of the same claim (so we could prove our case from multiple angles). But that is all we can say about the quality or quantity of evidence. To call any of it “extraordinary” is just a personal appraisal of its ability to establish the probability of some claim (i.e. its persuasive power).
When it comes to claiming that Jesus rose from the dead what kind of evidence should we desire to have? We want the same kind of evidence we would use to establish any other kind of claim. Further, we should note that the claim “Jesus rose from the dead” really consists of two claims and not just one. The first claim is that Jesus died and the second is that Jesus was alive again after having been dead. Now, when you think about these two claims on their own it may occur to you that the individual claims are much more simple to demonstrate. It is not hard, after all, to demonstrate that someone is dead. It is also not difficult to demonstrate that someone is alive. The rub lies in the order of events. We are used to people being alive and then being dead, but we are not used to people being dead and then alive.
Nevertheless, the means whereby we might defend the resurrection hardly requires extraordinary evidence, it simply requires the same evidence that would be sufficient to establish death in a normal case and to establish that a person is alive in another case. The fact that the order is opposite of the norm is, in fact, the miracle which is meant to compel belief in who Jesus claimed to be (God in flesh). But the means to establish that this miracle is true merely requires the same kind of evidence we would normally need to establish that a person is dead and to establish that a person is alive. Nothing extraordinary required.
The fact of the matter is that Christians have more than sufficient evidence (both in quantity and quality) to establish the fact that Jesus was a real, living, human person in the first century. We Have more than sufficient evidence (both in quantity and quality) to establish that Jesus died by Roman crucifixion. Finally, we have more than sufficient evidence (both in quantity and quality) to demonstrate that Jesus was seen alive after he had died. So the question isn’t whether we have or need “extraordinary evidence” the question is whether people are willing to believe things that are not appealing to them when there is sufficient evidence or whether they would rather keep hiding behind sophistical arguments devoid of any real substance?
I have written some on the Evidence for the Resurrection before, but I would be happy to make some additional recommendations if you care to really dig in. What you will find is that there is plentiful evidence, of high quality, to establish that Jesus rose from the dead. This is an extraordinary truth no doubt, but it is established in the straightforward normal way you should expect someone to demonstrate that a person is dead at one point and alive at another.
Here is a list of books to dig deeper: