The Resurrection vs naturalism: Why speculation isn’t a defeater

By Marlon De Blasio, Op-ed contributor Saturday, March 28, 2026

It’s an ageless truism that Christianity requires faith of believers. In conversations with skeptics about Christian faith, I discovered that tensions always emerged from the subtle, all-or-nothing, demands of naturalism.

Throughout history, Christian thinkers have reasoned about a believer’s personal relationship with God by utilizing philosophy, Scripture, historical inquiry, experience, and even science.

Now I do realize that even rational Christian thought is ultimately predicated upon faith, but it’s an intelligent faith.

The Resurrection of Christ remains the make-or-break event of Christian faith, and by extension, its truth would falsify other religions. I remain deeply convinced that a Christian has “blessed assurance” by faith in what the resurrected Christ accomplished.

The Christian faith has always been defined as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” particularly the living Savior (Heb. 11:1). Even though the object of this faith is imperceptible, the believer’s conviction and experience of Jesus are intelligent. That is, the believer responded consciously to the Savior’s offer of grace by understanding what it meant personally, and then transitioned experientially from non-Christian to Christian. “The old has passed away,” wrote Paul, “behold, the new has come. All this is from God” (2 Cor. 5:17-18). Since its beginning, the proposition of God’s Good News has been intellectually digested and its salvific power experienced by people in every epoch worldwide.

If you think about it, the criticism that Christian faith is unsubstantiated has never been demonstrated. In Western thought and culture, views on Christian faith shifted notably when, in the 1800s, German biblical criticism began to influence American and British institutions. In his recent book, The Search for a Rational Faith, historian Daniel K. Williams noted how German skepticism “subjected each of the Gospels’ miraculous accounts to pages of scrutiny, surveying all of the skeptical German rationalist literature ... before ultimately concluding ... that they were legends that developed over the course of decades following Jesus’s death.”^[1] This theoretical thinking was imported by many Protestant denominations and universities, influencing liberalization and diluting Christianity.

So what were the actual defeaters of belief in the resurrected Christ, anyways? Exactly what? What conclusive evidence disproved the Resurrection? A pre-loaded naturalism suggested that the Gospel testimonies were probably fabricated in the era after Jesus. From this bias, views emerged that the witnesses lied about the Resurrection; the writers intentionally inserted supposed details to support belief; prophecy fulfillers were conveniently added; the Lord’s body was stolen; other conspiracy theories, and even that which is utterly grotesque to mention. Those are all speculations, not defeaters.

Nevertheless, the Christian worldview can still be falsified by naturalism. For starters, naturalism must explain explicitly within a detailed material framework, when, where, and how moral wrongdoing got distinguished objectively; show that matter also produced conscience and universal justice; and humanity’s inherent need for love and forgiveness. Theories that suggest it “could have,” “might have,” “perhaps,” “probably,” or “maybe” don’t qualify as actual defeaters, because they are speculative plays. Naturalistic frameworks must show the material work concretely and unequivocally in order to qualify as bona fide defeaters.

Evidence that the biblical writers colluded would also aid falsification. Have you ever wondered why there is no record that shows the biblical writers instructed each of their generations to tell subsequent generations to keep the God canard going? If biblical fabrication dispersed over 16 centuries were indeed the case, written evidence of collusion would exist somewhere. In truth, each generation relied upon its own genuine interactions with God as detailed by the biblical accounts. These accounts are also confirmed to this day by the ongoing intellectual and spiritual experiences of believers.

Then again, some skeptics insist that other religious writings also offer experiences. People can claim all sorts of experiences, but those don’t correlate to the resurrected Christ. If Christ rose from the dead, then the Christian experience of reconciliation with God is true and falsifies other religions.

Without actual defeaters, it’s perfectly reasonable for Christians to appreciate “blessed assurance” by their personal experience of grace that correlates intelligently with New Testament teaching. For 2,000 years, a Christian’s experience has identified exactly with Paul’s: “Since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:1). Justifying faith was accomplished by the resurrected Christ, and throughout history it has provided a distinct correlation in the lives of believers.

Naysaying rhetoric does not disqualify the “blessed assurance” of Christian faith that is established by the resurrected Christ. The Lord’s words have withstood the test of time: “I am the resurrection and the life ... everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25-26). Likewise a believer receives intellectual and experiential nourishment by Jesus, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). His teachings and accomplishments are imparted within believers as “God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6). Altogether, a believer knows intelligently and experientially that faith in the living Savior corresponds foolproof to biblical claims.

By 1873, modernity continued to make a lot of noise in the West. That year, Fanny Crosby expressed her heartfelt truth of the Christian faith by famously writing, “Blessed assurance! Jesus is mine!” Crosby’s lyrics revealed “a true heart in full assurance of faith ... without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:22-23). The natural mind has appreciated some biblical accounts of Jesus, but not the part about His resurrection. Indeed, the Resurrection is the game-changer, and hence the push-backs.

That’s okay. Skeptics will always be loved, and the Good News remains alive for everyone. Those who accept it will surely begin to sing a new song intelligently and experientially: “Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!”

1. (Oxford University Press: New York, 2026), 215.