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Against All Odds

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Against All Odds

Category Archives: Resurrection

The Future of Humanity as Contained in the Humanity of the Son of God

11 Thursday Aug 2022

Posted by Prime Theologian in afterlife, heaven, Jesus, Resurrection, Transhumanism

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What is in store for humanity in the Resurrected World? Asked differently, what is the future of humanity based on humanity’s unity to the Son of God? What do the transhumanists want for humanity? I recently added an entire page onto my website where I outlined “Son of God Human Supremacy” as a counternarrative to the dystopic destiny the transhumanists want to design for humanity. In that outline, I mention “affirmations” and “rejections” and I want to explore the first of those a bit more here. Specifically, “We reject this world as it is, destined for futility; we accept only the world to come as encapsulated by the Resurrection of the Son of God.” There is a lot in these several clauses, so let’s get into it.

We reject this world as it is, destined for futility . . ..”

Son of God Human Supremacy

This world is amazing — its beauty, its complexity, the range of discovery to be had, etc. — but the scope of the influence of death, evil, and dismay, is not so easily ignored. I used to believe this world was filled with more good than evil; I suppose I still think this if I include the goodness of being itself, nature, beauty, etc. I doubt this though if I only consider human “goodness” vs. “evil.” In some sense, even from my personal experience, each of us seems to be a kind of microcosm of the ebb of futility that likewise infects this entire cosmos. My freewill complicates matters to begin with (please tolerate me my Calvinist friends): that I have a choice does not translate to making more right choices than wrong ones much of the time. Consider then the idea of “flesh” from Scripture: “flesh” indicates human weakness, limitations, human error. If this combination of “flesh” and freewill did not complicate things enough, we must also contend with God’s curse from Genesis 3 and God’s associated judgement against the world itself to be subjugated to futility. To summarize God’s curse off the cuff, it states that man and woman’s relationships would be contentious, that labor would be painful, that procreating would entail suffering, and that the earth (dirt) would be difficult to work with when trying to collect resources from it (e.g., food). The last part of the curse likely entails the “subjugation” of creation to futility. Potent comments on this from Romans:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Romans 8:18 – 22


Its funny that citing the Bible often produces such rich material for other tough, tough issues; verse 18 can be used as a response to the problem of evil although those more philosophically minded will complain that it is not verifiable. If the magnitude of the goods of “glory” is tremendously larger than the evils produced during the same time period, the problem of evil might be offset by goods not yet existing to put on the scale. Let’s leave that lie since I am digressing. The creation is waiting for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed (not the Son of God) since its resurrection is tied up with the resurrection of all those men and women who love the Lord Christ. P.S., for anyone thinking, “why did God have to curse it anyhow?” The curse states what will be but its causality or agency (how it comes to pass) could take very different paths: (1) God’s immanent presence that prevents certain measures of evil is/was withdrawn, (2) God merely describes how the world will look when evil is given an enduring seat, (3) God directly does what He curses, or (4) a combination. I’ll let you decide, but the Genesis 3 text is mixed with God saying “because you did this” and “I will do this.” God’s subjugation of the creation is done in hope; and that hope is found precisely in the resurrection of the sons and daughters of God, whose resurrections are dependent upon and within the Resurrection of the Son of God. It is at that time that the creation will be set free from futility and corruption. Rust, decay, corruption, all these are shorthand for the law of entropy, that this creation is on a crash course with the void, emptiness.

This is the world as it currently is, and it is this world that we reject; this rejection is a mimesis of God’s rejection of this world. The Son of God’s mission to eradicate death is a thunderous statement of God’s rejection of this world. This world must end. To perpetuate this world as it currently stands is an effort in futility, a superfluous labor built from hubris. The transhumanists, the enemies of humanity, seek to extend life in this damned world. Much as the false prophets of ol’ who would always say “peace, peace,” the transhumanists proclaim, “immortality, immortality.” As a Son of God Human Supremacist, I can only calmly repeat myself in saying that if there is no future for this world, there most certainly is no future for humanity. The revival is incomplete if the cosmos itself is not revived, reworked, and reconstituted around a principle of Life instead of death (its current state). If you need reminded that death is the principle at play in this cosmos, just look out into space. It is horrible in its cold, in its void, and in its hostility.


Before I forget, God thought the idea of “living forever” while in a world marked by death was such a bad idea that God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden so that they could not eat from the Tree of Life and live forever in “sin and death (Gen. 3:22 – 23).” The transhumanists, globalists, the World Economic Forum elites, they have no such access to a Tree of Life; the immorality they offer is only a decaying world of corruption on a countdown to energy-less ruin. All this leads us to “accept only the world to come as encapsulated in the Resurrection of the Son of God.” Now this is a plan. If you need to sell me based on the potency of a narrative, give me the Gospel and this Resurrection; the transhumanists’ gospel is nothing more than marrying you to a world demarcated by death more each day. You may wonder why look to the Resurrection of the Son of God as the locus of hope for a new world. Aside from the many Scriptural citations I could offer, let me tie the theology of the Spirit together with the Resurrection. The Spirit is the life-Giver as evinced in Genesis 1:2 and 2:7. The Spirit is eternal and He made little “s” spirits, which are you and me, and He designed them to have a contingent or dependent eternality. The Spirit was there when the world was fashioned; He was there when the first human spirits were fashioned. Leaving the Trinity aside for now, the Spirit is the same fountain who was there when Christ was resurrected. With that resurrection, the principle of death was ousted, defeated, and made ineffectual. That Spirit who made the world is now there remaking the world, and that same Spirit unites redeemed humanity to this “resurrected locus” in the risen Christ.

The Resurrected Son of God is the microcosm of things to come; it is the initial demonstration before the full line of production starts up. Thus, rejection of this world centers down on the rejection of a world utterly scarred by death; the acceptance of the world to come is the acceptance of a world centered on the life-Giving Principle, as clearly marked out by the Resurrection of the Son of God.

I am the Resurrection and the Life.

John 10:25

Jesus meant this literally, hard as it is to understand. He is the new world even as we reject the present one.

Dr. Scalise

Refuting the Theory that the Disciples had Hallucinations of the Resurrected Christ: Licona, Habermas, & Collins’ Critiques

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Prime Theologian in Apologetics, Defending Resurrection of Jesus, Hallucinations, Historical Issues with Resurrection, Resurrection

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Apologetics, Christ, Collective Hallucination, Hallucination Theories, Resurrection

Some have tried to deny the truth of Jesus’ resurrection by claiming that the apostles hallucinated. There are many problems with such a claim, not least among them the fact that multiple groups at multiple different times claimed to have seen the risen Christ. Those who would claim such are forced not only to claim that an apostle hallucinated, but that groups of people hallucinated, that groups of people hallucinated the same thing, and that groups of people hallucinated the same thing at different times. Is this sounding plausible? It is not, but let’s look at problems with the hallucination theory of explaining away the apostles and others’ claims to have seen the risen Christ more closely.

1) There is very little evidence—if any because collective hallucination accounts are not currently well researched enough, because of lack of occurrences, to have any real credibility—that collective hallucinations occur (Habermas, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 11).

2) Hallucinations are private accounts stemming from an individual’s mind (Gary Collins cited in The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 11, by Habermas).

3) Belief, expectation, and excitement are the underpinning psychological conditions for hallucinations. The disciples were distraught and disappointed after Jesus’ death by crucifixion and so the hallucination of him alive when Jesus reportedly appeared to them is improbable (Habermas, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 11).

4) The variety of persons, places, and times, supposing them to all have had the same hallucination stretches credulity to the breaking point. Not only are no collective hallucinations well evidenced to even believe it happened once, but now it is supposed to be believed that it happened in multiple places, to differently composed groups, and at different times, but the hallucinations all agreed with one another. If this is possible, the chances are infinitesimally small. On the principle of analogy, that is, that present experiences are the same as those same experiences in history, collective hallucinations become even more dubious. At least with Jesus’ resurrection, the principle of analogy provides resuscitations as a pale event analogous to resurrections; analogous because renewed life comes forth but the quality of that renewed life differs: i.e., Jesus’ recreation/renewed life takes life (back) to its original dimensionality achievable in the garden (eternal; “tree of life”) whereas resuscitation is renewed life but only for limited time (until death takes them again) (Habermas, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 11; this mixed with my extended thought on the matter).

5) Hallucinations are not well documented to transform lives (Habermas, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 11). Why did the disciples live radically different from their depressed state after the crucifixion? It is unlikely that a hallucination would produce the kind of vigor and commitment the disciples had in the proclamation of the Gospel if they knew that it was false. This is very important. Many people will die for what they believe in, but the disciples, if they just had hallucinations, went on to die for what they knew was false.

6) James and Paul were not “believers” and so were certainly not in a frame of mind to hallucinate Jesus raised (Habermas, The Risen Jesus and Future Hope, 11).

7) Other supposed “supernatural events” in the gospels would have to be explained by means of group hallucinations (on naturalistic presuppositions) as well, like the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus’ walking, or even the water turned to wine. But in some of these cases there is a critical realism (e.g., eating fish and bread) so dramatic it would be fantastic to suppose that they did not actual eat anything (Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 571 – 572).

Kerygma of 1 Cor. 15:3 – 7 functions as an early creed not only shows what those mentioned in it and the 500 others thought but much broader to be a received tradition among all those in the early church, beginning likely in Palestine shortly after the resurrection (Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 573).

8) If hallucinations did occur, why did not the Jewish leaders just point out or produce the body of Jesus to defeat the growth of Christianity?

9) The Marian and source (Belinda Gore, Ecstatic Body Postures) which Pilch cites are more dissimilar than similar to the appearances in the gospel and so fail to account for the appearances there that they claimed to be able to explain (Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 574).

10) Neither Craffert or Pilch provide any “reports from the social sciences of a group of individuals” objectively interacting with an individual (i.e., the resurrected Jesus) by means of speaking, eating with, or touching (Licona, The Resurrection of Jesus, 575).

Dr. Scalise

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