We Can Prove Christianity Is True in a Court of Law!

Law professor John Warwick Montgomery observed: “legal reasoning operates on Probabilities, not possibilities: preponderance of evidence in most civil actions; evidence beyond reasonable (not beyond all) doubt in criminal matters.” (Evidence for Faith; Deciding the God Question, 332).

Here’s how probability determines truth in legal reasoning. Beginning with the unbiased assumption that defendants are innocent until proven guilty, our courts set out to determine the fate of the accused based on the evidence marshaled against them. For example, a civil case is won or lost based entirely on the “preponderance” of evidence. If 51 percent of the evidence is against the defendant, the person loses.

An even higher standard of proof (but still based on probability) is required in criminal cases. Suppose a murder has been committed and a suspect apprehended. The case goes to trial. Now to have absolute certainty that the suspect is guilty, the jury would have had to witness the crime. Obviously this is impossible; otherwise, the jury would be witnesses rather than a jury (and this still would not amount to absolute certainty—it is always possible the witnesses might all be mistaken).

What criterion does our court system use to determine the guilt or innocence of a defendant? The term is “proof to a moral certainty beyond reasonable doubt.” This means that there must be no other reasonable explanation for the crime other than that the accused did it. The prosecutor builds a case by presenting such an impressive and compelling amount of evidence that all other possibilities are eliminated. In short, the accused is sent to prison or even executed, not according to absolute certainty, but according to the preponderance of evidence. Moral certainty is not absolute certainty—there is always the remote possibility that the defendant may be innocent. But it is the highest level of certainty attainable in the area of legal proof. If the courts tried for a higher level of proof (i.e. mathematical proof), truth would be unattainable.

Legal reasoning as a means to determine religious truth is of tremendous value in two ways. First, Christianity is the only religion in the world in which its truth-claims can be tested by legal reasoning, that is, by evidences. All other religions require us to accept their tenets based either on the testimony of their founders and leaders (authoritarianism or rationalism) or on their own personal experiences. However, in all such cases, “testimony” is incapable of validating truth. As we saw in previous blog articles, religious authoritarians rarely, if ever, try to verify or defend their authority. Rationalists promote contradictory conclusions that flow from fallible human beings. And religious experiences may endorse religious truths, but in and of themselves, they are unable to give religious truth.

The second value of legal reasoning in the area of religious truth is that it provides a way to show unbelievers that absolute proof, in the mathematical sense, is not the criterion for ascertaining religious truth. Most unbelievers think they should be given 100 percent proof (absolute mathematical certainty) for the authenticity of Christianity. Yet this kind of proof is not available or even expected in our legal system. Legal decisions, like our day-to-day decisions, are always based on probability.

Let’s apply this to Christianity. A person demands absolute proof that Jesus rose from the dead. We point out that the Resurrection was an historical event and can’t be repeated. Thus it can’t be proven by experimentation and observation. However, we continue, we can prove the Resurrection in a legal sense. We do this by presenting all the evidence that supports the Resurrection and refuting all the naturalistic theories that argue against it. In other words, we show that the biblical explanation of the Resurrection is the paradigm that best explains all the facts (the empty tomb, the changed lives of the apostles, the beginning of the Christian church, and so on). If the preponderance of evidence supports the biblical claim that Jesus Christ rose from the dead (“proof to a moral certainty beyond reasonable doubt”), we are justified to accept this as absolute truth in the same way that we accept that people are guilty of a crime based on the preponderance of evidenced marshaled against them. In both cases, we have the highest level of certainty available in the area of legal truth. For all practicable purposes, we have “absolute” proof. If we reject the evidence for the Resurrection, to be consistent, no criminal will ever be convicted of a crime. ©