How do Christians rebut Matt Dillahunty's objection that the resurrection of Jesus is untestable, unfalsifiable and thus unreasonable to believe?

Dillahunty's argument is self-refuting.

He commits the error inherent to all forms of verificationism. A simple, jargon-free description of verificationist principles would be: "you shouldn't believe anything that can't be demonstrated by science" (see the link above for a much more in-depth discussion of the philosophy).

The trouble is this: the statement itself--the statement "you shouldn't believe anything that can't be demonstrated by science"--that statement cannot be demonstrated by science! So by its own admission, it shouldn't be believed. As a result of its own self-contradiction, verificationism has long since been discredited.

Dillahunty does the same thing--he makes the claim:

But if we have a claim that is unverifiable, unfalsifiable, it is essentially untestable. And my foundation is that if you have an untestable claim, it'd better be mundane, trivial and consistent with the facts of reality before you should ever risk believing that it is in fact the case.

And yet his claim is unverifiable, unfalsifiable, essentially untestable, and decidedly not mundane. By his own criteria, he shouldn't believe his own standard. Neither should anybody else.

Appendix--other errors in Dillahunty's argument

God's evidence

From Dillahunty:

Well, the question is: if this story is true, then Jesus was divine, and God exists. And what sort of evidence could a God provide? God could provide the best evidence possible such that there would be no reasonable debate to be had at all

This entirely misses the point of Christian theology. His statement can be rephrased into the age-old question "why doesn't God just show Himself to everyone?" I offer an answer to that question on my channel here.

God didn't want to make it so that we had to believe; in fact, that would be quite at odds with His purposes (see link above).

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Was the resurrection falsifiable?

We could ask this question of numerous historical events--some of which are currently falsifiable through empirical means, some of which used to be but no longer are.

The weight of the apostles' claim is that it was empirically falsifiable at the time. All the enemies of Jesus had to do was produce His body, and Christianity is stopped dead in its tracks (no pun intended) (okay, maybe it was). Little wonder that they placed a guard at the tomb; little wonder that they invented a naturalistic explanation for the disappearance of Jesus' body--and yet in doing so, they provided corroborative hostile testimony (see Matt. 28:11-15). They wouldn't have had to invent a story to explain the absence of Jesus' body if it were available for examination.

The single detail of the Easter story that is found in all 4 Gospels--without variation or omission whatsoever--is that the tomb was empty. Christian theology does not work without the empty tomb. The Sanhedrin's own efforts to squash the story demonstrate that they knew it was empty, and all the scheming in the world couldn't get around this well-known fact.

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Dillahunty's foray into 1st-century medicine

You don't have a way to test for sure that somebody's dead. You don't have like x-rays, you don't have DNA.

At least three problems with this diagnosis:

• The claim that they didn't have x-rays & DNA is not falsifiable. Oops =)
• People did in fact have DNA at the time (if they didn't, Dillahunty's own worldview has some serious problems)
• The Romans did have at least 2 foolproof means of testing whether someone was dead: a) beheading & b) crucifixion. A person being crucified must push up with their legs in order to breathe (the "up position"), they can then release the pressure on their legs until they need to breathe again (the "down position"). If they are in the down position for 10-15 minutes, they're dead (see article by Habermas here).

And why exactly are we using x-rays to determine if a body is dead??? I'm curious how many coroners Dillahunty knows that do that.

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Scientism

Dillahunty's argument smacks of scientism--the worship of science. It is common for adherents of this dogma to exalt science and mock philosophy. The trouble is, science doesn't rest on a foundation of science, science (like theology) rests on a foundation of philosophy. Science & theology are variant, valuable means of exploring truth, but both require a set of philosophical assumptions in order to do anything at all. Scientism is just as dogmatic as any other religious doctrine.

(For example, if you're interested in a mind-bender: try proving that cause-and-effect is real. If this exercise proves unsuccessful, try doing science without a belief in cause-and-effect)

[Editorial insertion - my comments here appear to have ruffled some feathers; I believe it is worth clarifying 2 matters:

• I am not critiquing a belief in science; I am critiquing the worship of science
• For those who do choose to worship science, it is inconsistent to denounce those who worship something else for having beliefs that do not meet a standard, if one's own belief--scientism--cannot meet that standard either]

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Eyewitness Gospels

I explore this topic extensively in my video series here.

Several of the specific claims therein defended:

• The Gospel of Matthew was written by an eyewitness, in a time & place where his claims could be scrupulously fact-checked
• Claims that Matthew was written a generation (or more) after Easter presuppose naturalism and are circular
• All of the major theories on the Synoptic Problem have inconsistencies--the overwhelming evidence for the historical reliability of Matthew cannot be reasonably rejected on the basis of the underwhelming evidence for Markan Priority.

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The risk of erasing history

The statement there is no way to verify anything right down to, you know, the name or the date or anything is but a reassertion of verificationism, which was shown to be self-refuting above.

This statement is also vulnerable to a reductio ad absurdum that is beloved to historians. You see, Dillahunty's statement about the lack of verifiability could be made of any historical event (or if video evidence constitutes "proof"--which is itself a debatable claim--the statement could be made of most historical events). This extreme form of skepticism undermines history at its own peril.

Let's say we believe the statement in 1905 Einstein demonstrated the existence of atoms using Brownian motion (a very reasonable claim that is broadly accepted even by hyper-skeptical naturalists, by the way). But we have a problem. We cannot in fact falsify the claim that Einstein did this--this is a historical claim subject to the same lack of direct observation or repeatability as countless other historical claims. Like all statements about history (or all statements about history lacking video evidence, if you like), the best we can do is support this claim about Einstein through abductive reasoning.

If we reject this means of historical inquiry, we can reject along with it everything (or nearly everything, if you like) humans have ever tested or discovered through science. In this manner the naturalistic worldview demolishes its own foundation.

But if abductive reasoning is on the table, we certainly can establish names and dates related to the ministry of Jesus. One of Luke's trademarks is telling his readers who to talk to (by name!) in each town so the reader can go check the story.

As for dates, this video series contains my historical arguments that there are events in Jesus' ministry that can be dated with a high degree of certainty.

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Competing epistemologies

Quote: you are willing to accept that [something]...occurred based only on testimony, and I'm not.

Unless Dillahunty claims to have personally tested every view held by contemporary scientists, he too is accepting all manner of statements based only on testimony (and this includes some claims in the quantum realm that are decidedly not intuitive)

Quote: I will not accept that the physical understanding of the universe was suspended

This is a strawman if applied to Christianity generally. I can't speak for Horn's beliefs, but it is unnecessary to claim the natural order/understanding/laws of the universe were suspended to account for God doing something we cannot explain. This claim is the modern equivalent to a person from the 17th century crying "witchcraft" if they'd had the opportunity to examine a mobile phone.

If we are truly skeptical, shouldn't we acknowledge that just maybe there are things in this universe we do not yet know how to explain?

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Why do we believe?

I've argued elsewhere that the principal reasons people trust the testimony of the apostles are their fruits, their willingness to die, and the witness of the Holy Spirit.

The witness of the Holy Spirit appears to be the most widespread and enduring reason given for trusting the apostles: their words, preserved in the New Testament, have been ratified by the Holy Spirit in the hearts & minds of millions (if not billions).

Most Christians have probably never read 1 Clement chapter 5 (early evidence for Peter & Paul's deaths as martyrs); yet they believe the words of Peter & Paul based on their own personal experience engaging with the Divine.

Paul himself would doubtless be pleased:

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Cor. 2:4)

If Dillahunty believes that nobody in modern times has received direct, personal, Divine affirmation of the reality of the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, I would ask: are you sure?