In St. Jude 1:3, we read, "Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." [Emphasis mine]. Contending For The Faith is a series of posts dedicated to apologetics (i.e., the intellectual defense of the truth of the Traditional Catholic Faith) to be published the first Monday of each month. This is the next installment.
Sadly, in this time of Great Apostasy, the faith is under attack like never before, and many Traditionalists don't know their faith well enough to defend it. Remember the words of our first pope, "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..." (1Peter 3:16). There are five (5) categories of attacks that will be dealt with in these posts. Attacks against:
- The existence and attributes of God
- The truth of the One True Church established by Christ for the salvation of all
- The truth of a particular dogma or doctrine of the Church
- The truth of Catholic moral teaching
- The truth of the sedevacantist position as the only Catholic solution to what has happened since Vatican II
In addition, controversial topics touching on the Faith will sometimes be featured, so that the problem and possible solutions may be better understood. If anyone had suggestions for topics that would fall into any of these categories, you may post them in the comments. I cannot guarantee a post on each one, but each will be carefully considered.
Proofs of the Resurrection
There are numerous attempts by the enemies of Christ to deny His physical resurrection from the dead.
There are four (4) basic arguments to explain away Christ's resurrection: (1) it was a hallucination of the Apostles; (2) the Apostles created a myth-- they did not mean what they taught to be literal; (3) the Apostles conspired to deceive the world; and (4) Christ didn't really die, he "swooned" and later fully recovered.
In this post, I will refute the so-called "Hallucination Theory." (N.B. The information contained in this post comes from myriad sources, both in print and online. I take no credit other than condensing the material into a terse and readable post---Introibo).
What is the Hallucination Theory?
The Hallucination Theory attempts to account for the testimony to the resurrection of Jesus by claiming both auditory and visual hallucinations on the part of Jesus’ disciples. Proponents of this view claim that Jesus’ disciples really did “see” Jesus, but that these sightings were merely hallucinations in the minds of Christ’s followers, not genuine encounters with a resurrected man. The hallucinations, or sightings, are claimed to have happened repeatedly and are said to have been so vivid as to convince Christ’s followers that Jesus actually had risen from the dead.
The advantage of this proposal is two-fold. First, the proponents of this theory need not engage the impressive evidence for the life-changing transformation of the disciples based on their newfound belief in Christ’s resurrection. Rather, the skeptic can grant that there were “appearances” of some sort without conceding the occurrence of a miracle. The second move is to then explain these “appearances” as subjective hallucinations, events that took place only in the minds of the disciples.
As a result, the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus Christ are dismissible. After all, if you thought you saw a dead man walking and talking, wouldn’t you think it more likely that you were hallucinating than that you were seeing correctly? Why then not think the same thing about Christ’s resurrection?
The Hallucination Theory misses the mark as a suitable alternative to Jesus’ resurrection as it fails to adequately handle matters such as the number of witness accounts, medical truths related to hallucinations, and the lack of explanation of other resurrection facts. This will be examined in the next section, with a closer look at the medical problems of claiming a hallucination accounts for Christ's resurrection.
The Problems with the Hallucination Theory
- There were too many witnesses. Hallucinations are private, individual, subjective. Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the disciples minus Thomas, to the disciples including Thomas, to the two disciples at Emmaus, to the fisherman on the shore, to James (his “brother” or cousin), and even to five hundred people at once (See 1 Corinthians 15:3-8). Even three different witnesses are enough for a kind of psychological trigonometry; over five hundred is about as public as you can wish. Paul says in this passage (v.6). that most of the five hundred are still alive, inviting any reader to check the truth of the story by questioning the eyewitnesses—he could never have done this and gotten away with it, given the power, resources and numbers of his enemies, if it were not true.
- The witnesses were qualified. They were simple, honest, moral people who had firsthand knowledge of the facts.
- The five hundred saw Christ together, at the same time and place. This is even more remarkable than five hundred private “hallucinations” at different times and places of the same Jesus. Five hundred separate Elvis sightings may be dismissed, but if five hundred simple fishermen in Massachusetts saw, touched and talked with him at once, in the same town, that would be a different matter. (See 1 Corinthians 15:6).
- Hallucinations usually last a few seconds or minutes; rarely hours. This one hung around for forty days (Acts 1:3).
- Hallucinations usually happen only once, except to the insane. This one returned many times, to ordinary people (Jn 20:19—21:14; Acts 1:3).
- Hallucinations come from within, from what we already know, at least unconsciously. This one said and did surprising and unexpected things (Acts 1:4, 9)—like a real person and unlike a dream.
- Not only did the disciples not expect a resurrection, but they also didn’t even believe it at first—neither Peter, nor the women, nor Thomas, nor the eleven. They thought he was a ghost; he had to eat something to prove he was not (Lk 24:36-43).
- Hallucinations do not eat. The resurrected Christ did, on at least two occasions (Lk 24:42-43; Jn 21:1-14).
- The disciples touched him (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39; Jn 20:27).
- They also spoke with him, and he spoke back. Figments of your imagination do not hold profound, extended conversations with you, unless you have the kind of mental disorder that isolates you. But this “hallucination” conversed with at least eleven people at once, for forty days (Acts 1:3).
- The apostles could not have believed in the “hallucination” if Jesus’ corpse had still been in the tomb. This is a very simple and telling point; for if it was a hallucination, where was the corpse? They would have checked for it; if it was there, they could not have believed.
- If the apostles had hallucinated and then spread their hallucinogenic story, the Jews would have stopped it by producing the body—unless the disciples had stolen it, in which case we are left with a conspiracy theory and all its inherent difficulties.
- A hallucination would explain only the post-resurrection appearances; it would not explain the empty tomb, the rolled-away stone, or the inability to produce the corpse. No theory can explain all these data except a real resurrection.
How Do the Modernists/Skeptics Respond?
When confronted with these objections to a hallucination, Modernists counter by arguing:
1. A resurrection is a miracle, and miracles do not happen (pre-supposing an anti-supernatural worldview). OR
2. The Bible is a myth that contains religious truths, a dead Man didn't literally come back to life.
In either case, they then conclude a hallucination is the best explanation. Is it really?
Hallucinations: A Medical Examination
The following section was taken from four primary (but not exclusive) sources:
Benjamin J. Sadock, Virginia A. Sadock, and Pedro Ruiz, Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry, Behavioral Science/Clinical Psychiatry, 11th ed. (2015), pgs. 452–53.
Bryan Teeple, Jason Caplan, and Theodore Stern, “Visual Hallucinations: Differential Diagnosis and Treatment,” Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 11 (2009): 26–32.
Colm Owens and Simon Dein, “Conversion Disorder: The Modern Hysteria,” Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, 12 (2006): 152–57.
Naomi M. Simon et al., “Informing the Symptom Profile of Complicated Grief,” Depression and Anxiety 28 (2011): 118–26.
---Introibo
A hallucination is an experience involving one or more of the five senses in the absence of external stimuli that the conscious mind perceives as real. Most proponents of the hallucination hypothesis overlook the fact that hallucinations are symptoms of an underlying illness. Hallucinations generally arise from three disease categories: (1) psychophysiological causes related to an alteration of function or structure in the brain (a brain tumor, for example); (2) psychobiochemical causes due to alteration of chemical neurotransmitters within the brain (for example, delirium tremens in alcohol withdrawal); or (3) psychodynamic causes, namely the intrusion of psychiatric illness into the conscious mind.
However, could Jesus’s disciples have all simultaneously suffered severe medical or psychiatric illness? This contention defies reason and probability. In Jesus’s time people with psychiatric illness were ostracized and considered incompetent or demonized. Could a group of people with uncontrolled psychiatric illness have deployed such a rapid and successful expansion of Christianity in the first century? This hardly seems plausible.
It must not be overlooked that hallucinations are private experiences occurring only in the milieu of the individual’s brain. No two hallucinations are identical from person to person. Two people cannot dream the same dream. As such, the Hallucination Theory offers no explanation for group encounters with the resurrected Jesus.
Mass Hysteria
Does mass hysteria explain group meetings of the disciples with the resurrected Jesus? In modern medical parlance, mass hysteria is more precisely termed mass sociogenic illness. This condition describes individuals within a group who have similar simultaneous collective psychological experiences, even visionary experiences in rare cases. The group dynamic is characterized by a heightened sense of collective excitement in the context of unique cultural or social expectation. However, Jesus’s disciples don’t fit that profile. They weren’t expecting his resurrection. They were frightened and in hiding (See St. John 20:19).
It is noteworthy that no two persons in a group experiencing mass sociogenic illness have identical visual hallucinations. This is not surprising since hallucinations are private experiences within the individual’s mind. Thus, mass sociogenic illness fails to offer a plausible explanation for group meetings of the disciples with the resurrected Jesus.
Conversion Disorder
In Freudian psychoanalysis, subconscious conflicts are sometimes “converted” into neurological symptoms, hence the term conversion disorder. Conversion disorder symptoms can be profound and can include blindness or paralysis. Symptoms are psychiatric, however, and lack identifiable pathophysiological causation.
Conversion disorder is twice as likely to affect women than men and is often associated with other psychological comorbidities. It results from a psychologically painful experience. For example, a mother who finds her child has drowned may become blind. People with conversion disorder show a peculiar lack of distress about their condition, a demeanor sometimes called la belle indifference. Nevertheless, conversion disorder has a generally positive prognosis. Neurological symptoms most often subside in days to a few weeks.
According to occult psychologist Carl Jung, the St. Paul had subconsciously been a Christian for some time but had repressed his true faith until it broke into his conscious mind, manifesting in a vision of Jesus followed by psychogenic (psychological-in-origin) blindness. Jung believed that Paul’s transient blindness after his Damascus road experience with Jesus (Acts 9:3–9) was a conversion disorder.
Jung’s idea that St. Paul simultaneously experienced visual hallucinations and conversion disorder is antiquated. Visual hallucinations are not part of the current clinical pathognomy of conversion disorder. To propose that St. Paul had hallucinations and conversion disorder would require dual diagnoses.
Additionally, St. Paul doesn’t fit the profile of someone suffering from conversion disorder. He had no misgivings or psychological turmoil about persecuting Christians (Gal. 1:13–14). He was a rising star in the Hebrew religious world of his day (Phil. 3:4–6, Gal. 1:14). Had Paul merely experienced a conversion disorder, it would be expected that he would resume his usual life activities once the symptoms had subsided.
Even Modernist scholars concede that St. Paul believed Jesus appeared to him bodily. This would be a peculiar lifelong belief had he merely experienced a conversion disorder. St. Paul made a lasting 180-degree change after he met Jesus. He became the most prolific proponent of Christianity to the Gentile world in his time, despite severe persecution and eventual martyrdom. He relentlessly preached of Jesus’s messiahship and resurrection from the dead. St. Paul’s radical, enduring change, prolific doctrinal writing, and Christian advocacy are inconsistent with the proposition that he experienced conversion disorder.
Bereavement
Hallucinatory symptoms during bereavement are common, most often experienced by a widowed spouse. Unlike hallucinations, bereavement experiences are psychologically mediated but are not considered pathological (related to disease). The most common experience is a sense of closeness with the deceased. Auditory and visual experiences can occur but are less common.
The rarest type of bereavement experience is visual apparitions. Visual experiences are reported to range from 4% or less but up to 10.8% in spouses suffering severe grief. Visual apparitions are typically noninteractive. Attempting to interact with an apparition causes it to disappear. Visual bereavement experiences would be doubly atypical among friends and disciples. Grieving the loss of a friend and mentor is dissimilar to the grief a widowed spouse may experience.
A widowed spouse is typically reluctant to disclose such experiences. It is noteworthy that bereavement experiences neither cause the grieving spouse to believe the deceased had resurrected nor inspire them to make any particular life change. Bereavement experiences often diminish in frequency over time but can persist in some cases for months or years. Unlike bereavement experiences, Jesus’s disciples saw him only within the forty days after his resurrection.
Meetings with Jesus included person-to-person visits, group and large crowd meetings, physical contact, eating together, and detailed conversations. Those who met him were convinced that he had resurrected. The disciples’ meetings with Jesus are simply unlike the psychological experiences reported in bereavement literature.
Conclusion
Jesus’s disciples experienced something that made them believe he had resurrected from the dead. The effect on each was profound and lifelong. Proponents of the Hallucination Theory seem unaware of the psychiatric and neurophysiological pathologies that cause hallucinations. The disciples’ belief in Jesus’s resurrection cannot be reasonably explained away as the result of psychiatric illness. Moreover, psychological phenomena offer no plausible explanation for the group meetings between the resurrected Jesus and his disciples. The Hallucination Theory fails to offer any tenable explanation for the disciples’ belief in Jesus’s resurrection.
