From the beginning of analysis, I find Michael Martin's attempts to assess the probability of the Resurrection to be thoroughly misinformed. Admittedly, it is no surprise that someone who thought that Jesus' injunctions against "swearing" were prohibitions of profanity (!) would make a number of serious mistakes assessing the resurrection's probability where the factors involve social and contextual matters relevant to Biblical culture. I find most or all of Martin's analysis to be misdirected, and so irrelevant to any argument I would make. To sum it up in points:

• Martin's assumption is that miracles are a "violation of the laws of nature" [46]. Yet this dichotomy, as I have said elsewhere, is an artificial, post-Enlightenment distinction. God resurrecting Jesus is no more a "violation" of nature's laws than one of us picking up a box is a "violation" of the law of gravity. While God's work may involve acts beyond our present (or practically possible) range of competence, the basic manipulation of matter and energy that the resurrection would have constituted is no more in violation of natural law than the picking up of a box. Miracles are merely God acting in nature as any person would.

  Thus Martin's argument against the probability of the resurrection, based on alleged "violations" of nature's laws, and any alleged confusion they may cause (to whom, we might ask, and to what extent proven valid?), fails.

• Martin refers briefly to his critique of the atonement; we found his analysis deficient some time ago, and it is now moreso since we have further developed our views of the atonement in light of agonistic social principles.
• Rather peculiar is Martin's point that "God could have become incarnated and have died for sinners on an indefinite number of other occassions" and thus there is "no a priori reason to suppose that he would have become incarnated and have died as Jesus in first-century Palestine. Indeed, given the innumerable alternatives at God's dispoal it would seem a priori unlikely that the incarnation and the resurrection would have taken place where and when they allegedly did." [49]

  Martin never explains why any of this is so. What particularly is "wrong" with the first century, or with Palestine, that makes these "unlikely" as a time or a locale? Has Martin performed some sort of "Turtledove Analysis" showing that God would more likely have chosen 16th century Bolivia for the incarnation and resurrection? Or 13th century BC Tierra del Fuego? Or 19th century India? Obviously one time and place had to be best; but barring any serious analysis of alternatives, Martin is merely blowing smoke and flashing mirrors. (My tech guy, "Sylvester," adds 6/13/05: I agree that Martin's point either is smoke and mirrors or simply misses badly. However, my feeling is that your answer could be better. Let's assume that God determined every part of the universe, including all future events. The universe could have been any of an innumerable alternatives to what it actually is and will be. If every alternative had an a priori equal chance of existence, then the universe at Jesus Christ's time nearly had no chance of existence (each of an infinite number of possibilities has zero probability). Yet we do have an universe to live in and it is this present one. "Bafflegab!" would be a good rejoinder to Martin's argument.

• Martin's comments on the purpose of the resurrection as being "redemption" [51] are misguided; but we shall say more of this in our reply to Drange.