It isn't scientific advances that make it difficult to believe in the resurrection. This has been a problem for centuries. John Calvin, the towering Reformation theologian of the 1500s, once admitted that it was easy to stumble over this doctrine. He said it is "difficult to believe that bodies, when consumed with rottenness, will at length be raised up in their season."

Calvin also recognized that, without God's help, faith in Christ's (or our) resurrection could not happen without the power of God. He wrote, "No one is truly persuaded of the coming resurrection unless he is seized with wonder, and ascribes to the power of God its due glory."