Resurrection
To get us ready for Holy Week, Peter Steinfels’ Beliefs column in today’s NY Times is devoted to how resurrection is treated in recent books by a Jewish, a Catholic, and an Anglican scholar, all of whom regard it as central to Jewish and Christian belief. Here is how St. Augustine described how resurrection was a counter-cultural notion in his time:
On no other point is the Christian faith so contradicted as on the resurrection of the flesh. He who was born to be a sign of contradiction (see Lk 2:34) raised his own flesh in order to respond to such an objector. He could have healed his own members so that their wounds would not appear, but he kept the scars on his body in order to heal the wound of doubt in the heart. On no other point is there such strong, such persistent, such obstinate, such contentious opposition to the Christian faith as there is on the resurrection of the flesh. Many pagan philosophers have argued at length about the immortality of the soul and in their many and various books they have recorded their opinion that the soul is immortal; but when it came to the resurrection of the flesh, they were steadfast in denying it. (Enar. in Ps 88-2, 5)
Based on Peter’s report, Wright is wrong about Dante. But I like what he says about the resurrection of Jesus as the unexpected beginning of the last days now: the first fruits of the full harvest to come.
Thank you for this post. After reading both Peter Steinfel’s piece and the Augustine reflection, I started wondering if the more gnostic/pagan attitude about the immortality of the soul is simply more credible to people today than is the idea of a divine restoration of the world. Modern science, which teaches us to think about both our earth and the universe in terms of billions of years, and which shows us natural forces that seem inexorable, either slowly or violently, does not seem to present a world amenable to sudden restoration. Theologically speaking, the theodicy problem seems to emerge quite strongly. Why, Lord, do you wait? I confess that it is much easier for me to believe in individual resurrection than it is the divinely achieved restoration.
One last thought. In many religious traditions that affirm reincarnation of some kind, the issue is not a separation of the spirit world from the material world, but simply a distinction between the two. Each is part of one reality. Thus, the belief in reincarnation is not a denial of the value of material reality; rather, it is simply a reflection on how the self relates to that material reality over time.
Ooops. That should read Peter Steinfels’s.
Thanks, Fr. Komonchak, for this important posting. I learned a lot from it and have forwarded it to my sons and their wives. This is the kind of Easter gift that is priceless. And of course I’m grateful that Peter Steinfels wrote this piece as well as for the scholarship of the authors mentioned in this article.
Reurrection is a main theme in Flannery O’Connor. No doubt that is one reason why she is so admired in our jaded culture.
So strongly do I believe in our essential materiality that it is my private belief that Purgatory will be right here on Earth, and it will begin somehow when we, in full body, will face not just the Lord but also all those whom we have injured. We will have to look them straight in their actual eyes when they say to us “Explain yourself.” And we in turn will ask the same of them. Right here, though not now. And we will have to forgive each other or be suspended in that Purgatorial state until we do.
No doubt it’s my New Orleans culture which inspired such a notion of embodiment — the culture that celebrates Mardi Gras the day before we have ourselves marked with dust, Or maybe southern Catholics generally are more likely to see ourselves as essentially embodied.
Joe,
The time and place we know now is only the time and place we know now. Science with all its necessities cannot explain the contingent — what might be otherwise. The world which science looks at might be otherwise in some other time, in some other *kind* of time. There is mystery, Joe, there is mystery. That’s why we need Revelation. By the way, do read O’Connor’s short story, “Revelation”. It’s about resurrection of the dead. It’s just about the greatest short-story I’ve ever read, if not the greatest.
See also Maurice Timothy Reidy -remember him – in the new America on this.
“Indeed, the miracle of birth seems like an especially good place to contemplate the miracle of resurrection. As a sage Jewish scholar once remarked, if God can create life out of nothing, then surely the feat of rebirth is not so unbelievable.”
I like this conclusion from Reidy. Conception to birth is still startling no matter how much it happens. Now you can even watch it on video. The Resurrection remains a matter of faith. It is hard to learn the how of this from revelation. Paul seems to come the closest when he describes it and still falls short saying that we know we will change bodily but how is still up in the air. Just what will that body feel and look like?
Clearly, we are dealing with theology in the resurrection stories. It is so difficult to put on the minds of a contemporary of the evangelists in understanding what metaphors they are using. Certainly so many supposedly wise theologians missed the import of Mary Magdalene in the stories. The later literalists just added to our confusion.
Yet we believe and urge the Lord to help our unbelief. Conception to birth is a riveting, fantastic image to support our faith.
Ann: I will read the story, however, I do doubt that it will convert me to any greater confidence in resurrection as you describe it. I actually believe in the resurrection, but strangely, not in the Day of the Lord, not in the final restoration of the righteous. Ultimately, seeking first the Kingdom of God is our great calling, and we can’t do that if God does all the work for us. Of course, I also think that it makes perfect sense of one to love God and neighbor totally even if we only have this one life to live, so maybe that is my real problem.
Joe –
My descriptions were only of what I suspect Purgatory will be. Heaven? Post-Purgatory? Even Dante can’t manage that. I tried reading the Paradiso years ago, and, frankly, it sounded just too ethereal to me. Maybe I should go back and try it again. But my *belief* is that nothing can positively describe what Heaven is beyond being the infinite degree of perfection of some of the Earthly things we already know.
It’s the metaphysical/psychological problem of transcendence — of what lies beyond everything we already know, the ultimate Other. but what constituters that Other is something we just can’t understand, much less imagine. Sure, we can say that God is the infinite perfection of all the positive qualities in creation, but that definition is only a recursive one — He is more, and more, and more … . It’s really quite an empty concept. And yet it has some sort of meaning, sort of the way shadows reveal what they’re shadows of.
So our resurrections will be not only in the-world-redeemed, but our lives will be lives lived in God’s level as well, the level that goes on, and on, and on, . . . because that level, that infinite dimension is God Himself.
Joe,
I should add that as far as I know my vision of Heaven is pure St. Thomas.
Ann, I cannot differentiate your vision from nothing. Perhaps I am blind.
The quotation I included from St. Augustine indicates that the idea of the resurrection of the flesh was no more credible in his time than in ours, and we all know the debates that took place at the time of Jesus himself. The affirmation of Christ’s resurrection, then, and of that promised to us was a deliberate one, one might almost say a self-conscious one, which had to be defended against those who reduced it to spiritual renewal, which, of course, is what St. Paul did in 1 Cor 15 where he both powerfully asserts the fact and the promise and confesses his ignorance about what this “soma pneumatikon” (spiritual body) will be like. All he can say is that it will be a body and that it will be given life by the Spirit rather than, as now, by the soul. The conviction and the caution are both remark-able.
Joe,
Yes, the concept of God which Aquinas proposes is “empty” in one sense. It seems to me it’s empty the way an algebraic formula is empty — “a+b = c” doesn’t tell us anything much about all the numbers it covers. On the other hand it tells us at least something about *all* of them — that they can be added and larger numbers generated. In a somewhat similar manner the “formula” for God is both empty in one respect and full in another respect: Consider:
(perfection A to the infinite degree) + (perfection B to the infinite degree) + . . . =
(the sum of all infinite degrees of all perfections)
Not only do we know part of the meaning “perfection A”, etc., (e.g., your love for your family) we also know the meaning of that very abstract term “+”. But “abstract” does not mean unreal. The meaning of “plus” can refer to something very real. Consider this: when your boss tells you you’ll get your usual salary plus a very large bonus, you know very well that “plus” in his statement has a very real meaning. So when we say that God contains perfections similar to our own “plus” more of them, the meaning is very real.
True, this formula doesn’t tell us fully what those infinite degrees consist in. It doesn’t even enumerate what all of the different kinds of perfections *are*. But the concept is *not* empty. Neither is it adequate to What God Is. Sigh.
Ann: My problem was not with the concept of the perfection of God. My debt to Whitehead and Hartshorne probably allows me more content to this idea than a good Thomist would be willing to grant. Rather, my problem was with the perfection of the flesh/world. I do not see how God could MAKE it happen, I do not believe that God WILL make it happen, in part because I have no idea what it would mean. Contingent realities with their own imperfect free will’s will always find ways to unintentionally and intentionally thwart each other. However, ultimately, I do not see why God should WANT the world to be perfected. This is why I have parted with my first great theological hero, Teilhard. His Omega Point seems ultimately contrary to God’s will. Why? Because I think the will of God is join with creation as it creates, and because creation is not God, it will never be able to create perfectly.
You frequently write of your opposition to Greek denials of contingency. I wonder if your description of perfection might fall under this same criticism. Within the perfection you describe, contingency does not seem to mean much.
Mr. Pettit:
That a created thing has reached perfection does not mean that it has ceased to be contingent. All creatures, imperfect or perfect, are contingent, need not be. But I imagine you are thinking of that group of contingent beings that are rational and free. I do not see why it should be a contradiction of freedom for such beings to be so united with supreme intelligibility and supreme goodness that no questions arise and their love has been elevated into supreme enjoyment of unqualified Goodness–and such love is utterly free. If love is not free, it is not love.
Amidst all of this, I kept thinking about the Pauline reading for Palm Sunday, which really encapsulates Lent.
So (“Have this mind in you,”)
(Jesus) who was In morphe theou did not think something to be grasped, bu temptied himself, taking the form of a slave… becoming obedient unto death, even death on a ctos… BECAUSE OF THIS, HE WAS GLORIFIED.”…
Fr. Komonchak: I appreciate the point you trying to make in your reply, however, two thoughts immediately come to mind. First, the conversation seems to have shifted somewhat from the “Lion shall lie down with the lamb” prophetic vision of the Day of Lord, the fulfillment of human history discussed above in relation to the resurrection to a more beatific vision, life in heaven kind of reality. My concern is to challenge the former, not the latter. Second, your reply reminds me of a place in one of Augustine’s replies to Pelagianism (my texts are at work, otherwise I would give you a precise citation) where Augustine speaks of a new kind of grace that we will receive in Christ, a grace that will create a state where we will be free, but we will also never sin. Then, Augustine goes on to ask a rather interesting question: Why wasn’t Adam given this kind of grace? While I admire Augustine’s willingness to ask the question, I confess that I have never found an answer in anything that comes after the question. Perhaps you could point me in the direction of an answer, as it seems to me a good question.
I didn’t mean my point to be simply about the beatific vision but a total fulfilment, perfecting of the human person in God. But you didn’t comment about my remark about contingency, and I wonder does it raise a question about the material universe?
I’m not familiar with the question you cite from Augustine, and so I don’t know where I could send you for an answer. At some point I imagine he appealed to St. Paul’s “O altitudo!” There are so many “Whys?” of this and similar sorts about this universe, including the one that begins the Psalm that Jesus cries out on the Cross.
Joe,
I don’t think that the Greeks *denied* contingency. I just don’t think they appreciated contingent things sufficiently. Contingency was the big fact that they wanted to account for after Parmenides “proved” that there is one Being and It doesn’t change because necessity requires that it not change. I also don’t think they solved all of the metaphysical problems concerning necessity and contingency, and neither did the medievals. However, I do think that Aristotle has shown that for there to be contingent things there must be a necessary one to account for their existence.
To me there has been an ancient and very fundamental problem in Christian theology concerning necessity and contingency, influenced as it has been by the Greeks. According to the most of the Greeks the necessary is what is most valuable, This is why science is superior to other knowledge — it is about necessary connections. In Christian theology God is described as existing eternally because His existence is necessary, non-contingent, could not be otherwise. But here comes the problem: Christ said the God *chose* to create the world — He did not *have to* create us, but He did. So where is the necessity there? Is He absolute necessity or not?
I like the answer of Avicenna, the great Muslim philosopher. He held that God created us necessarily because of what *HE* is, not because of what *WE* are. God must be *loving*, and His love necessarily “overflows”, and so He creates us contingent beings who have no *right* to be, but who do exist because God is Love.
I don’t see your objection to a perfect world. Granted, if there ever is one it won’t be because we made it without help.
By the way, I don’t consider myself to be a Thomist. I think Thomas is wrong about some basic metaphysical stuff, but I do call myself a scholastic.