Saying some stuff about resurrection
“It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles. We may think we can manage it in our own lives, but to expect others to do so is to make the Christian faith unintelligible and unacceptable to the modern world.” — Rudolf Bultmann, ‘New Testament and Mythology.’
This famous quote from the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann is, to my mind, indispensable when trying to come to terms with what Christians mean when we talk about the resurrection. Bultmann’s point is that the world we inhabit at the present time — in terms of the kind of lives we live, and the ways we make sense of the world — is fundamentally alien to the world of the New Testament. This is not simply about a shift to the cultural mindset of a modern, Western, enlightened view of the world (though that is undoubtedly Bultmann's primary concern). Rather, the world of the New Testament is alien to every present way of inhabiting the world: whether we are shaped by Pasifika, African, East Asian, or whatever culture; and not just ethnic or cultural frameworks, but also sub-cultural, ideological, philosophical, and economic understandings of the world. To take one example, a committed communist who sees the history of the world as the history of class struggle does not view the world in the same way as the historical Jesus of Nazareth, and his first Jewish followers.
Bultmann's point, however, is not simply that we don't see the world in the terms of the cultural and historical moment of the New Testament; Bultmann's point is stronger: we simply can not see the world in this way.
With this in mind, whatever claims are made within the New Testament: sayings, stories, parables, teachings, miracles, must be translated and reinterpreted into our present view of the world in order to be meaningful. We can only ever encounter the world from our own perspective, and so, everything we encounter must be filtered through our perspective, which is rooted in our particular cultural and historical location. To be sure, what we encounter — experiences, new understandings, and so on — change us, and therefore change our perspective. Nevertheless we first and foremost encounter them from the perspective we currently have. (This process of reinterpretation and transformation of self and perspective is the process of hermeneutics.)
What is at stake when we think about the resurrection, then, always begins as an encounter which is filtered through our present perspective — our present view of the world. The sense in which the resurrection is “real” will vary depending on the view of the world's reality from which we begin. Our perspective about what it means for the resurrection to be “real” will be congruent with our general understanding of what reality is.
There are two parts to our understanding of the “reality” of the resurrection operating here.
First, there is the question of how we understand reality itself, or reality in general.
Second, there is what we mean by resurrection.
On the second point: if our understanding of resurrection is incongruent with our understanding of reality in general, then we are likely to conclude that the resurrection is “not real.”
These two aspects of understanding the resurrection are related. What we think the resurrection is may lead us to reinterpret how we view reality; at the same time, how we view reality in general may make us reinterpret what we think the resurrection is. (Notice again how there is a hermeneutic dynamic at play here.)
For example, if your view of the reality of the world cannot allow a body to be revivified (that is, filled again with life), the resurrection may be reinterpreted as a purely subjective experience — a mystical, numinous, or ecstatic experience. Or else, convinced of a physical body being brought back to life, you might jettison modern scientific naturalism and embrace a more open view of reality.
So what, then, should Christians think about the resurrection?
Central to the resurrection is the continuity of Christ's life and ministry in the world. Jesus' life, death, and resurrection are a singular, seamless work of God. In Jesus' life we see a life lived which is not marked by the brokenness which characterises existence in the world. In Jesus' death we see the world rejecting this life, unable to accept a life so alien to the nature of a broken world. In Jesus' resurrection we begin to see the world itself transformed into a world in which God's fullness can dwell — a world which no longer rejects the holy, sinless life of God. The Gospels, and indeed the witness of the whole canon of Scripture, show glimpses of the life of God becoming present in the midst of a broken world. In the resurrection this glimpse within history is broken open so that the whole world can share in the life of God in the midst of the world, the world itself is now being transformed: a new creation! — this is the ongoing work of the Spirit!
Resurrection, then, is about a transformation of reality itself. Remember here that reality itself is a contested notion: rooted in the particular cultural and historical views of the world which we inhabit. And yes, even this claim is culturally and historically located: everything is a perspective, even this. But simply because everything is a perspective does not mean we are reduced to subjectivity, with no objective — “out there” — dimension. Rather, because of the ongoing hermeneutic dynamic from subjective encounter, to transformation of the self, to a reinterpretation of the world, our perspective — when it is caught in this transforming dynamic — is neither/both subjective and objective: constantly moving backwards and forwards between these poles.
Put another way, because the resurrection is a transformation of the world itself, it cannot simply be accommodated within our present understanding of the world. Beware a fixed view of what the resurrection means! If it is fixed it has ceased to be the transformative reality of the resurrection! Beware any “explanation” or the meaning of resurrection which is not provisional, which doesn't change you and how you inhabit the world itself!
A provocative point: if resurrection simply means a new subjective experience, or a new ethic, and not a compelling reality not reducible to human agency, then it may not be the resurrection.
A perhaps overly simplistic way of saying all of this is that it is not we who are the judges of the reality of the resurrection; rather, the reality of the resurrection ought to call into question our understanding of reality itself. And the reality of the resurrection is inexhaustible, and so this is an ongoing process having our reality drawn into question by the ongoing discovery of the reality of the resurrection. The resurrection, in this sense, is not simply “real” but realer than real, truer than true. It is the very ongoing discovery of God's
real and living work in the world.