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Chapter 7: Making the Resurrection Reasonable—or Reason “Resurrectional”?
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7 Making the Resurrection Reasonable— or Reason “Resurrectional”? . Christ’s rising from the dead is an irreplaceable “given” in the consciousness of Christian faith:1 “No Christianity without the resurrection of Jesus. As Jesus is the single great ‘presupposition’ of Christianity, so also is the resurrection of Jesus.”2 In the same vein, Pheme Perkins considered that the resurrection is “the condition for the emergence of Christian speech itself.”3 Without this event there would be no New Testament . Only the light of the resurrection can prevent the life, teaching, and death of Jesus from being lost in the largely irrecoverable particularities of the past.Because the resurrection is central to faith’s perception of the saving action of God, it inspires the experience of its universal significance and continuing effect in every age. But theological reflection on this topic is not without its problems. Let me indicate some of them. THEOLOGY’S PROBLEMS IN “PLACING” THE RESURRECTION As a foundational event, the resurrection is so embedded in Christian tradition that it has never required“definition” in the way that the 187 mysteries of the incarnation and the Trinity eventually demanded doctrinal clarification. Though doctrinally undefined, the resurrection of the crucified Jesus is the indefinable factor in every aspect of Christological , Trinitarian, ecclesial, sacramental, and eschatological theology. Still, there is also a certain sense of defeat. The resurrection, however focal, however pervasive its effect on the whole of Christian life and experience , however much it animates an eschatological hope, often in fact leaves theology tongue-tied. The singular event of Christ’s rising from the dead provokes a certain embarrassment and diffidence compared to the assurance with which the supposedly meatier themes of Christian life and practice are treated. Perhaps it is inevitable that the resurrection must represent for theology not only a peculiar difficulty but also something of a frustration or even failure. It is true that the dominant focus of theology from the third century has been on the incarnation . But unless Christ had been raised, there would be no theology of the incarnation—and no “merry Christmas” in popular greeting . However much one may subscribe to a thoroughly incarnational theology in the tradition of Chalcedon, one cannot but notice that this classic Christological definition does not so much as mention the resurrection in its lapidary phrasing. It may well have established the basic grammar for all subsequent Christology, but it would have provided no answer and provoked no questions if Jesus had not risen from the tomb. F.-X. Durrwell’s The Resurrection appeared fifty years ago in its original French edition.4 It stands out as a brave attempt to recall theology to its focal point. Yet it came, and went, possibly because it was lost in the no-man’s land of “biblical theology”—too biblical for theology , and too theological for the exegetical styles that were then developing . It lacked the critical hermeneutical categories it would have needed to have a lasting effect. To a lesser extent, this is the case with N. T. Wright’s monumental study.5 He embarks on what is termed a “ground clearing task,” with the aim of directing his readers back to “a phenomenon so striking and remarkable that it demands a serious and well-grounded historical explanation.”6 Yet note how Wright quickly moves from this “striking and remarkable phenomenon” to offering a “serious and well-grounded historical explanation,” with an explicit apologetic intent. We may ask whether more attention should be given 188 Anthony J. Kelly to the phenomenon itself. A renewed attention to what is most obvious , most taken for granted, is surely a humble but often overlooked function of a theology. Yet the taken-for-granted “obviousness” of faith in the resurrection is also what has made it most vulnerable to a strange neglect. Karl Rahner lamented, decades ago, the dwindling theology of the resurrection.7 Before him, Durrwell expressed a similar concern: “Not so long ago theologians used to study the Redemption without mentioning the Resurrection at all.”8 Theology seems to observe a strange silence here. It is not only the women in Mark’s Gospel who “said nothing to anyone,for they were afraid”(Mark 16:8) when it comes to speaking of what made all the difference.9 We can sympathize with the quandary of the Roman governor Porcius Festus concerning “a certain Jesus, who had died, but whom Paul asserted to be...