124. Theology & Res.- Metaphors and Paradigms

7/30/2019 124. Theology & Res.- Metaphors and Paradigms

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JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA 3

Theology and Resurrection -Metaphors and ParadigmsJJ.F. Durand

The Resurrection under the Taboo of HermeneuticsWithout the central salvific fact of the resurrection of Christ there would never havebeen a New Testament and the religion that is called Christianity would never haveexisted. Yet, the resurrection never has had a central place in the theological thinkingin the west. Throughout the history of western theology the main emphasis has fallenon the salvific significance of Christ's death on the cross, often to such a degree thatthe resurrection was pushed to the background, and at the most seen as the divineaffirmation and legitimation of the cross.

A careful study of the history of Christian thought might throw some light on thereasons why western theology as distinct from the eastern Church decided to go itsown way in this regard. Whatever the reasons were in the past, however, it is a significant fact that the twentieth century has made no difference, despite the fact thatthis is the century in which we have seen many kinds of theologies come and go. Thefact that a full-blown theology of the resurrection has not emerged is, to say the least,remarkable. When Karl Rahner asks the same questions about the traditional practiceof theology in Roman Catholic circles, but yet does not make any attempt himself toremedy the situation, we are led to ask what the stumbling-blocks are, specific to thetwentieth century, that stand in the way of giving the resurrection of Christ its dueplace.

I would like to suggest that it has been the twentieth century's concentration on thehermeneutical question about the processes of human understanding in the interpretation of the biblical text that has brought the resurrection of Christ into a crisis, morethan any other article of faith. The existential interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann and hisschool has had such an unnerving effect that it would have taken a rather intrepidtheologian amongst all those willing to experiment to come up with a theology thatmakes the resurrection of Christ its central point of departure. To elevate to the position of the hermeneutical key an article of faith - that in itself is one of the most difficultto approach in a hermeneutical process of understanding - was too risky an undertaking.

In the meantime, however, the hermeneutical discussion has not come to astandstill. The fundamental questions asked by the school of Bultmann remain thesame, but the context in which they are asked has changed. Not only do we find,broadly speaking, a changed spiritual climate described in the rather vague term aspost-modern, but also as part thereof the emergence of new concepts and thoughtparadigms in philosophical discourse that make it possible to approach questions andanswers from a different angle. However, although these developments can clearlybe seen in the theological prolegomena of today, they are still markedly absent in the


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4 THEOLOGY AND RESURRECTION

substantive parts of systematic theology. It is high time this situation changes. But ifit were to happen, what influence will it have on the doctrine of the resurrection ofChrist? Will the possibility arise of giving it the centrality it is due with all the consequences this has for the doctrine of God, salvation, eschatology etc? This article is anattempt to give a preliminary answer to this question. However, to make such anattempt meaningful a section on the hermeneutical problem which brought the doctrine of Christ's resurrection into a crisis as well as a discussion on the present position in this regard is called for.

Hermeneutics and Self-understandingThe hermeneutical problem has to do with the question of interpreting the Bible insuch a way that its actuality for the present can be discovered and thus be understoodby the reader who is a historical being living in a concrete, historical context. The Bibleitself is also not a-historical. It does not present itself as a document telling the storyof historical events. The hermeneutical task is, therefore, to interpret it in such a waythat an immediacy and a simultaneity between two historical situations take place: thesituation of the Bible message and the situation of the reader/listener. A continuummust be found between the historical past of the revelation and the historical presentof the reader/listener. From this it inevitably follows that hermeneutics will ask questions about the conditions of human understanding today. In short, the understanding-structure of the subject comes to the fore.

The inherent problem of the hermeneutical process was for the first time clearly formulated and placed pertinently on the theological agenda by Bultmann as., but theissue itself is as old as Christian theology. The problem of the understanding of thesubject at all times accompanied the practice of theology, sometimes more overtlysometimes more covertly. When Bultmann, therefore, clearly gave primacy to thesubject in the hermeneutical process, he only articulated something that had beenthere all the time.

Nevertheless, Bultmann's theology was experienced as far-reaching and drastic.There were two reasons for this. In the first place he emphasized the role of the self-understanding of the human subject so persuasively and with so much conviction thatit was felt intuitively that the days of objectifying theology were numbered; that it wasno longer possible to go back beyond Bultmann. The second reason is closely linkedto the first. The believing subject was no longer expected to find support for his faithin its factuality and historicity thereof. Therefore, free reign could be given to historicalcriticism without, so it seemed, endangering the Gospel message itself. Faith isdirected towards the Existenzverstndnis which comes to expression in the witnessof the church of the New Testament and which is today a present reality through theproclaimed Word. Faith has no historical certainty, only the certainty given by theproclaimed Word. In this sense the resurrection of Jesus as related in the bible is forBultmann a mythological miracle-story. But yet, He is resurrected in the proclamationof the early church and it is that which counts. Once again, the radicalism ofBultmann's stand-point was not that he seemingly denied the resurrection of Christ (itis debatable whether he in fact did deny it or not) - rationalists and positivists beforehim did so with greater definiteness - but that he asserted that faith was not dependent on the proposition that Christ truly and historically arose from the dead.


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disengage itself from his original input. This is quite understandable. He brought intothe debate the question of the nature of the processes of human understanding, aquestion which, after him, could no longer be avoided.

The development after Bultmann without doubt brought more depth into the discussions. The new discovery of the role and meaning of language was part and parcelthereof. Theologians like Fuchs and Ebeling for example started to emphasize themeaning of language as means of communication and participation. The Christianfaith is not so much an historical event, but a language event. What comes to expression in Jesus, becomes a new language event communicable in the present. Language is the way in which the human subject comes to understanding. In this development, theology only started to reflect the paradigm-shift that has already begun tomake itself felt in the fields of philosophy and science, the so- called "linguistic turn"that received its basic impetus from Wittgenstein. But by the seventies the newparadigm was already well entrenched in theological discourse. Various theologianscan be mentioned in this regard, but I prefer to deal with David Tracy, who, in a sense,epitomizes the new paradigm in modern theology.

Aligning himself with Hans-Georg Gadamer, Tracy uses the idea of "interpretation-as-con versation." 1 The conversation Tracy alludes to is the conversation that takesplace between the interpreter and the text. The text and the interpreter interact. Whatdoes it mean? Interpretation always has to do with language and anyone who uses alanguage carries the pre-understandings, partly conscious, more often preconscious,of the traditions of that language. Any contemporary interpreter thus enters the process of interpretation with some pre-understanding of the questions addressed by the

text. This inevitably means that for an interpreter to understand a text at all he/shemust understand it differently from how the original author or the first audience orreaders understood it. However, the good interpreter is willing to put that pre-understanding at risk by allowing the text to question the interpreter's present expectationsand standards. Accordingly a conversation between text and interpreter takes place.

Tracy applies this idea to the texts of what he calls classics. Classics are those textsthat have helped found or form a particular culture and as such bear an excess andpermanence of meaning, yet always resist definitive interpretation. This is so becausethere is something paradoxical about them. Though highly particular in origin andexpression, classics have the possibility of being universal in their effect. The biblical

texts have exercised such a role throughout western history. They are extraordinaryexamples of such a resistance to definite interpretation. As a code they havefunctioned with remarkable flexibility.

According to Tracy the conversation which takes place between the interpreter andthe text is in its primary form an exploration of possibilities in the search for truth. Inprinciple, theologians as interpreters should be open to every hermeneutic andexplanatory method that can illuminate their demanding task; historical-criticalmethods, social scientific methods, semiotic and structural methods, poststructuralistmethods, hermeneutical discourse analysis etc. Any form of argument that enhancesthe critical conversation with the classic religious text and symbols should be used.

Interpreters should be open to any form of critical theory that helps spot the distortionssuspected in the religious classics themselves. In this process we assess the coherence or incoherence of all claims of the classic byjudging it in relationship to the most


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relatively adequate consensual knowledge we possess Thus to recognise "possibility," despite all the differences we discover, is to sense some similarity to what wehave already experienced or understood But similarity here must be described assimilanty-in-difference, that is, as analogy

Tracy uses the concept of analogy in its original Aristotelian sense, an alternativelanguage that finds itself placed between univocal language where all is the same andan equivocal language where all is different Authentic analogical language means anarticulation of real differences as genuinely different but also similar to what wealready know Tracy accordingly names this difficult dialogue, "an analogical imagination" which means at an existential level a willingness to enter the conversation byfacing the claims to attention of the other In a true conversation we recognise theclassics' demand that we pay critical attention to their claims to truth if we are to understand their meaning at all Tracy also calls this attitude of the interpreter the theologian's sixth sense, this means that to interpret religion at all demands being willing toput at risk one's present self-understanding in order to converse with the claim toattention of the religious classic This may even lead to a radical change, a conversion, or less completely but genuinely, to an acknowledgement of the once merely different as now genuinely possible

Tracy's use of the concept of analogy as a way of theological understanding is ofcourse nothing new Thomas Aquinas, for example, used it extensively What is new,is the manner in which Tracy applies the principle of analogy to modern hermeneuticsIn so doing he reaffirms the importance of Bultmann's original point of departure, thecrucial, even decisive, role played by the human self-understanding in the process ofinterpretation He also does not shirk the consequences of such a view on hermeneutics, the relative inadequacy of interpretations, the awareness of a radical conflict ininterpretations while in conversation with the classics, the resultant pluralism and theconcomitant sense of the inadequacy of religious language But at the same time,hesitantly and sometimes rather ambiguously Tracy tries to escape the accusation ofcomplete relativism and subjectism in a way Bultmann probably would not havebothered to do

By way of illustration I would like to demonstrate the difference between Tracy andBultmann in relation to the basic theme of this article, the resurrection of Christ In asense the comparison is hypothetical because to my knowledge Tracy has not directlyapplied his theory to the biblical text telling us the story of Christ's resurrection, andBultmann, of course, had no knowledge of Tracy's idea of an analogical imagination

For Bultmann, faith correlates with the disciples' message of the resurrected andliving Christ and not with the claim of the biblical text that Jesus in a literal and historical sense rose from the grave In his view we cannot be expected to believe amythological story of a miracle which contradicts our own self-understanding as modern people But there is no need to do so in a genuine faith relationship with the livingChrist brought about by the message (Kerygma) of his resurrection In the interpretation of the text there is no need for the interpreter to sacrifice his/her self-understanding as a condition for understanding the real meaning of the text and its claims

If I understood Tracy correctly his argument would more or less be along the following lines

Th t f th ti f J Ch i t i t t ll diff t f thi th t I h l d


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my analogical dialogue with the biblical text, bound to struggle critically with the fact that its claimto truth is part of its meaning. If I want to understand the meaning of the text I could even be forceto put at risk my own self-understanding. Ultimately a conversion cannot be ruled out.

Does Tracy go far enough to free us from the danger of a complete hermeneuticalsubjectivism and relativism? The way in which he formulates the issue is often of sucha nature that it seems as if he is more worried about the understanding of a text thanabout the truth of the text's claims. The possibility of an ultimate conversion of theinterpreter, as Tracy proposes, seems to be a step in the direction of freeing us fromhermeneutical subjectivism. Yet, in my opinion we have to do here with a oversimplification of a very complex problem. In the next paragraph we must have a closer look.

Commitment, Tradition, Self-understanding, and ResurrectionIt is sobering to realize that the problem of subjectivism, relativism and even scepti

cism is not solvable within general philosophical epistomology. The same holds goodfor theology. The way in which the subject-object epistomological structure had beenhandled in theology over the centuries, and all the abortive attempts to make corrections to it, affirm this observation. Developments in the twentieth century's theologicalhermeneutics have scuttled all pretentions in this regard. There is no hermeneuticalsystem that, in a logical way, can forcefully exclude the human subjectivity. Fortunately the same conclusion with regard to their own field of study has been reachedwithin the circles of the natural sciences.

Seeing that the problem of subjectivity in theological hermeneutics no longer needsto be a source of embarrassment we are now able to look with an open mind at the pro

cess of understanding in theology, especially where it centres around human self-understanding. What is this self-understanding with which a theologian approachesthe biblical text?

It is unnecessary in this regard to repeat all that has been said over and over againabout life-situations, ancestry, education, tradition, philosophical environment etc. Iwant to concentrate on only one aspect to which very little attention had been givenin the past. All no doubt are aware of the existence of this factor and the fundamentalimportance of it, but the question about the nature of this factor and the way it functions is very seldom, if ever asked. I presume that somebody like Tracy would assumethe existence of such a factor, but gives little indication of how this factor functions in

his hermeneutical programme.The factor I am referring to is that of commitment, in this case the subject's commitment to the truth as stated by the text. When I, as a Christian theologian, approach thebiblical text, I am already committed to the ultimate truth of the message of the text. Iprefer to speak here of a "commitment to" the truth of a text instead of "belief in" thetruth of the text, because "commitment" expresses, in my opinion, more clearly whathappens in the encounter and conversation with the text. Even if my faith is almosttotally undermined by all kinds of doubts I can still remain fully committed.

In a sense this commitment is the critical point in my approach to the text, becauseit emerges out of two factors that have formed my self-understanding in a decisiveway; the tradition from which I come and the religious community within which I normally live. As a Christian theologian I stand within a certain tradition about the Christi f ith hi h f l i lif h d b b ht h t th h


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also marked by the same tradition. My commitment to the ultimate truth of the biblicaltext is the result of this interplay of tradition and community. Intuitively, therefore, Iknow that in my dialogue with the text I am already committed to the truth thereof,unless I am willing to place myself outside of the tradition and the community withinwhich I find myself.

My commitment does not take away the alienness and otherness of the text whichwas written in different times and situations, but at least it makes it possible for me torecognise the claim of the text. Of course it is possible that the text is so alien and itsotherness so complete that my commitment itself is problematized to such a degreethat my further participation in my religious tradition and community is put in jeopardy.The alternative is that consciously or even unconsciously, I interpret the text in sucha way that my commitment is not put at risk, even though my interpretation does notreflect the obvious meaning of the text. The way in which it is done depends on thenature of the commitment.

I would like to illustrate the nature of a Christian theologian's commitment to the ultimate truth of the biblical message by referring specifically to the message of the resurrection of Christ.

Commitment to one or the other religious idea does not constitute an insurmountable problem in the interpretation of religious texts. The nature of the Christian religion, however, is that it demands a commitment to an historical truth. In spite of all thevariations and differences in interpretation within the Christian tradition over a periodof twenty centuries there is a broad consensus that the Christian faith stands and fallswith the historicity of its claims that Jesus lived, died on the cross and arose from the

dead. At the same time there is near unanimity in the conviction that the historicity ofJesus' life and death has no religious significance without the historicity of his resurrection.

It is this commitment to the historicity of Jesus' resurrection which puts before me,as a Christian theologian of the enlightened twentieth century, a number of seriousinterrelated problems in my approach to the Bible texts that deal with the resurrectionof Christ.

In the first place there is the problem of the different narratives in which the message of the resurrection is conveyed. The proclamation of the resurrection takes placein diverse language-worlds in which different writers, traditions, purposes, ter

minologies and historical situations play a significant role. An abundance of literaryand historical studies has made it clear that there was, from the very beginning, morethan one resurrection message, appropriated and proclaimed in several contexts.Any attempt to harmonise these different versions of the resurrection has failed. It istherefore not peculiar that some have concluded that this wide variety of resurrectionnarratives shows that nothing really took place, that they are in fact merely stories andmyths.

For the theologian committed to the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, however, thediversity does not constitute a serious threat to his or her commitment. The failure toharmonise the different versions does not preclude scholars to look for some basic

historical or liturgical material or at least assumptions underlying all these traditionsand interpretations, all of which point to some kind of event or events which took placeand were testified to by the early church


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Furthermore, apart from the variety of forms in which the resurrection story isrelated to me, there is the strangeness of the stories themselves. In the interpretationprocess I come across almost insurmountable problems which make it next to impos

sible for me to find, in Tracy's terms, a similarity-in-difference as far as the appearance accounts in the New Testament are concerned. When the appearances of Jesusare related in contrary, paradoxical terms - not a phantom and yet not palpable, perceptible and imperceptible, visible and invisible, material and immaterial -there is noway in which I can interpret them that makes sense vis-a-vis my own experiences andself-understanding. What usually happens, therefore, is that interpreters who arecommitted to the reality of Jesus' resurrection and appearances, take the bodily andmaterial side of the paradox as the part they can relate to, while tacitly acknowledgingthe incomprehensibility of it all. The effect of dealing with the biblical appearanceaccounts in such a way can be clearly seen in the history of Christian thought. The

resurrection of the dead became part of the church's doctrinal heritage in a massive,almost gross material way and the New Testament's account of Jesus' bodily appearances was used as biblical "evidence" in this regard. The analogy that Tracy speaksof had gone out of the window and what was left was almost univocal language on thepart of the church, thereby risking a real understanding of the meaning the resurrection accounts wanted to convey.

Finally there is the event of the resurrection itself. In truth the variety of forms inwhich the resurrection narratives comes to us and the strangeness of the narrativesthemselves are but the consequence of the complete incomprehensibility of the eventtestified to and the impossibility of finding any analogical language capable of convey

ing what had happened. Indeed, it is even wrong to speak about a testimony to anevent that took place. The New Testament Easter testimonies are not meant to be tes timonies to the resurrection as event, but testimonies to the risen One as personcourse the testimony to the risen Christ presupposes the event of the resurrection, butthe event itself is nowhere recorded. And for good reason, because the resurrectionhas to do with an event that took place between God and Jesus. Whereas the appearances of the risen Christ could be and were recorded by his disciples because theywere events that took place between them and Christ in space and time, the resurrection is not an event in space and time. It is neither a miracle, breaking the laws ofnature nor a supernatural intervention that can be located and dated in space and

time. What happened transcends the limits of history.In my discussion of the problems that arise from the biblical text it must havebecome clear to the perceptive reader that my commitment to the reality of Christ'sresurrection also implies a certain pre-understanding with which I approach the text,for a commitment without a definite understanding thereof is impossible. The pre-understanding that I am referring to in this instance is that it was God himself whoacted in a decisive way and that it was this decisive act of his that became known inthe historical moment or moments of the encounter between the risen Christ and hisearly congregation. This pre-understanding is not brought into a crisis by the alienness and otherness of the biblical text, because its alienness and otherness have

already been discounted in the pre-understanding itself, namely that God acted in away inaccessible to human understanding.While the otherness of the biblical text concerning the appearances of Christ does


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however, bring my interpretation of the "how" under great pressure. Yet, I do not findmyself in an unusual position in this regard. The broader Christian tradition whichforms the framework of the more narrow tradition within which I find myself shows different and changing forms of interpretation determined by various historical contexts.These changing forms have to do with the process of understanding itself, somethingwhich is inevitable and which need not be judged negatively. This realization is precisely one of the profits of the modern hermeneutical movement. Particular developments concerning the concept of a metaphor can have a liberating effect in thisregard.

Metaphor ReplacementMetaphors refer to experiences that do not relate to the ordinary experiences of dailylife. We usually meet such metaphors in poetry. For metaphors there are no substitutes. They cannot be replaced by literal equations because such equations areunable to express the suggestive nature of a metaphor. Metaphors point to similaritiesthat most probably would have gone unnoticed without the distinctive disclosure of themetaphor. The metaphor is the only access to a specific understanding of some or theother matter and, therefore, plays an inalienable function in the human process ofgaining knowledge. In this process we make use of our imagination which in its turnmakes use of what we have, what we know and what we are so that we may reach andunderstand those things which we only vaguely feel we are able to reach and understand. Metaphors say and bring to light that which cannot be brought to light in anyother way, not only by means of words and phrases, but also by means of dramatizedstories.

The Bible itself makes use of imaginative metaphors in an effort to try to say whatcannot be said in any other way. Thus theology without metaphors is unimaginable.In a sense theology is metaphor. Furthermore it must be obvious that the nature ofmetaphors will differ according to the world in which the creator of a metaphor lives.The alienness and otherness of the biblical text with which I converse, is, therefore,often not the consequence of the different situation, but because the metaphor it usescorresponds to the foreign situation. Everything that has been said about interpretation and self-understanding now applies. We now only have to keep in mind that thelanguage we are concerned with is metaphorical by nature.

If we retain Tracy's concept of analogy, theology is therefore an analogical replacement of metaphors. In the search for the similarity-in-difference the interpreter in conversation with the text as metaphor will have to distil the intent and meaning of themetaphor. To that end the interpreter's commitment and pre-understanding, honedby tradition, plays a crucial role enabling him or her to distinguish between that whichis vital in the biblical metaphor and which is not. Once this has been discovered a newmetaphor is created corresponding to the self-understanding of the interpreter.

Resurrection and MetaphorFrom my brief description of the nature of a metaphor it must be clear that the biblical

narratives about the resurrection of Christ are above all metaphorical in character.When this is acknowledged as well as the fact that theology is basically an analogicalreplacement of metaphors it is in my opinion possible to free the doctrine of the resur


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above so that the resurrection of the Crucified might become the key perspective oftheology as a whole.

However, before we can proceed to have a closer look at the centrality of the resurrection of Christ, we must first give attention to the exact nature of the metaphoricalspeech of the Bible concerning the resurrection. In this regard we must keep in mindthe possibility of a multiplicity of metaphors dependent on the specific circumstancesof the text and the purposes for which it was written.

I believe that there are three types of metaphors that we have to take into consideration : the dramatized metaphors of the Gospels' narratives about the empty graveand the appearances of Christ, and the Pauline metaphors concerning the "spiritualbody" (1 Cor. 15), and concerning the unity of Christ and the believer as expressed inthe Pauline formula, "in Christ."

Concerning the Gospel-accounts of the empty grave and the appearances of theliving Christ, I would like to start off by referring to what has been said above namelythat the resurrection was an event that transcends the limits of history because it is notaccessible in terms of human observation, experience or even imagination. It follows,therefore, that these accounts have a clear metaphorical character. Indeed, the words"resurrection" anatasis and "raising up" egeirein are metaphorical terms, as used forawakening and rising from sleep. But with the waking and rising from death, there isno question of returning to the wakeful state of ordinary life. Rather we have here aradical transformation in a wholly different unparalleled, definitive state. Here there isnothing to be depicted, imagined, objectified. It would not be a different life at all if wecould give it visual shape in a literal sense. Only through the metaphor can the mean

ing of what happened be expressed with the aid of ideas and images drawn from ourordinary life. In this sense the appearances' accounts of the risen Christ in the Gospels, including the story of the empty grave, are metaphorical, dramatized accountswith the view to conveying the clear and unambiguous message that it is no-one otherthan the crucified Jesus that has appeared as the risen One to his disciples. That iswhy we have the emphasis on the wounds in the hands of the risen Lord (Luke 24:40;John 20:27), the breaking of the bread (Luke 24:30; John 21:13) etc. To regard thesestories as literal, historical objectified reports which can be interpreted in such a waythat we get an insight into the nature of the resurrection is to grossly distort the intentof the metaphor.

The Pauline metaphor of the "spiritual body" in 1 Cor 15:44 is clearly aimed at themisunderstanding that the resurrection means some or other return to the earthly formof life. That this not only applies to the resurrection of the dead generally, but also tothe resurrection of Christ, follows from the close link between v.44 and v.45, betweenthe "spiritual body" and the "quickening Spirit" of the last Adam (Christ). The resurrection body, says Paul, is a spiritual body soma pneumatikon over against the naturalbody soma psuchikon. By "body" he refers, as usual, to the totality of human existence in its temporality. The juxtapositioning of "natural" and "spiritual" points to acompletely different mode of existence; the temporal human existence is replaced byan existence that is qualified by the spirit, in the sense that it takes part in the life-giving

Spirit of Christ (v.45). The resurrection of Christ is here the great turningpoint.Through his resurrection Christ, as the last Adam, is not only the receiver of the newlife of the Spirit but also the giver In fact through his resurrection Christ became the


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"spiritual body" other than that it is an existence diametrically opposed to the our temporal existence, generated and completely dominated by the Spirit which since theresurrection of Christ is His Spirit.

The identity of Christ and the Spirit is central to the metaphor under discussion aswell as to Paul's preaching of the resurrected Lord in general. The Spirit is the Lord(Phil. 1:19; Gal 4:6; 2 Cor 3:17). Significant in this regard is Rom. 8:9 In which Paulrefers to the Spirit, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, meaning the same Spiritin each case. As the Spirit the risen Christ is present and at work in his congregation.The risen and living Lord manifests himself in and through the Spirit. There is no otherway in which he makes himself known to us.

The metaphor "in Christ" that Paul often uses has the intention of pointing out thedeep unity that exists between Christ and those that belong to him that it can be saidthey are "in him." This "in him" is then further amplified by the saying that they were

crucified, buried and resurrected "with him." The metaphor used in this instance isoften described in terms of a "corporate personality," the idea namely that a king or aleader (as found for instance in the Old Testament) represents his followers in such away that what happens to him also happens to them. The metaphor encapsulates theidea in the word "in." The followers are "in" the leader. They form part of him. Rom.6:3, Gal. 2:19, Col. 2:12-13 etc are some of the Pauline passages in which he expresses the corporate unity between Christ and the believers. This unity is grounded in thehistory of salvation. When Christ died and was resurrected we were part of him.

The metaphor in this instance conveys an objective state of affairs, co-inciding witha forensic judgement from the side of God. We are acquitted by God as if we, in our

representative, died on the cross and arose from the dead. But this imputative acquittal is only one side of the coin. The "we-in-Christ" finds in Paul its complement in the"Christ-in-us." This movement from the "we-in-Christ" or "we-with-Christ" to the"Christ-in-us" is decisive for an understanding of the Pauline metaphor. My knowledge that once upon a time I died and arose with Christ and that I can, therefore,reckon myself as being dead unto sin and living unto God (Rom. 6:11) is grounded in my communion with the risen and living Christ in me. Gal. 2:19-20 is the locus clsicus for this transition, "I have been crucified with Christ : and I myself no longer live,but Christ lives in me."

In the discussion on the metaphor of the "spiritual body" I have pointed out that the

idea of the identity of the risen Christ and the Spirit plays a central role in it. This is alsothe case in the metaphor now under discussion. The key text in this regard we find inRom. 8:10-11, "Yet, even though Christ lives within you, your body will die becauseof sin; but your spirit will live because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of God, whoraised up Jesus from the dead, lives in you, he will make your dying bodies live again,by means of this same Spirit living within you." Notice that Paul first speaks of "Christliving within you" and then of the "Spirit living within you." For Paul this is one and thesame thing. The resurrection context in which the identity of the indwelling Christ andthe indwelling Spirit is affirmed by Paul cannot be missed. The Spirit is the living Christin us.

When we now look at the metaphorical way in which the Bible deals with the resurrection of Christ it must be clear that the Pauline metaphor of "Christ (the Spirit) in us"i h ti ll th t it bl i t f d t f th l gi l h t


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tells me and my own self-understanding because I recognize the claim of the text.otherness of the metaphor is not of such a nature that it in any way problematizes mycommitment to the truth of the resurrection of Christ. On the contrary, the text affirmsmy commitment in that I now discover the deepest source of my commitment, the living Christ in me.

To take instead the metaphorical resurrection narratives of the Gospels as thetheological point of departure for the interpretation of the resurrection of Christ and thenature thereof, apart from their obvious intention of telling us that the risen Lord isindeed the crucified Jesus, is a very risky venture. Efforts to "understand" the natureof Christ's resurrection body led to conclusions which, in the history of theology gaverise to all kinds of speculations about the resurrection body, the resurrection of thedead and ultimately an intermediate state that fell far outside the intention of the original metaphors. It remains of great significance that Paul, while he himself had beenfully aware of the stories of the appearances of the risen Christ to his followers (1 Cor.15:5-7) and had undergone such an experience himself (1 Cor. 15:8), never used theexample of these appearances in his own metaphor (1 Cor. 15:44) in an attempt toexplain the resurrection body. He rather refers back to the identity of Christ with thelife-giving Spirit which he (Christ) had become through the resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45).

If the Pauline metaphor of the indwelling of the risen Christ in us were to be takenas the starting-point for a theological interpretation of the resurrection of Christ, it willhave inevitable implications for the role to be played by the resurrection doctrinewithin systematic theology. Most importantly it opens up the possibility of affirming thecentrality of the resurrection beyond all doubt.

The Centrality of the ResurrectionAt the beginning it was pointed out that throughout the history of western theology theresurrection of Christ has been seen as God's affirmation and legitimation of thecross. Only when the significance of eschatology for theology was rediscovered in thetwentieth century did the resurrection receive a new emphasis as the anticipation ofthe new world that God had intended for mankind. The remembrance of the past of thecross now finds its complement in the anticipation of the eschatological future. Theresurrection, therefore, finds itself on the cutting-edge between remembrance andanticipation. However, the full implications for theological thinking of this centrality ofthe resurrection between retrocipation and anticipation have never been fully workedout apart from the acknowledgement of the resurrection as the great turningpoint ofthe ages and as the startingpoint of the eschatological future.

What did not happen was the acknowledgement that the resurrection must keep itscentrality as the perspectival pivot from which theology must be unfolded.

The epistomological precedence of the resurrection follows from the nature of theChristian message itself. The total message of the New Testament comes to us fromthe perspective of the resurrection. As I have said right at the start, without the resurrection of Christ there would not have been a New Testament.

In the sections that followed I have tried to point out all the stumbling-blocks in theway of such a mode of theologizing. Precisely because the resurrection is not an historical event in the usual sense of the word - real but not historically calculable - hermeneutical problems of a distinctive nature are created. However, I hope that I have


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namely by accepting the possibility of a correlation of thought between myself and theresurrection on the basis of the fulfilling of my life and thoughts by the risen Christ himself. The centrality of the resurrection of Christ in the pursuit of theology is, therefore,indissolubly connected to its centrality in the religious life and experience of thetheologian. Through the indwelling of the risen Christ as the life-giving Spirit in me, thepast of the cross and the future of my own resurrection become a present reality. It isthis present reality that ultimately and decisively determines my self-understanding.Accordingly it would be a serious mistake in my theology to move away from themetaphors that are closely linked to this experience and self-understanding. Therefore, I would like to describe the centrality and the decisive meaning of the resurrection of Christ as follows: The resurrection of Christ is the salvific event by which God irrevocably accepts and fills the fallen creation as his own reality. He unites the human race to himself through the risen and glorified Christ in such a way that he in his Godhead can never again be thought of as being without them. In so doing he retros- pectively affirms the incarnation and the cross and in anticipation he guarantees the future consummation.

If the resurrection of Christ is taken seriously as the central point of departure fortheology while making use of metaphors and a metaphor replacement that correspond with what the Bible text says about the presence of the risen and living Christ inour midst, the way in which the various articles of faith are dealt with will probably beaffected. This does not necessarily mean any dramatic change in content will occur.However, the possibility of new perspectives cannot be excluded, especially withreference to those doctrines in which traditionally a certain interpretation of the resurrection body of Christ played a role. Eschatology is of course the first we can think ofin this regard. But that is not the only part of theology that might be affected. However,I do not intend to go into all these possibilities. I prefer to take as an example the onedoctrine that on the face of it is the most likely to be directly affected by standpointson the resurrection of Christ; the eschatological doctrine of the resurrection of thedead.

Resurrection of the DeadThe development of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in the history of dogmamakes fascinating reading as we see how the young church struggled with one of its

most vexing problems, the delay of the parousia of Christ, and consequently the problem of the fate of the dead. It was generally accepted by all that with the parousia theresurrection of the dead and the last judgment would take place. But then what happens in the interim to the dead?

At a very early stage the Apostolic Fathers apparently thought about a very shortstay of the righteous in the place of the dead followed by the resurrection. An exception was made regarding prophets and martyrs in whose case death and resurrectionall but coincided. At this stage the idea of an intermediate state between an individualbeliever's death and the resurrection was still very vague and resembled the Old Testament's concept of Sheol, while their view on the resurrected body was far less

materialistic than was later the case with the Apologists and the Anti-Gnostic Fathers.The development towards a more elaborate concept of an intermediate state and theemphasis on the material identity of the resurrection body and the earthly body were


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permeated the milieu in which the early church practised its theology. This development needs some fuller explanation.

In the days of early Christianity the debate on immortality was completely dominated by the Greek idea of the intrinsic immortality of the soul and its consequent greater

value compared to the body. Christian theology accepted the concept of an immortalsoul, although modifying it by stating that the soul's immortality was not intrinsic but agift of God. The specific Christian contribution to the debate on immortality theybelieved, however, was the message of the resurrection of the body. By accepting theGreek dichotomy of body and soul and by viewing the resurrection of the body as theChristian addition to the immortality beliefs of the day, the theologians of the first centuries started a process in which the biblical message of the oneness of God's finalredemptive act, the resurrection of the dead, was broken up into two parts or rathertwo phases: the first phase being the existence of the immortal soul after death andthe second phase being the joining together of a resurrected body and the immortal

soul. In fact the resurrection only applies to the body as the soul needs no resurrection. By this breaking up of the resurrection faith into two components serious theological problems were created. Not the identity and continuity of the person concerned,but the identity of the resurrection body and the earthly body became a crucial issue,and the relationship between this resurrection body and the immortal soul was completely problematized. The introduction of an intermediate state in which individualsouls wait upon the moment of re-unification with the body in the resurrection only partially addressed the problem. To which body will the soul be re-united if in the case ofcannibalism the body-matter of one person became part of various other persons?What does the resurrection of the body mean if one keeps in mind that human beings

go through various phases, from infant to an old person? Which stage will be resurrected? These and other questions by opponents of the Christian faith were found tobe very vexing by early Church Fathers, Ambrose for one confessing that he had greatdifficulty with the argument about the cannibals, although he accepted God's omnipotence in dealing with all problems.

What we witness here of course is a clear case of metaphor replacement. In compliance with the Greek spirit (the emphasis on the importance of the soul as theimmortal part of a human being) but also in reaction to it (the extremity of the Gnosticcomplete devaluation of the body), the biblical metaphor of the resurrection of the dead was replaced by the metaphor of an intermediate state and a very physical,

almost massively material, resurrection of only the body. The acceptance of theGreek dichotomy of body and soul formed the enabling background of this development.

In this regard it is necessary to point out that Paul, in 1 Cor. 15, the only full treatiseon the resurrection that we have in the Bible, never refers to the resurrection of thebody, but the resurrection of the dead, anatasis nekroun, cf. v.12,13,15,16,21,29,32, 35 etc. When in v.35 he refers to the body, soma, his use of this term should notbe restricted to the narrow sense of body-matter as we so often tend to do. Paul, nota victim to the Greek dichotomy of body and soul, uses the term "body" to express thewhole of a human being's temporal existence, including the body in the morerestricted sense. When Paul, therefore, asks: "How are the dead raised up? and withwhat body do they come?" he is in fact asking, "What kind of existence will they have?


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This interpretation is confirmed by the way in which he develops his metaphor of the"spiritual body" in v.44 as we have seen.

That we indeed have to do with a metaphor replacement is further supported by thechange in the meaning of the word "flesh" that was freely, and significantly, used

instead of "body." "Flesh," sarks, in the original Pauline usage refers to the human cre-aturely and temporal existence which as a result of sin is marked by smallness, frailtyand transitoriness. In the Clementine Writings the same sense is still conveyed whenit is stated that "also the flesh" will come under God's final judgment, clearly meaningthe deeds done "in the flesh." However, almost imperceptibly the meaning changedto flesh as a literal, crude indication of the materiality of the body. The resurrection ofthe flesh, therefore, became synonymous to the resurrection of the body, with theemphasis on the physical, material body.

The metaphor developed in the early centuries A.D. and has remained dominant tothe present day in the mainline churches and amongst the majority of theologians; an

intermediate state in which the souls of the dead exist in anticipation of their re-unification to their bodies at the resurrection. Only once in the Middle Ages was there thepossibility of escaping the problem concomitant to this metaphor; the identity of theresurrected body with the earthly body, when Thomas Aquinas applied Aristotle'sform-matter motif to his anthropology, declaring the soul the form of the body, the carrier of being even in death. On this basis it was not necessary to look for the selfhoodand identity in the body-matter, because the soul could guarantee the selfhood of theresurrection body. But Thomas did not draw this conclusion. Together with the earlierFathers he maintained the material identity of resurrection body and earthly body. Itwas left to Durandus of St Pourcain to work through the consequence of the Thomistic

anthropology. He accepted that the identity of the resurrection body is given with theidentity of the soul. He was, however, not willing to concede the inevitable conclusionthat the resurrection might as well then take place in the moment of death because theidentity was given with the immortal soul and the corpse that remained behind hadnothing to do with the resurrection body.

The metaphor generally accepted as the Christian doctrine about resurrection andeternal life clearly finds its origin in a very specific view of a human being as consistingof an immortal soul and a temporal body. If, however, the underlying Greek anthropology is no longer accepted, the metaphor itself comes under great pressure. The history of theology since the Enlightenment tells the story of a gradual eroding of the

long-accepted dichotomy of body and soul in human nature, and the concomitantbuilding up of pressure against the centuries old metaphor, until in the twentieth century a significant number of theologians have started in search of new metaphors consistent with the ever-growing conviction that a human being cannot be split up into twoparts, a body and a soul, as the so-called "soul" is but the psychological manifestationof very intricate processes of the human brain. When a person dies and the brain dies,the "soul" dies.

Where such a view of death is accepted there is the tendency to replace the oldmetaphor with the idea of the resurrection as a completely new creation by God at theend of time. There are, however, several possible objections against such a concept.

For one it does not reflect the continuity that is the clear, though implicit, meaning ofPaul's metaphor of the seed in 1 Cor/15:36-37 and which also finds an echo in ouro nself nderstanding The message of the res rrectionholds no comfort if I can no


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longer say that it is I who will be raised from the dead. It also cannot account for various passages from Scripture that speak of life that follows immediately after death (cf.Phil. 1:21 -23; 2 Cor. 5:1-10), or refer to the dead as living (cf. Matthew 22:31 -32, Luke20:38, Mark 9:4 etc.)

This metaphor and some other metaphors that have been developed by theologians like the Lutheran Eberhard Jngel 2 and the Roman Catholic Gisbert Greshake 3

all have one thing in common, they do not take their point of departure from the centralmessage of the resurrection of Christ, but from various other theological andanthropological starting points. I believe, however, that a theologian like Greshake forinstance to whom I am indebted for some clear insights in the development of theresurrection doctrine, could only strengthen his own position by making the Paulinemetaphor of the indwelling of the risen Christ in us as the only possible starting-pointfor a theological interpretation of the resurrection of the dead.

In conjunction with what has been said in the previous paragraphs and especially

about the central and decisive meaning of Christ's resurrection as our irrevocable fulfilment and union with God, I now would like to propose a possible new metaphor withthe view to understanding the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead by stating thatthrough the Spirit of the risen Christ the resurrection becomes part of my own life,irrevocably united to God, partaking in his eternity. This is the beginning of the rection life in me, in fact the beginning of my own resurrection which comes to comple tion at the moment of my death.

We have seen that the Pauline metaphor of "we-in-Christ" and "Christ-in-us" isdirectly applied to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer. The Spirit is the risen,living Christ in us. The mystery of our resurrection from the dead is therefore nothing

more and nothing less than the mystery of the Spirit of the risen and glorified Christthrough whom we are changed into the same image (2 Cor. 3:18), that is the imageof the living Christ. The new life in us as the life of the Spirit through whom we arechanged into the image of the risen Christ cannot be defined in terms of what we knowabout physical and biological life. In fact we cannot know what this life is, because itis hidden in God (Col. 3:3), not only in the sense of "in safe-keeping" but also in thesense of "not manifest." Of course there are manifestations of this new life in whatPaul describes as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), but what this life is in itself remainshidden from us. Therefore, Paul and for that matter other biblical authors speak of thislife in clearly metaphorical terms. In contrast to the physical-biological life we know it

is the true life coming from God, life in capital letters as it were which can be referredto without attributes (cf. Matthew 7:14; Mark 9:43, 45), everlasting life which we shallreceive as our future heritage, (Matthew 19:29; Tit. 3:7) but which we already have(2 Tim. 1:10; Col. 3:3).

John is even more radical and explicit in the way in which he relates eternal life tothe present life of the believer when he quotes Jesus saying that the one who believeshas everlasting life and has passed from death to life (John 5:24). John repeats thethought about eternal life as a present reality in John 17:3, and in 1 John 3:14 we findthe remarkable assertion that we have already passed from death to life because welove our brothers. The idea that the believers even before their own physical death

have passed from death to life is logically juxtaposed in the Bible to the idea that the


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unbelievers are dead even before their own death, despite the fact that they are stillliving (cf. Eph. 2:1).

The metaphorical way in which the Bible speaks of this new life as the resurrectionlife and life everlasting makes it clear that it is not some kind of physical, biological

form of life, the only form of life we know, the latter being part of our temporal existence. Confusion in this regard, not recognizing the metaphorical use of the term"life," is in my opinion one of the reasons for a physical, even crude, view on the resurrection of the dead, conceived of almost as the re-animation of corpses or of whatremained of them. Within such a conceptual framework the problem of identity andcontinuity is indeed serious. The only partial solution is to find identity and continuityin a bodyless immortal soul that escapes death and an intermediate state in which itsojourns for the time being, waiting upon its re-unification with the body. Even accepting that such a dichotomy reflects the biblical position -which it does not-the solutionis indeed only partial. Can there indeed be something like a "bodyless" identity? Andif such an identity were possible, why does the soul have to wait for a resurrected bodyto give it the necessary identity on the judgement day as the Church Fathers insistedit should have? Apart from these considerations there still remains the serious problem of a double judgment if we accept the Greek body-soul dichotomy and the idea ofan intermediate state; a judgement of the soul at the moment of death and a judgement of body and soul on the resurrection day. Why two judgements, while the Bibleknows only one? Finally, if it is this body of mine that one day is going to partake in lifeeverlasting, how is it then possible to maintain that eternal life has already becomepart of me this side of the grave? In such a case death would mean a breach in thecontinuity of eternal life which by definition is excluded from the concept of eternal lifeitself.

However, if we take seriously the fact that Paul clearly uses metaphors when herefers to "the body" in 1 Cor. 15 (incidentally the only place in the Bible where the bodyis mentioned in connection with the resurrection of the dead), as is evidenced byterms like "seed" and "spiritual body," we would be well-advised not to restrict themeaning of the term "body" to body in the narrow sense of the word as a physical-biological entity, but rather interpret the whole of the metaphor as in essence tellingus that the same person at the moment of death will live on in a different mode of extence, partaking in the life-giving Spirit of the resurrected Christ. Such an interpretation of the body metaphor in 1 Cor. 15 can only be given if we take as our point ofdeparture his metaphor on the indwelling of the living Christ in us. Through ourirrevocable and indissoluble union with Christ the future mode of existence is alreadyat work in us although hidden (Col. 3:3) and becomes manifest when the temporalmode of existence is laid off in the moment of death. My continuity and my identityeven through death are guaranteed by my unity with the living Christ in me, partakingin his eternity.

By this line of argument a duality is in fact juxtapositioned; however, not ananthropological duality in the sense of a body-soul-dichotomy, but the ultimate andfinal duality of time and eternity. I exist fully, the total person as an indissoluble unityof body and psyche, in time and space. At the same time in the totality of my existenceI participate in eternity, because, through the indwelling of the Spirit eternity becomespart of my existence in time and space. Of the two sides of my existence, time and


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knowable in the sense of being conceptualized, because only the temporal and thespatial can be conceptualized. That is why we live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7).

In death time touches eternity. The moment that I die the temporal and spatial, thebody and the psyche, is laid down. The temporal and spatial in all its facets come toan end. My eternal side, or rather the new, eternal life that up to the point of death washidden in God with Christ, now appears. This is my resurrection. The moment I closemy eyes in death, I open them in the visio Deioi my resurrection.

Taking into consideration the serious problems that beset the metaphor of an intermediate state, based upon the Greek body-soul dichotomy, I venture to suggest thatthe metaphor of resurrection in death is the only metaphor that covers most satisfactorily the New Testament's overall message on resurrection and life after death.

In the first instance it covers the Pauline teaching of a new life in full communion withChrist that immediately follows upon death. Two passages apply, Phil. 1:23 and themore elaborate 2 Cor. 4:16-5:10. While the former only expresses Paul's firm conviction that he will be with Christ at the moment of his death, the latter places this "bewith" Christ in a clear resurrection context; "For we know that if our earthly house ofthis tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made withhands, eternal in the heavens" (v.1). Paul uses the expression "earthly (tent) house"oikias tou skeinous, as a metaphor well-known in the Old Testament to indicate ourtemporal and mortal existence in its totality (cf. Is. 38:12; Job 4:19) and not, as in thecase of hellenistic writings, the body as distinct from the soul. It also corresponds tothe "outward nature" in 4:16 (NRSV). The "building of God, a house not made withhands" refers to a heavenly existence not subjected to death, corresponding to the"inward nature" of 4:16. Paul in fact tells us that the "resurrection body" is kept inheaven like a cloak ready to be put on the moment we leave our earthly and mortaexistence. At the moment, however, it is hidden from sight (4:18), yet it is a reality asthe inward nature. Although this passage in 2 Corinthians is far more explicit, theparallel to Col 3:13 is too obvious to be missed. To look for any reference to some kindof intermediate state is to completely distort what the apostle tries to convey.

Secondly the metaphor of resurrection in death blends in a far more satisfactoryway with various other, non-Pauline, passages from Scripture that refer to the deadas living, not partially as souls without bodies, but as real persons (cf. Mark 9:4,Matthew 17:3 and Luke 9:30-31 ). Matthew 22:31 -32 falls into the same category; v.32clearly refers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as living persons. God does not have anintimate relationship (being their God) with the dead. The tense is the present; now,at this moment they live because God is their God, but the context is that of the resurrection as V.31 unambiguously indicates.

The passage from Matthew, finally, warns us that any application of time categoriesto life after death is fraught with the danger of all kinds of misunderstandings. The serious objection that a doctrine of a resurrection in death of an individual places that person in position of anticipating the event of the universal resurrection when Christreturns, is based on the false premises that our concepts of time apply to eternity. Infact the whole idea of an "intermediate state" that "precedes" the resurrection is suchan invalid application. Luther is the one outstanding example in the history of theologyof a theologian willing to struggle with the problem of the relationship between timeand eternity with regard to the problem of life after death. He ended up by advocating


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ness of the conscious experience of all believers of eternal life after death. The dawnof the new day breaks for every believer when he or she dies. In this experience of thesoul that sleeps the whole intermediate state is condensed into the one moment ofeternity. But Luther might as well have dispensed with the notion of an intermediate

state as such. The serious problems associated with the concept of a soul that sleepsthen would not have arisen. Latching on to these problems Lutheran orthodoxy chosenot to follow Luther, thereby missing out on the opportunity to make his deepest intentions fruitful for the eschatological thinking of the Churches. The idea of a resurrectionin death as advocated in this article is, therefore, not without at least some roots in thetheological thinking of the past. It is, therefore, in my opinion, not such a radical departure from traditional thought as it may seem. With regard to the various other facetsof eschatological thinking some tentative thoughts need to be explored, but I believethat all of them can be accommodated with a greater or lesser degree of comfort in this"new" framework.

In the final analysis we must realize that we try to express the inexpressible. To thatend we use metaphors. The idea of resurrection in death is only another metaphorand I for one am fully aware of the fact that there are times that one reaches the edgesof language, the end to all metaphors.


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124. Theology & Res.- Metaphors and Paradigms

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