JOURNAL OF THEOLOGY FOR SOUTHERN AFRICA

Theology and Resurrection Metaphors and Paradigms

JJ.F. Durand
The Resurrection under the Taboo of Hermeneutics
Without the central salvific fact of the resurrection of Christ there would never have been a New Testament and the religion that is called Christianity would never have existed. Yet, the resurrection never has had a central place in the theological thinking in the west. Throughout the history of western theology the main emphasis has fallen on the salvific significance of Christ's death on the cross, often to such a degree that the resurrection was pushed to the background, and at the most seen as the divine affirmation and legitimation of the cross. A careful study of the history of Christian thought might throw some light on the reasons why western theology as distinct from the eastern Church decided to go its own 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 that this is the century in which we have seen many kinds of theologies come and go. The fact 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 practice of theology in Roman Catholic circles, but yet does not make any attempt himself to remedy the situation, we are led to ask what the stumbling-blocks are, specific to the twentieth century, that stand in the way of giving the resurrection of Christ its due place. I would like to suggest that it has been the twentieth century's concentration on the hermeneutical question about the processes of human understanding in the interpretation of the biblical text that has brought the resurrection of Christ into a crisis, more than any other article of faith. The existential interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann and his school has had such an unnerving effect that it would have taken a rather intrepid theologian amongst all those willing to experiment to come up with a theology that makes 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 difficult to approach in a hermeneutical process of understanding - was too risky an undertaking. In the meantime, however, the hermeneutical discussion has not come to a standstill. The fundamental questions asked by the school of Bultmann remain the same, 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 as post-modern, but also as part thereof the emergence of new concepts and thought paradigms in philosophical discourse that make it possible to approach questions and answers from a different angle. However, although these developments can clearly be seen in the theological prolegomena of today, they are still markedly absent in the
Professor JJ.F. Durand is Vice-Rector of the University of the Western Cape.

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substantive parts of systematic theology. It is high time this situation changes. But if it were to happen, what influence will it have on the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ? 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 an attempt to give a preliminary answer to this question. However, to make such an attempt 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-understanding The hermeneutical problem has to do with the question of interpreting the Bible in such a way that its actuality for the present can be discovered and thus be understood by the reader who is a historical being living in a concrete, historical context. The Bible itself is also not a-historical. It does not present itself as a document telling the story of historical events. The hermeneutical task is, therefore, to interpret it in such a way that an immediacy and a simultaneity between two historical situations take place: the situation of the Bible message and the situation of the reader/listener. A continuum must be found between the historical past of the revelation and the historical present of the reader/listener. From this it inevitably follows that hermeneutics will ask questions about the conditions of human understanding today. In short, the understandingstructure 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 the issue itself is as old as Christian theology. The problem of the understanding of the subject at all times accompanied the practice of theology, sometimes more overtly sometimes more covertly. When Bultmann, therefore, clearly gave primacy to the subject in the hermeneutical process, he only articulated something that had been there 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 selfunderstanding of the human subject so persuasively and with so much conviction that it was felt intuitively that the days of objectifying theology were numbered; that it was no longer possible to go back beyond Bultmann. The second reason is closely linked to the first. The believing subject was no longer expected to find support for his faith in its factuality and historicity thereof. Therefore, free reign could be given to historical criticism without, so it seemed, endangering the Gospel message itself. Faith is directed towards the Existenzverstndnis which comes to expression in the witness of the church of the New Testament and which is today a present reality through the proclaimed Word. Faith has no historical certainty, only the certainty given by the proclaimed Word. In this sense the resurrection of Jesus as related in the bible is for Bultmann a mythological miracle-story. But yet, He is resurrected in the proclamation of the early church and it is that which counts. Once again, the radicalism of Bultmann's stand-point was not that he seemingly denied the resurrection of Christ (it is debatable whether he in fact did deny it or not) - rationalists and positivists before him 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. The hermeneutic discussion which Bultmann brought into motion was never able to

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disengage itself from his original input. This is quite understandable. He brought into the debate the question of the nature of the processes of human understanding, a question 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 parcel thereof. Theologians like Fuchs and Ebeling for example started to emphasize the meaning of language as means of communication and participation. The Christian faith 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 to make 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 new paradigm was already well entrenched in theological discourse. Various theologians can 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 "interpretationas-con versation."1 The conversation Tracy alludes to is the conversation that takes place between the interpreter and the text. The text and the interpreter interact. What does it mean? Interpretation always has to do with language and anyone who uses a language 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/she must understand it differently from how the original author or the first audience or readers 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 expectations and 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 texts that have helped found or form a particular culture and as such bear an excess and permanence of meaning, yet always resist definitive interpretation. This is so because there is something paradoxical about them. Though highly particular in origin and expression, classics have the possibility of being universal in their effect. The biblical texts have exercised such a role throughout western history. They are extraordinary examples of such a resistance to definite interpretation. As a code they have functioned with remarkable flexibility. According to Tracy the conversation which takes place between the interpreter and the text is in its primary form an exploration of possibilities in the search for truth. In principle, theologians as interpreters should be open to every hermeneutic and explanatory method that can illuminate their demanding task; historical-critical methods, social scientific methods, semiotic and structural methods, poststructuralist methods, hermeneutical discourse analysis etc. Any form of argument that enhances the 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 distortions suspected in the religious classics themselves. In this process we assess the coherence or incoherence of all claims of the classic by judging it in relationship to the most
1. Plurality and Ambiguity (Harper & Row San Fransisco 1987)

THEOLOGY AND RESURRECTION

relatively adequate consensual knowledge we possess Thus to recognise "possibility," despite all the differences we discover, is to sense some similarity to what we have already experienced or understood But similarity here must be described as similanty-in-difference, that is, as analogy Tracy uses the concept of analogy in its original Aristotelian sense, an alternative language that finds itself placed between univocal language where all is the same and an equivocal language where all is different Authentic analogical language means an articulation of real differences as genuinely different but also similar to what we already know Tracy accordingly names this difficult dialogue, "an analogical imagination" which means at an existential level a willingness to enter the conversation by facing the claims to attention of the other In a true conversation we recognise the classics' 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 to put at risk one's present self-understanding in order to converse with the claim to attention 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 of course 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 hermeneutics In so doing he reaffirms the importance of Bultmann's original point of departure, the crucial, even decisive, role played by the human self-understanding in the process of interpretation He also does not shirk the consequences of such a view on hermeneutics, the relative inadequacy of interpretations, the awareness of a radical conflict in interpretations while in conversation with the classics, the resultant pluralism and the concomitant sense of the inadequacy of religious language But at the same time, hesitantly and sometimes rather ambiguously Tracy tries to escape the accusation of complete relativism and subjectism in a way Bultmann probably would not have bothered to do By way of illustration I would like to demonstrate the difference between Tracy and Bultmann in relation to the basic theme of this article, the resurrection of Christ In a sense the comparison is hypothetical because to my knowledge Tracy has not directly applied his theory to the biblical text telling us the story of Christ's resurrection, and Bultmann, of course, had no knowledge of Tracy's idea of an analogical imagination For Bultmann, faith correlates with the disciples' message of the resurrected and living 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 a mythological 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 living Christ 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
The story of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is totally different from anything that I have already experienced or understood In truth it contradicts my own self-understanding I am, therefore in

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my analogical dialogue with the biblical text, bound to struggle critically with the fact that its claim to truth is part of its meaning. If I want to understand the meaning of the text I could even be forced to 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 hermeneutical subjectivism and relativism? The way in which he formulates the issue is often of such a nature that it seems as if he is more worried about the understanding of a text than about the truth of the text's claims. The possibility of an ultimate conversion of the interpreter, as Tracy proposes, seems to be a step in the direction of freeing us from hermeneutical 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 Resurrection It is sobering to realize that the problem of subjectivism, relativism and even scepticism is not solvable within general philosophical epistomology. The same holds good for theology. The way in which the subject-object epistomological structure had been handled in theology over the centuries, and all the abortive attempts to make corrections to it, affirm this observation. Developments in the twentieth century's theological hermeneutics have scuttled all pretentions in this regard. There is no hermeneutical system 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 reached within the circles of the natural sciences. Seeing that the problem of subjectivity in theological hermeneutics no longer needs to be a source of embarrassment we are now able to look with an open mind at the process of understanding in theology, especially where it centres around human selfunderstanding. What is this self-understanding with which a theologian approaches the biblical text? It is unnecessary in this regard to repeat all that has been said over and over again about life-situations, ancestry, education, tradition, philosophical environment etc. I want to concentrate on only one aspect to which very little attention had been given in the past. All no doubt are aware of the existence of this factor and the fundamental importance 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 assume the 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 the biblical text, I am already committed to the ultimate truth of the message of the text. I prefer to speak here of a "commitment to" the truth of a text instead of "belief in" the truth of the text, because "commitment" expresses, in my opinion, more clearly what happens in the encounter and conversation with the text. Even if my faith is almost totally 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, because it emerges out of two factors that have formed my self-understanding in a decisive way; 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 Christian faith which from very early on in my life had been brought home to me through example, liturgy, education etc., and I live mainly within a church community which is

THEOLOGY AND RESURRECTION

also marked by the same tradition. My commitment to the ultimate truth of the biblical text is the result of this interplay of tradition and community. Intuitively, therefore, I know 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 within which I find myself. My commitment does not take away the alienness and otherness of the text which was written in different times and situations, but at least it makes it possible for me to recognise the claim of the text. Of course it is possible that the text is so alien and its otherness so complete that my commitment itself is problematized to such a degree that 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 such a way that my commitment is not put at risk, even though my interpretation does not reflect the obvious meaning of the text. The way in which it is done depends on the nature 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 the variations and differences in interpretation within the Christian tradition over a period of twenty centuries there is a broad consensus that the Christian faith stands and falls with 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 of Jesus' 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 serious interrelated problems in my approach to the Bible texts that deal with the resurrection of 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 place in diverse language-worlds in which different writers, traditions, purposes, terminologies and historical situations play a significant role. An abundance of literary and historical studies has made it clear that there was, from the very beginning, more than one resurrection message, appropriated and proclaimed in several contexts. Any attempt to harmonise these different versions of the resurrection has failed. It is therefore not peculiar that some have concluded that this wide variety of resurrection narratives shows that nothing really took place, that they are in fact merely stories and myths. For the theologian committed to the historicity of Jesus' resurrection, however, the diversity does not constitute a serious threat to his or her commitment. The failure to harmonise the different versions does not preclude scholars to look for some basic historical or liturgical material or at least assumptions underlying all these traditions and interpretations, all of which point to some kind of event or events which took place and were testified to by the early church.

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Furthermore, apart from the variety of forms in which the resurrection story is related to me, there is the strangeness of the stories themselves. In the interpretation process I come across almost insurmountable problems which make it next to impossible 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 Jesus are related in contrary, paradoxical terms - not a phantom and yet not palpable, perceptible and imperceptible, visible and invisible, material and immaterial -there is no way in which I can interpret them that makes sense vis-a-vis my own experiences and self-understanding. What usually happens, therefore, is that interpreters who are committed to the reality of Jesus' resurrection and appearances, take the bodily and material side of the paradox as the part they can relate to, while tacitly acknowledging the incomprehensibility of it all. The effect of dealing with the biblical appearance accounts 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 speaks of had gone out of the window and what was left was almost univocal language on the part 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 in which the resurrection narratives comes to us and the strangeness of the narratives themselves are but the consequence of the complete incomprehensibility of the event testified to and the impossibility of finding any analogical language capable of conveying what had happened. Indeed, it is even wrong to speak about a testimony to an event that took place. The New Testament Easter testimonies are not meant to be testimonies to the resurrection as event, but testimonies to the risen One as person. Of course the testimony to the risen Christ presupposes the event of the resurrection, but the event itself is nowhere recorded. And for good reason, because the resurrection has 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 they were 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 of nature 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 have become clear to the perceptive reader that my commitment to the reality of Christ's resurrection also implies a certain pre-understanding with which I approach the text, for a commitment without a definite understanding thereof is impossible. The preunderstanding that I am referring to in this instance is that it was God himself who acted in a decisive way and that it was this decisive act of his that became known in the historical moment or moments of the encounter between the risen Christ and his early 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 a way inaccessible to human understanding. While the otherness of the biblical text concerning the appearances of Christ does not, necessarily, endanger my commitment to the fact of the resurrection, it does,

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however, bring my interpretation of the "how" under great pressure. Yet, I do not find myself in an unusual position in this regard. The broader Christian tradition which forms 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, something which 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 this regard. Metaphor Replacement Metaphors refer to experiences that do not relate to the ordinary experiences of daily life. We usually meet such metaphors in poetry. For metaphors there are no substitutes. They cannot be replaced by literal equations because such equations are unable to express the suggestive nature of a metaphor. Metaphors point to similarities that most probably would have gone unnoticed without the distinctive disclosure of the metaphor. The metaphor is the only access to a specific understanding of some or the other matter and, therefore, plays an inalienable function in the human process of gaining knowledge. In this process we make use of our imagination which in its turn makes use of what we have, what we know and what we are so that we may reach and understand 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 any other way, not only by means of words and phrases, but also by means of dramatized stories. The Bible itself makes use of imaginative metaphors in an effort to try to say what cannot 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 of metaphors 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 uses corresponds 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 the language 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 the metaphor. To that end the interpreter's commitment and pre-understanding, honed by tradition, plays a crucial role enabling him or her to distinguish between that which is vital in the biblical metaphor and which is not. Once this has been discovered a new metaphor is created corresponding to the self-understanding of the interpreter. Resurrection and Metaphor From 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 analogical replacement of metaphors it is, in my opinion, possible to free the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ from the hermeneutical problems it has been subjected to as set out

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above so that the resurrection of the Crucified might become the key perspective of theology 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 metaphorical speech of the Bible concerning the resurrection. In this regard we must keep in mind the possibility of a multiplicity of metaphors dependent on the specific circumstances of 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 grave and the appearances of Christ, and the Pauline metaphors concerning the "spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15), and concerning the unity of Christ and the believer as expressed in the Pauline formula, "in Christ." Concerning the Gospel-accounts of the empty grave and the appearances of the living Christ, I would like to start off by referring to what has been said above namely that the resurrection was an event that transcends the limits of history because it is not accessible 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 for awakening and rising from sleep. But with the waking and rising from death, there is no question of returning to the wakeful state of ordinary life. Rather we have here a radical transformation in a wholly different unparalleled, definitive state. Here there is nothing to be depicted, imagined, objectified. It would not be a different life at all if we could give it visual shape in a literal sense. Only through the metaphor can the meaning of what happened be expressed with the aid of ideas and images drawn from our ordinary life. In this sense the appearances' accounts of the risen Christ in the Gospels, including the story of the empty grave, are metaphorical, dramatized accounts with the view to conveying the clear and unambiguous message that it is no-one other than the crucified Jesus that has appeared as the risen One to his disciples. That is why 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 these stories as literal, historical objectified reports which can be interpreted in such a way that we get an insight into the nature of the resurrection is to grossly distort the intent of the metaphor. The Pauline metaphor of the "spiritual body" in 1 Cor 15:44 is clearly aimed at the misunderstanding that the resurrection means some or other return to the earthly form of life. That this not only applies to the resurrection of the dead generally, but also to the resurrection of Christ, follows from the close link between v.44 and v.45, between the "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 natural body 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 a completely different mode of existence; the temporal human existence is replaced by an 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 new life of the Spirit, but also the giver. In fact through his resurrection Christ became the lifegiving Spirit. In no sense of the word does Paul try to give a description of 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 the resurrection of Christ is His Spirit. The identity of Christ and the Spirit is central to the metaphor under discussion as well 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 Paul refers to the Spirit, the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ, meaning the same Spirit in 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 other way in which he makes himself known to us. The metaphor "in Christ" that Paul often uses has the intention of pointing out the deep unity that exists between Christ and those that belong to him that it can be said they 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 is often described in terms of a "corporate personality," the idea namely that a king or a leader (as found for instance in the Old Testament) represents his followers in such a way that what happens to him also happens to them. The metaphor encapsulates the idea 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 the history 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 with a 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 classicus 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 also the case in the metaphor now under discussion. The key text in this regard we find in Rom. 8:10-11, "Yet, even though Christ lives within you, your body will die because of sin; but your spirit will live because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of God, who raised 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 "Christ living within you" and then of the "Spirit living within you." For Paul this is one and the same thing. The resurrection context in which the identity of the indwelling Christ and the indwelling Spirit is affirmed by Paul cannot be missed. The Spirit is the living Christ in 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" is hermeneutically the most suitable point of departure for a theological approach to the resurrection of Christ. There is an analogical correlation between what the text

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tells me and my own self-understanding because I recognize the claim of the text. The otherness of the metaphor is not of such a nature that it in any way problematizes my commitment to the truth of the resurrection of Christ. On the contrary, the text affirms my 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 the theological point of departure for the interpretation of the resurrection of Christ and the nature thereof, apart from their obvious intention of telling us that the risen Lord is indeed the crucified Jesus, is a very risky venture. Efforts to "understand" the nature of Christ's resurrection body led to conclusions which, in the history of theology gave rise to all kinds of speculations about the resurrection body, the resurrection of the dead 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 been fully 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 the example of these appearances in his own metaphor (1 Cor. 15:44) in an attempt to explain the resurrection body. He rather refers back to the identity of Christ with the life-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 taken as the starting-point for a theological interpretation of the resurrection of Christ, it will have inevitable implications for the role to be played by the resurrection doctrine within systematic theology. Most importantly it opens up the possibility of affirming the centrality of the resurrection beyond all doubt.

The Centrality of the Resurrection

At the beginning it was pointed out that throughout the history of western theology the resurrection of Christ has been seen as God's affirmation and legitimation of the cross. Only when the significance of eschatology for theology was rediscovered in the twentieth century did the resurrection receive a new emphasis as the anticipation of the new world that God had intended for mankind. The remembrance of the past of the cross now finds its complement in the anticipation of the eschatological future. The resurrection, therefore, finds itself on the cutting-edge between remembrance and anticipation. However, the full implications for theological thinking of this centrality of the resurrection between retrocipation and anticipation have never been fully worked out apart from the acknowledgement of the resurrection as the great turningpoint of the ages and as the startingpoint of the eschatological future. What did not happen was the acknowledgement that the resurrection must keep its centrality as the perspectival pivot from which theology must be unfolded. The epistomological precedence of the resurrection follows from the nature of the Christian message itself. The total message of the New Testament comes to us from the 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 the way 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 succeeded in showing a way in which we can overcome these stumbling-blocks,

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namely by accepting the possibility of a correlation of thought between myself and the resurrection 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 the theologian. Through the indwelling of the risen Christ as the life-giving Spirit in me, the past of the cross and the future of my own resurrection become a present reality. It is this present reality that ultimately and decisively determines my self-understanding. Accordingly it would be a serious mistake in my theology to move away from the metaphors 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 retrospectively 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 for theology 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 in our midst, the way in which the various articles of faith are dealt with will probably be affected. This does not necessarily mean any dramatic change in content will occur. However, the possibility of new perspectives cannot be excluded, especially with reference 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 of in 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 one doctrine that on the face of it is the most likely to be directly affected by standpoints on the resurrection of Christ; the eschatological doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. Resurrection of the Dead The development of the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead in the history of dogma makes 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 the resurrection 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 short stay 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 resurrection all but coincided. At this stage the idea of an intermediate state between an individual believer'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 the emphasis on the material identity of the resurrection body and the earthly body were the result of a rather complex relationship with Greek culture and philosophy which

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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 immortal soul, although modifying it by stating that the soul's immortality was not intrinsic but a gift of God. The specific Christian contribution to the debate on immortality they believed, however, was the message of the resurrection of the body. By accepting the Greek dichotomy of body and soul and by viewing the resurrection of the body as the Christian 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 final redemptive act, the resurrection of the dead, was broken up into two parts or rather two phases: the first phase being the existence of the immortal soul after death and the 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 individual souls 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 of cannibalism 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 to be very vexing by early Church Fathers, Ambrose for one confessing that he had great difficulty 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 the immortal part of a human being) but also in reaction to it (the extremity of the Gnostic complete 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 the Greek 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 treatise on the resurrection that we have in the Bible, never refers to the resurrection of the body, 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 not be restricted to the narrow sense of body-matter as we so often tend to do. Paul, not a victim to the Greek dichotomy of body and soul, uses the term "body" to express the whole of a human being's temporal existence, including the body in the more restricted sense. When Paul, therefore, asks: "How are the dead raised up? and with what 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 the change 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 creaturely and temporal existence which as a result of sin is marked by smallness, frailty and transitoriness. In the Clementine Writings the same sense is still conveyed when it is stated that "also the flesh" will come under God's final judgment, clearly meaning the deeds done "in the flesh." However, almost imperceptibly the meaning changed to flesh as a literal, crude indication of the materiality of the body. The resurrection of the flesh, therefore, became synonymous to the resurrection of the body, with the emphasis on the physical, material body. The metaphor developed in the early centuries A.D. and has remained dominant to the 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 the possibility of escaping the problem concomitant to this metaphor; the identity of the resurrected body with the earthly body, when Thomas Aquinas applied Aristotle's form-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 selfhood and identity in the body-matter, because the soul could guarantee the selfhood of the resurrection body. But Thomas did not draw this conclusion. Together with the earlier Fathers he maintained the material identity of resurrection body and earthly body. It was 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 the identity of the soul. He was, however, not willing to concede the inevitable conclusion that the resurrection might as well then take place in the moment of death because the identity was given with the immortal soul and the corpse that remained behind had nothing to do with the resurrection body. The metaphor generally accepted as the Christian doctrine about resurrection and eternal life clearly finds its origin in a very specific view of a human being as consisting of 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 concomitant building 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 two parts, a body and a soul, as the so-called "soul" is but the psychological manifestation of 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 old metaphor with the idea of the resurrection as a completely new creation by God at the end 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 of Paul's metaphor of the seed in 1 Cor/15:36-37 and which also finds an echo in our own self-understanding. The message of the resurrection holds 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, Luke 20:38, Mark 9:4 etc.) This metaphor and some other metaphors that have been developed by theologians like the Lutheran Eberhard Jngel2 and the Roman Catholic Gisbert Greshake3 all have one thing in common, they do not take their point of departure from the central message of the resurrection of Christ, but from various other theological and anthropological starting points. I believe, however, that a theologian like Greshake for instance to whom I am indebted for some clear insights in the development of the resurrection doctrine, could only strengthen his own position by making the Pauline metaphor of the indwelling of the risen Christ in us as the only possible starting-point for 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 with the view to understanding the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead by stating that through the Spirit of the risen Christ the resurrection becomes part of my own life, lam irrevocably united to God, partaking in his eternity. This is the beginning of the resurrection life in me, in fact the beginning of my own resurrection which comes to completion at the moment of my death. We have seen that the Pauline metaphor of "we-in-Christ" and "Christ-in-us" is directly 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 Christ through whom we are changed into the same image (2 Cor. 3:18), that is the image of the living Christ. The new life in us as the life of the Spirit through whom we are changed into the image of the risen Christ cannot be defined in terms of what we know about physical and biological life. In fact we cannot know what this life is, because it is hidden in God (Col. 3:3), not only in the sense of "in safe-keeping" but also in the sense of "not manifest." Of course there are manifestations of this new life in what Paul describes as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), but what this life is in itselfremains hidden from us. Therefore, Paul and for that matter other biblical authors speak of this life 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 referred to without attributes (cf. Matthew 7:14; Mark 9:43, 45), everlasting life which we shall receive 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 to the present life of the believer when he quotes Jesus saying that the one who believes has everlasting life and has passed from death to life (John 5:24). John repeats the thought about eternal life as a present reality in John 17:3, and in 1 John 3:14 we find the remarkable assertion that we have already passed from death to life because we love 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
2. 3. Tod, Kreuz-verlag, Stuttgart 1971 Ressurectio Mortuorum, Wissenschafliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1986

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unbelievers are dead even before their own death, despite the fact that they are still living (cf. Eph. 2:1). The metaphorical way in which the Bible speaks of this new life as the resurrection life 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 what remained of them. Within such a conceptual framework the problem of identity and continuity is indeed serious. The only partial solution is to find identity and continuity in a bodyless immortal soul that escapes death and an intermediate state in which it sojourns 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 solution is indeed only partial. Can there indeed be something like a "bodyless" identity? And if such an identity were possible, why does the soul have to wait for a resurrected body to give it the necessary identity on the judgement day as the Church Fathers insisted it 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 of an 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 Bible knows only one? Finally, if it is this body of mine that one day is going to partake in life everlasting, how is it then possible to maintain that eternal life has already become part of me this side of the grave? In such a case death would mean a breach in the continuity of eternal life which by definition is excluded from the concept of eternal life itself. However, if we take seriously the fact that Paul clearly uses metaphors when he refers to "the body" in 1 Cor. 15 (incidentally the only place in the Bible where the body is mentioned in connection with the resurrection of the dead), as is evidenced by terms like "seed" and "spiritual body," we would be well-advised not to restrict the meaning of the term "body" to body in the narrow sense of the word as a physicalbiological entity, but rather interpret the whole of the metaphor as in essence telling us that the same person at the moment of death will live on in a different mode of existence, 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 of departure his metaphor on the indwelling of the living Christ in us. Through our irrevocable and indissoluble union with Christ the future mode of existence is already at work in us although hidden (Col. 3:3) and becomes manifest when the temporal mode of existence is laid off in the moment of death. My continuity and my identity even through death are guaranteed by my unity with the living Christ in me, partaking in his eternity. By this line of argument a duality is in fact juxtapositioned; however, not an anthropological duality in the sense of a body-soul-dichotomy, but the ultimate and final duality of time and eternity. I exist fully, the total person as an indissoluble unity of body and psyche, in time and space. At the same time in the totality of my existence I participate in eternity, because, through the indwelling of the Spirit eternity becomes part of my existence in time and space. Of the two sides of my existence, time and eternity, only the former is knowable and can be conceptualised. The latter is not

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knowable in the sense of being conceptualized, because only the temporal and the spatial 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, the body and the psyche, is laid down. The temporal and spatial in all its facets come to an end. My eternal side, or rather the new, eternal life that up to the point of death was hidden in God with Christ, now appears. This is my resurrection. The moment I close my 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 that the 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 with Christ that immediately follows upon death. Two passages apply, Phil. 1:23 and the more 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 "be with" Christ in a clear resurrection context; "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, 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 our temporal and mortal existence in its totality (cf. Is. 38:12; Job 4:19) and not, as in the case of hellenistic writings, the body as distinct from the soul. It also corresponds to the "outward nature" in 4:16 (NRSV). The "building of God, a house not made with hands" 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 in heaven like a cloak ready to be put on the moment we leave our earthly and mortal existence. At the moment, however, it is hidden from sight (4:18), yet it is a reality as the inward nature. Although this passage in 2 Corinthians is far more explicit, the parallel to Col 3:13 is too obvious to be missed. To look for any reference to some kind of intermediate state is to completely distort what the apostle tries to convey. Secondly the metaphor of resurrection in death blends in a far more satisfactory way with various other, non-Pauline, passages from Scripture that refer to the dead as 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.32 clearly refers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as living persons. God does not have an intimate 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 categories to 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 Christ returns, is based on the false premises that our concepts of time apply to eternity. In fact the whole idea of an "intermediate state" that "precedes" the resurrection is such an invalid application. Luther is the one outstanding example in the history of theology of a theologian willing to struggle with the problem of the relationship between time and eternity with regard to the problem of life after death. He ended up by advocating an intermediate state of a soul that sleeps thereby emphasizing the simultaneous-

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ness of the conscious experience of all believers of eternal life after death. The dawn of the new day breaks for every believer when he or she dies. In this experience of the soul that sleeps the whole intermediate state is condensed into the one moment of eternity. 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 sleeps then would not have arisen. Latching on to these problems Lutheran orthodoxy chose not 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 resurrection in death as advocated in this article is, therefore, not without at least some roots in the theological 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 facets of eschatological thinking some tentative thoughts need to be explored, but I believe that 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 that end we use metaphors. The idea of resurrection in death is only another metaphor and I for one am fully aware of the fact that there are times that one reaches the edges of language, the end to all metaphors.

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