Concilium English
top 
2006 / 5
Introduction
Andrés Torres Queiruga, Luiz Carlos Susin, Jon Sobrino
Speaking of resurrection means speaking of the biblical tradition and especially of the Christian tradition. Christ is the Risen One par excellence, to the point where it is common to find the most specific mark of Christianity in this proclamation. The resurrection is in fact its way of facing up to one of the great questions of humankind, perhaps the question: what becomes of us after death, what awaits us or what can we hope for after this dark and inexorable abyss? And what effects does answering one way or another have on our present life?
It is understandable that the resurrection should have become one of the major concerns of present-day theology. From occupying a few paragraphs, or at most a few brief pages, in the manuals, its study has multiplied in quantity and variety. From being reduced to a `miracle', perhaps the greatest and most spectacular but ultimately an event in this world used for `apologetic purposes', it has moved to the centre of Christology and has begun to be considered truly in itself, in its intrinsic significance and its renewing potentiality for life and history. As a result, articles, monographs, and conferences on the subject have multiplied - a change that can only be welcomed with joy and hope.
Nevertheless, the task cannot be considered finished. There has been a great advance both in overall focus and in realization of its importance, as there has been above all in the study of the historical and exegetical details. Viewing this in historical terms, however, shows it to be a still very recent change, and one that has been weighed down with strong resistance from those who are fearful that renewal in the manner of understanding it will do away with the actual content of the truth: that theology of it will become a threat to faith in it. The very weight of a venerable tradition and sometimes also the inertia of theological routines have led to an ongoing lack of appreciation of the depth and consequences of the exegetical and historical studies, as of the advances made by a profoundly renewed hermeneutics.
As a result, there still remains ample space for re-structuring the overall [8] imagery and conceptual formulations within the current cultural climate, taking account primarily of the deep break brought about by Modernity and of the increasingly intense and effective meeting with other religious traditions. This issue of Concilium — like past ones such as 1993/5, edited by Hermann Häring and Johann-Baptist Metz, and 1991/4, edited by Metz and Edward Schillebeeckx — seeks to contribute to the joint and open task of authentic updating on the subject.
There is a need, in the first place, to profit from the distancing from biblical fundamentalism, left behind on principle after long and hard resistance to it, with timid beginnings in the seventeenth century, but which has still not borne all its fruits in theological practice. The nature of the narratives, written by witnesses who were neither present at the original events nor the first to reflect on them; their late and geographically removed development; their not directly historical but rather kerygmatic and catechetical purpose of nourishing faith; their symbolic language, combined with irreconcilable discrepancies in times, persons, and places — all these factors oblige us to re-read these narratives, seeking to recover, beyond their text, their spirit, the underlying intention that informs them. There is no doubt that these are theological narratives that testify to a deep experience of faith, expressed through the linguistic, inventive, and conceptual resources available to them at the time.
We must not, then, feel confined by a text that deserves all our attention and respect but whose authentic message cannot be rescued on the basic of making formal adjustments or superficial amendments. What is needed is a determined hermeneutical overturning, aimed at recovering the `world' (Ricoeur) opened up by the texts, abandoning the fascination of continuing to take them as `narrations' of actual events. This, which should lead to the re-configuration of a mental approach largely formed by and modelled on literary narrations and iconographic representations, will help to liberate our thinking and enable us to concentrate on the basic problems and consequences.
So this issue opens with a setting of the resurrection in the general frame-work of the religious and even cultural history of the human race. Today it would be unforgivable to ignore the concern for dialogue with other religions. The new receptivity to their traditions (and their cultures) keeps alive the need to include resurrection in the humus of the `religious common ground' of humankind, avoiding the danger of seeing it as a sort of `meteorite' deprived of intelligibility through lack of any true grounding in the humanum. Furthermore, in this way, dialogue has become truly fraternal [9] and essentially open, trying not only to get to know other religions, but also to learn from them those aspects that their culture and tradition alone can make intelligible as part of the deep mystery that God has for all time been trying to reveal to us all. There is space in this issue of Concilium to study only a few of them, but the articles here can serve as examples and models for further studies. In any case we have thought it right not to confine ourselves to dialogue with Hellenism, since today dialogue not only with the East but also with the ancestral traditions of Africa and Latin America (the only example taken into account here) has become indispensable.
Within the religious common ground, the specifically Christian vision, very much taking account of the results of contemporary exegesis, concentrates on clarifying the basic lines that marked the advance of biblical thought in its passage from Old Testament to New Testament. It has become increasingly clear to us that on crucial points exegetical discussion leaves the question of historical factualness in a non liquet, which can be genuinely discussed only by being very conscious of the basic hermeneutical options, which in turn refer us to the new cultural situation.
On all these grounds, taking the radical depth of the cultural change seriously has become a main concern. Theological reflection today has to keep on high alert against not just an ingenuously biological view of the resurrection (luckily largely discarded), but above all an insufficiently cautious conception in the face of the positivist temptation, which tends to interpret the accounts of the appearances and the empty tomb as ultimately `physical' proofs.
Far from putting the reality of the resurrection in danger, this caution underlines its transcendent nature, which does not reduce but emphasizes and testifies to the glorification of the Risen Christ, his `exaltation', which raises him above the limitations of the empirical laws that would imprison him within the narrow limits of space and time. It is precisely on this nature that the reality and effectiveness of his universal presence is founded, on the basis of his identification with the Father in the power of the Spirit.
In passing, the problem of `verification' of the resurrection is situated on its rightful level, which is more demanding in both epistemological and religious terms, but freed from the empiricist traps that, as in the case of the `invisible gardener', make faith impossible, by unreasonably requiring physical proofs of a transcendent reality.
Only in this way will it be possible for a real and contemporary dialogue to take place with a culture that, rightly, views the discovery of the autonomy of natural laws to be irreversible. Taking it into account can be seen to constitute [10] a decisive pre-condition when we come to study the problem and unpack the meaning of the narratives concerning the appearances and the empty tomb.
From this it follows that the very possibility of the concept of resurrection needs to be submitted to a careful examination, given its deep implication in the metaphysical and linguistic problems whose resolution intensely pre-occupies thought today. This is something equally reflected, on a more lively and basic level, in concerns to discover — sub contrario, as it were — new ways and fashions of experiencing resurrection, as expressed in demonstrations such as protest crucifixions: beyond their possible ambiguities, they help people to understand the deep realism of resurrection, as it was revealed in the destiny of Christ who was crucified and raised.
This leads on to the attention that must be paid to the praxic aspect, which demands that we insist on the inexorable need to place the victims at the heart of any Christian interpretation of the resurrection. This is first and foremost for the real and present hope of those men and women whom human injustice or simply natural circumstances have united more directly and painfully to the fate of Christ crucified. But it is also for all the others, who will only in this way be able to believe in the resurrection without lying, thereby beginning in history a life that, through expressing committed solidarity with the victims, does not betray but advances the raising power of the Lord in life on earth. This has to be the authentic root of any Christic and Christian sense that would not betray the decisive lesson of Jesus of Nazareth. By going back to its roots in this way, it simultaneously tunes in with one of the noblest concerns of present-day refection on the meaning of history: `the longing for the executioner not to triumph over the victim'.
The praxic dimension in itself points to the ecological concern and cosmic reach essentially implied in Christian insistence on the resurrection of the flesh. Corporeal and not angelic beings, men and women live and develop in strict solidarity with nature. Our eschatological hope should in some mysterious fashion include material creation, so that the resurrection, far form any escapism, becomes a dynamic force renewing and reconciling an earth that through human beings is also going through `the pains of child-birth' on its way to the ultimate fullness.
The Church celebrates the hope of this fullness intensely and constantly in each individual death, which arrives with the light of Christ's resurrection and indissolubly linked to his destiny. Freed from concern over its miraculous nature and exclusivity, the resurrection shows Jesus as the true `first-born among the dead', not in a merely chronological sense but in the [11] deepest, most universal sense of ultimate revelation; that is, revelation of that which, essentially, `at many times and in many ways', the God of the living has been trying to reveal from the start through the eschatological hope that, with greater or lesser clarity, has been and is palpable in all religions.
Far from watering down or blurring the richness and even the originality of the biblical and Christian concept of resurrection, the new approaches confirm these, shedding light on them from the different perspectives that inform the work of present-day theology. This work is done in solidarity with other religions, in no spirit of competition or exclusiveness but providing a friendly exchange and welcoming their contributions, as it does the deepest insights of those cultural concerns that seek new paths towards the future of the human race. Once more, as on so many occasions in history, the challenge of change, accepted in honesty and with concern for clarity, is a summons to effort (and perhaps a degree of hesitation), but it can become a genuine kairós, which can make the luminous mystery of the Pasch of the risen Christ shine with new tints.
The editors would like to thank the following for their suggestions for this issue: Marcella Althaus-Reid, Edward Farrugia, Rosino Gibellini, Harry McSorley, David Power, Elaine Wainwright.
