The Scandal of Death (or the Death of Scandal)

I recently got back from a theology conference in San Francisco organized by Michael Hardin and Preaching Peace. Kudos to Michael. Great papers, and the inspiring presence of René Girard! (But I’m also sorry I just got round to talking about this. Linda’s in England, attending to her very seriously ill father, so things are a bit out of kilter. Please pray for her Dad, Peter. He doesn’t have long.)

I’ve been thinking about the conference off and on ever since I got back. You fly across the continent to hear the condensed insights of outstanding scholars, and in areas that are of central interest for you. It’s impossible not to be processing so much of it. One of the papers was by a philosopher who also considers himself a bit of a theologian. I could say perhaps I’m the converse of that, a theologian who also considers himself a bit of a philosopher. So we have a lot in common, except coming at it from opposite directions! What this scholar was talking about was Resurrection, and I was reminded of how the philosophers in Athens reacted to Paul when he spoke on that topic, about the “resurrection of the dead:” some scoffed, others wanted to hear more. (In Acts, chap. 17).

My opposite-direction colleague’s argument was that you really can’t have resurrection and remain a creature of flesh because the character of flesh is just precisely its mortality, its corruptibility. The only other way is to talk about two worlds, a second world of “spirit” separate from this one where we can be “beamed up,” and this is a dualism which we’re all trying to get away from (certainly all those at the conference.) So the honest and truthful thing is to accept real death and forget fanciful notions of resurrection.

First off, the New Testament is already aware of this issue. Paul uses the word “flesh” to stand for a whole complex of reality, both bio-physical and relational. Flesh is the human (anthropological) system predicated on death, working through a desire that knows nothing else but death, and that’s why it produces continual mayhem (Gal. 5.19-21; note how relationships of violence outnumber traditional sexual sins “of the flesh” at least two to one). But Paul also has the concept of “body” and this in fact overlaps with flesh precisely where he’s talking about resurrection (e.g. 1 Cor.15. 39-41). So he expresses a radical continuity with embodied existence occurring in the resurrection. However, it is the Gospel of John which fixes the value of flesh in the New Testament: Jesus is the Word “made flesh” and he gives us his flesh to eat as communication of endless life. In other words, in John flesh is transformed through Jesus, not done away with.

The problem for philosophy is that it finds it extremely difficult to recognize the dramatically new thing that Jesus has brought into the world, and I mean into. For philosophy there is really nothing new under the sun. On the other hand actual philosophers do have some inkling of it, otherwise why would you have a philosopher speaking at a theological conference? Actual philosophers are smart enough to know that the game has been changed by Jesus, yet they’re always trying to say the change is not actual but in fact has been always and ever the same game. That way they have the final word!

Death, however, is the tripping point where things either are indeed as they have always been—death the absolute and universal leveler, or where, through Jesus, something genuinely, impossibly new makes itself known. In other words death is a scandal, which can overwhelm us or which, through Jesus, we can overcome. Now I have no idea what makes resurrection happen, how much it is a miracle of God in the cosmos, how much the product of human attitude and transformation. I feel likely it is both, mixed up so deeply, to a point where we can’t tell one from the other. What I do know is that the raw vibrancy of the Risen One has so permeated our world that philosophers are drawn to theological conferences, that movies feature the theme of Jesus’ nonretaliation on a regular basis, that a meal in the food court of a Mall can turn into a Eucharistic thanksgiving quicker than a heartbeat. And that forgiveness of our enemies has become a contemporary question and dangerous political possibility. If death had the final word with Jesus all of this would be unthinkable, literally beyond our anthropological ken.

My thoughts are with Linda and Peter…these thoughts, of the Risen One standing at the door of death.