Coffee Talk Redux is a reflection on things God is teaching me. In some cases the ideas for these topics may arise from some conversation I may have had with someone, or a thought that crossed my mind, something I have written, or perhaps something I read somewhere, or maybe a combination of all of these. In any case think of this as a discussion on what God is teaching us to help us grow in our understanding of His will for us.
The Apostle John proclaims Jesus’ divinity as the Christ saying in John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” St. John is saying that Christ was true man and true God and these two natures coexisted in the person known by him as Jesus. However, it is through Christ’s Resurrection that the truth of Christ’s divinity as proclaimed by St. John is in fact confirmed since resurrection from the dead is beyond the power of a human. Being able to prove Christ’s Resurrection therefore “shows that he was truly ‘I Am,’ the Son of God and God himself (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 653).” Christ’s Resurrection is the essence of our Christian belief and “is the crowning truth of our faith in Christ, a faith believed and lived as the central truth by the first Christian community; handed on as fundamental by Tradition; established by the documents of the New Testament; and preached as an essential part of the Paschal mystery along with the cross (CCC, 638).”The Resurrection is so important to Christian belief that St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:14,17, that “if Christ had not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” The facts of the Resurrection of Christ not only proves His divinity but that He has conquered sin and death since as St. Paul says in Romans 6:4, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” If Christ is not who He claims to be then there is no salvation for man. From an apologetics point of view the Resurrection is the key tenet of faith that must be defended against those that are skeptical or those modernists that attempt to demythologize Christ and redefine Christianity as just another way of life through their modernist theology.
Arguing the position for the Resurrection of Christ does not require the use of any disputable or controversial presuppositions [cf. Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1994)]. Hence there is no need to first argue from the point of view of the truth or the infallibility of the New Testament or whether or not it is divinely inspired. All that is required is acceptance of the fact that there is a New Testament text that was written by the followers of Christ. The New Testament and the eyewitness accounts contained therein outline the essential facts and features of the Christian faith and the Resurrection. Once this is accepted then there are only five theories that can account for what really happened on that Easter Sunday 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. These five possible theories are Christianity, hallucination, myth, conspiracy and swoon. Provided that the last four of these theories can be refuted then the only explanation that remains is the Christian as described in the Gospels.
The swoon theory claims that the crucifixion did not kill Jesus but that He just fainted. However, there is no way that Jesus could have survived a Roman crucifixion. The Romans were very good at their craft and faced the death penalty themselves if someone survived a crucifixion. Furthermore, as was usually the custom, a Roman soldier would also break the legs of the one being crucified in order to hasten the onset of death. However, in the case of Jesus the New Testament states that His legs were not broken because the Roman soldier realized that Jesus was already dead. Before being removed from the Cross a Roman soldier also pierced His heart with a spear. At that moment the Apostle John witnessed the effusion of blood and water from the side of Jesus confirming that He died of asphyxiation. There are also other problems with the swoon theory. For instance, how could a man half-dead from scourging and crucifixion that suddenly wakes up inside the tomb roll back the stone at the entrance and then overpower the Roman guards? Furthermore, the many appearances of Jesus with His followers after His Resurrection shows that Jesus was in fact alive and not someone who was in need of medical attention. Also the idea that His body was somehow stolen from the tomb by His followers is preposterous since the Roman guards would have been awakened by the commotion.
The conspiracy theory is based on the premise that His followers concocted the story about Christ’s Resurrection. The question though is how could a large disparate group hold such a story together when faced with persecution, bribes, torture, imprisonment, and martyrdom? The bottom line is that there was no conspiracy on the part of Christians. These early Christians believed and preached the Resurrection of Christ and many of them showed their sincerity by being martyred. There also was no motivation or anything to be gained by lying. If they were lying about the Resurrection then where is the body? Certainly the Jews would have produced the body to stop the story from spreading.
The hallucination theory claims that the witnesses that saw Christ after His Resurrection were just imagining that they were seeing Him. However, Christ appeared to too many witnesses over too long a period of time for this to be a hallucination. St. Paul tells of one occasion in 1 Corinthians 15:6, “Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive.” St. Paul at the time of writing his letter was saying to his readers to go check the truth of his story by talking with these witnesses. Furthermore, hallucinations come from within one’s mind as very personal and momentary experiences; hallucinations do not last for days and in this case for forty days. Hallucinations are not something that different groups of ordinary people see on multiple occasions. In addition the disciples were not expecting the Resurrection of Christ. When they first saw Him they thought that He was a ghost and they had to talk to Him, touch Him, and feed Him to see that He was physically present and that they were not hallucinating. Also if it was just a hallucination then why did no one produce the body to stop the story from developing?
Others argue that the Resurrection of Christ is just a myth. A modernist theological interpretation is that it is true only in a symbolic or spiritual sense. However, literary scholars point out that the Gospels are not written like myths. Several key factors that distinguish the Gospels from myth are their historical presence in Palestine during the first century and the presence of eyewitness accounts. In addition, there are many small details given in the Gospels that only a writer who was present with Jesus would know about. Perhaps the biggest problem is that there was insufficient time for myth to even develop. Myths develop over several generations and if they develop quickly then witnesses are still around to debunk the myth. The manuscript evidence also shows that the Gospels were all written by the end of the first century and the letters that Paul wrote were within the lifetime of the witnesses to Christ’s resurrection. Hence just considering Paul’s letters there clearly was not enough time to create a myth about Christ’s Resurrection. Therefore the letters of St. Paul are not a myth but are the truth about the Resurrection of Christ. Since St. Paul’s letters are not myth it then follows that the Gospels that were written soon after are not myth either since the Gospel writers themselves had firsthand knowledge as well.
The Resurrection of Christ is a real historical event that was witnessed and written about afterwards by many people. The empty tomb as well as the numerous encounters of Christ with His followers confirms His Resurrection and that He was in fact God. Christ’s Resurrection transformed His followers awakening their faith and forming a Christian community that handed on the living tradition of the Resurrection to this day. There is no credible alternative to explain the Resurrection of Christ. Only the Christian belief accounts for all the facts, hence Christ is risen, and He is the Son of God and our Savior! (Ronald L. Fournier © 2009)
