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He is risen!

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I don’t often talk about my faith here on the blog, but since today is Easter Sunday, the holiest of Christian holidays, I think it’s only appropriate that I do.

Another name for Easter is Resurrection Day. I, along with millions of other Christians, celebrate today in remembrance of Jesus rising from the dead. Christ’s resurrection is the linchpin of the Christian religion. That’s why the Apostle Paul said:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also….

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.

But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

All those eye-witnesses — that’s what really sways me. Not just one or two, but over 500. That’s a pretty good testimony.

That’s what we celebrate today. Jesus Christ took the punishment for our sins on himself so we could be reconciled to God, and by putting our faith in Him and His sacrifice, we can have the assurance of eternal life.

Happy Easter, everyone.

25 thoughts on “He is risen!”

  6. “All those eye-witnesses — that’s what really sways me. Not just one or two, but over 500. That’s a pretty good testimony.”

    Dude, that is so Doubting Thomas of you! 😉

  7. EM — Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The word of God is, among other things, the testimony of witnesses, is it not? 🙂

  10. You might want to source that Hegel, as the quote is now most famous (infamous) as the title of notorious neo-Nazi [name deleted] major screed/treatise on the “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.” (And yes, [name deleted] means the same “final solution” Hitler did.) You might be vilely misunderstood if you quote it without sourcing it to Hegel, since [name deleted] is in the news with it a LOT. (You also might draw some charming folks googling for the title of his screed.) It’s pretty tragic when great thoughts get co-opted as slogans by racist jackasses.

    And I’m still with Pascal. 😛 I have issues with the ideas of “proof” and “evidence” in matters of faith. CSIing God is sort of … oh, wrong-end-up-ish, I guess.

  11. Figures. I knew Marx was somewhat influenced by Hegel and thus, I was taking a risk with the quote, but hadn’t heard about the Nazi connection. I think I’ll just take it down so there’s no misunderstanding.

    Anyway, my point was simply this — I don’t think that the resurrection is mystical. I think it’s important to know that Jesus really did die, and he really was raised bodily from the dead. I don’t think that believing the witness of other people makes one a “doubting Thomas.” Thomas wouldn’t believe other people — he wanted to see the risen Lord himself, and he did. Jesus said, “blessed are those who haven’t seen, but believe.” I haven’t seen Jesus myself, but believe the witnesses who did see him. It’s not a scientific proof (like CSI), but a legal one. If it’s not important, then why does the Bible even mention it?

  12. (You might also then delete my statement of the dude’s name and replace it with “neo-Nazi xxxxx”, just so you don’t draw his fans.)

    I think it really did happen too, not some mystical Harnackian acceptable-to-modern-skeptics crap, but I thought the reasoning you gave was essentially circular. You believe the Resurrection because people testify to it in the Bible. You believe in the truthfulness of the Bible essentially (though we could take a quite a long way around to get there) because you believe in the Resurrection. I believe the same thing. But —

    If you were trying to convince someone who believed neither, the argument (and Biblical testimony that convinces you) would be utterly unpersuasive (and from a logical point of view, quite rightly so, since the truth of each is proved by the truth of the other and neither can be “proved” independently).

    So EVENTUALLY we’re back to Pascal when we’re answering the question “Why do you believe in the Gospel?” Because you KNOW it’s true. Well, how do you know? You just DO. Your heart knows, though your reason can’t prove it without going terribly circular on itself.

    And not just your reason or mine, but every theologian who’s tried it and done a good job of it has come up circular eventually in some particular, or else with a semantic issue, except Des Cartes, who made an unjustified logical leap in the middle (it always makes me want to go “Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence!” when I get there), but who did the best job without circularity or semantics, I think. Although I suspect Anselm’s is the best, full stop, although direly circular (and, some argue, semantically problematic, but I think that denoates a failure to understand the argument correctly).

    One of my favorite quotes for when people ask me but WHY do you believe? (Typically asked as “Why does someone as well-educated and non-superstitious and scientifically-minded and sceptical as you believe in an imaginary dude in the sky?!?!?!?” complete with oral query-bangs, a phenomenon with which I’m SURE you’re familiar!) is, “For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who do not, no proof is sufficient.” Miracles aren’t miracles because they’re replicable scientific data! Which I think is the point of Pascal’s quote and indeed the entire Pensée in question, although much more elegantly stated by Pascal and far more beautifully argued.

    On a closely related note, there’s an entire group of utterly frustrated evangelists who pursue the evangelistic strategy of “Jesus is God! The Bible said so! The Bible is true because it’s the Word of God, who happens to be Jesus! It’s so terribly reasonable and obvious!” and get gnawing-on-boards frustrated when people fail to fall into line with the “obviousness” of it, because they don’t see the circularity of the argument. But if you said, “Well, Vishnu is (a) God, it says so in the Rig Vedas, which were composed by Vyasa, an avatar of Vishnu.” They completely fail to see the parallel. I’ve tried. They say, “But they’re WRONG.” “But a billion people believe they’re right and could use more or less the same logic you’re using.” “But they’re WRONG.” “Okay, well, if you remain utterly unconvinced by THEIR argument, why do you think others will be convinced by YOURS?” “Because we’re RIGHT.” Which is true, but STILL NOT GOING TO CONVINCE PEOPLE WHO DON’T ALREADY BELIEVE IT! Which is when I wish them well and hope to myself that they get some satisfaction from the effort, because they’re probably going to be frustrated with the result. And then whoever I’m with reminds me I really need to stop engaging street preachers in theological debate just because I find them interesting.

    (And all of this is making me want to go bury myself in the Pensees for days but sadly I have lectures on more mundane topics to prepare!)

  13. You know that it is true because the Holy Ghost testifies to you that it is true! (That feeling in your heart!)

  14. Lets see…re-written 6 times by different people, and several years of documentation is missing from a book, and it is often translated wrong. Just imagine if it was an Atlas. Would you follow it?

  15. Regarding the Nazi dude: name deleted. Thanks for the suggestion.

    I’m not disagreeing with Pascal. All I’m saying is that faith is not irrational, and that it can be rational and supernatural at the same time. Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.

    Or, to put it another way, I don’t think faith in God is the same as an irrational belief in aliens.

  17. Eyebrows – I am most grateful for people like you – who can have faith and argue why – and still defend those of other faiths.

    I am a proud UU, and don’t necessarily understand why people put such store in Jesus or the Bible or the kind of rules I grew up with, Roman Catholicism.

    But I don’t go around calling anyone “wrong.” Faith and spirituality, for me, is the ultimate in personal choice. Justify it as you will – as well as Eyebrows or CJ, or as poorly or circularly as a street preacher.

    I suppose my biggest problem is with evangelical types, who would foist upon you aggressively the message and call you wrong for not believing in their particular system of faith and belief. I believe in my heart that Jesus, whose teachings I profoundly respect, wouldn’t approve of aggressive evangelism himself.

    Hence just one of my problems with politics, the President and certain sectors of society today. But that’s a whole different thread.

    Happy Belated Easter to all, as well.

  18. I understand and respect all religions, and believe they hold great value to society. There are many different schools of thought. I traditionally group up Catholic, and through further knowledge and research found that many important issues were not discussed in the bible (to which I have read twice) information has long been supressed due to power and greed, and not for the benefit of the people that support the same views. I believe that if one were to research the history of Persephone or something along the lines of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the story behind the White House (Andrew White) and Maryland…dead sea scrolls and such..etc. One could see history from a different viewpoint.

  19. I am always impressed when I read Eyebrows’ very well thought out posts when it comes to faith and philosophy. I am jealous in a way because I never spent nearly as much time studying philosophy as she clearly did.

  20. I’m not trying to be negative, but I have found that many people who worship the Bible do not read it or know anything about it. Blind faith..perhaps.

  22. CGiselle said:

    I suppose my biggest problem is with evangelical types, who would foist upon you aggressively the message and call you wrong for not believing in their particular system of faith and belief.

    Well, I think there are two issues here — one has to do with aggression and the other has to do with truth claims. I’m not a proponent of aggressively foisting the message on anyone, as you put it. But I nevertheless believe that there is a right and wrong when it comes to spiritual belief. We can disagree on what is right and wrong, of course, but I think we’re being a bit disingenuous if we claim to believe we can have opposing views and both be “right,” or if we claim that the belief that there is no such thing as “right” isn’t a truth claim in and of itself.

    Christianity is pretty exclusive. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” And God said “For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords….” I’m not sure how one can honestly reconcile that with, say, pantheism.

    But, that said, that doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends. I think you can respect someone and their beliefs without agreeing with their beliefs. For example, I’m pretty sure Josh thinks I’m wrong for believing the Bible and its account of the resurrection. But he doesn’t ridicule or disrespect me about it. Well, maybe the aliens news story was a little over the line…. 🙂

    As for Eyebrows — I studied philosophy a little, but I didn’t memorize it, and certainly not in the philosophers’ original languages. I think she’s trying to impress me. 😉

  23. Hi C.J.-I absolutely respect your more than newsworthy blog, I put your blog at the top of the list as far as accuracy goes. I understand your views and respect them regarding beliefs of course, and I believe that you believe everything in the Bible to be true and of worthy meaning, I reference missing works of the Bible that have been edited and left out, and this peaks my curiousity…thats all. With study (self study) I have found interesting information that sometimes contradicts various accounts of the Bible.

  24. C.J., you should be very proud of your blog and the audience it attracts. No jackass comments from either the evangelical or atheist camp. Here’s to civil discourse and the Peoria Chronicle. :cheers:

    I’m one of those people Eyebrows mentioned with all the query-bangs, but I try not be rude about it. Everybody should be free to worship (or not) whomever they darn well want to.

  25. You people are deluded. Christianity is a fairy tale and religion is nothing but spirituality politicized.

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