194 lines
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194 lines
12 KiB
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title: Surprised By Hope
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description:
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I've been working on my resurrection doctrine. Here's where I've got to.
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pubDate: 2025-05-02
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content: |
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A couple of months ago, I was chatting to my friend Neil on the way home from
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church, and in that conversation, I confessed to him that I had no idea what
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happens to people after they die.
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This might come as a surprise to some people who know me. Lots of people have
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solid ideas about what happens to people after they die. For different people,
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those ideas are very different. Here in Scotland, many people believe that death
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is a final end. Many more believe that death marks a physical, and perhaps also
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a spiritual, reunion with the rest of the universe, as the matter of your body
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begins to be slowly digested and recycled: hence why ever more people are opting
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to be cremated rather than buried in one piece. Other minorities believe in an
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immortal soul that goes to some other place - be it heaven, hell, purgatory,
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nirvana or reincarnation. I belong to the Christian community, which is supposed
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to have clear answers on these questions passed down from ancient times, and
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people who know me know that I think hard about doctrines. So it may be a
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surprise that amongst all the convictions which people have all around me, and
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amongst all my own convictions on other topics, I hadn't the faintest clue what
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happens to people after they die.
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If you are surprised, let me surprise you some more: I am of no fixed opinion on
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a whole range of really important philosophical and theological topics, from the
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existence of the soul to the purpose of sex, from the nature of the sacraments
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to the metaphysics of the mind. But late last year, I set myself some New Year's
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resolutions to address some of these questions. Not, by any means, to decide
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once and for all the end of the matter: just to form a well-informed opinion.
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Sometimes staying quiet isn't good enough: I'm aiming to rectify my silence on
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these topics, because I think these topics are too important to ignore.
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And one of the issues I picked out was this very issue: what happens to people
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after they die? To that end, Neil recommended me a book by the conservative
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Anglican theologian, Tom Wright, called _Surprised By Hope_, published in 2007,
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at which point I was just learning to spell.
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As a result of this book, I feel I understand what the Christian orthodoxy is,
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and feel able to treat that view as my working assumption.
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Wright defends traditional Christian orthodoxy. He claims that his view is
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orthodox, and I'm roundly convinced that it is. When I wrote down in bullet
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points what his view amounted to, I found that I had more or less re-written
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half the Nicene Creed.
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- Jesus Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate.
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- On the third day, he rose from the dead.
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- He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
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- He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
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- His kingdom will have no end.
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- We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
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Amen. That's pretty much it. All that I need to stress, to avoid under-stating
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Wright's view, is that he specifically thinks that physical creation, including
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our bodies, will be transformed into a new kind of physicality, including new
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kinds of physical bodies for you and me, and that the 'world to come' means that
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heaven and earth - which he regards as God's physical space and our physical
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space - will be united.
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He contrasts this orthodox view with several views common today amongst
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Christians, some of which have even been muddled up with the traditional
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orthodoxy:
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- 'Jesus was raised to new life, spiritually, like a ghost.'
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- 'Jesus literally ascended into the sky, as if he had an invisible jetpack: and
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that's where he is now.'
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- 'The Christian hope is that we will go to be united with God in heaven after
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we die.'
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- 'The Christian hope is that we will be snatched up to heaven at the rapture
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and taken to a resurrection life there.'
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- 'The Christian hope is that we will experience God's eternal life temporarily
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before we die.'
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- 'Jesus won't really judge anyone, because he loves everyone, and because he's
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meek and lowly, not judgy.'
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- 'The world will be redeemed through the work of the Church.'
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- 'Only God can ever make a difference to the sinful state of the world, so the
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only works we should care about now are "saving souls".'
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I am happy to admit that I have often been guilty of most of these heresies. The
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only ones I've never been tempted by are the 'rapture' view, and the thing about
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the invisible jetpack.
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Wright has not definitively put any of these ideas to rest for me. _Surprised By
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Hope_ is just not that kind of book. It's not a treatise. It's actually quite
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light on substantial argument in favour of Wright's position. Wright's main
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achievement for me, isn't to convince me that he's right, but that his position
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is a good starting point, a good place from which I should need to be convinced.
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He does this chiefly by showing that his view is the consensus view of the New
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Testament. (He claims to be showing it is the consensus view of 'the early
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Church', but he never presents much evidence outside the New Testament, so I'm
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being charitable by restricting his claim to the New Testament authors.) Say
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what you like about Scriptural authority; if Mark, Matthew, Luke, John and Paul
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all were convinced something was apostolic teaching, you'd better well take it
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seriously.
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If you want convincing, take a look for yourself. Some of the key New Testament
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texts are John 5; Acts 17:30-32, 24:14-16; 1 Cor 15, 16:22; 2 Cor 4-5; Rom 6, 8;
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Col 3:1-4; Eph 1:10; 1 Thess 4:14-18 and of course Rev 21-22.
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You can also try convincing yourself that this is coherent with the Old
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Testament hope, by looking at Isa 11, Dan 7, Ps 2, and having another look at
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the assumptions behind Paul's behaviour in Acts 24:14-16.
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The only significant problem texts I've found for Wright's view are 2 Cor 4-5
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and Rev 21-22. In 2 Cor 4-5, Paul seems to plainly assert that we will have to
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leave the body in order to face the judgement seat of Christ, and which makes no
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apology for the assertion that, even though Christ has reconciled us to God, we
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will still have to face judgement for our deeds - which seems to justify the
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infamously un-Biblical doctrine of purgatory. If you assume that Paul's writings
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express a completely consistent view, however, you will have routes out; in
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particular, you could look at the language of Rom 6 and 8. Large chunks of
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Paul's letter to the Romans also suggest, if taken out of context, that we will
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have to leave our bodies behind, and that even those reconciled through Christ
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will face judgement for their deeds - except that key verses contradict both of
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those views. Clearly, that's not what Paul meant in Romans; so, you might argue,
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it's not what he meant in 2 Cor either: provided you assume that Paul's writings
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present a consistent view. (If Paul changed his mind, no explanation is
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necessary why Rom and 2 Cor seem to be inconsistent: they could actually be
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inconsistent in that case.)
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Meanwhile, in Rev 21-22, John has a vision of a 'new heaven and a new earth, for
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the first heaven and the first earth had passed away'. This directly contradicts
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Wright's emphatic insistence that God's new creation will be continuous with the
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first. For Wright, this isn't an academic detail, it's needed in order to give
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us a motive to care for the world we've currently got. Without continuity, he
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fears we'd be right to join those who are content with trashing the natural
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environment because the whole thing's going to end up in fire and brimstone
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anyway. Yet this piece of Revelation seems to permit exactly that.
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If you were to defend Wright against Revelation, you might point out that
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Revelation is a literal description of a vision John had, and is therefore not
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in every detail an accurate picture of the future, but a metaphor, an image of
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the future. (Fine, but if the wholesale replacement of heaven and earth is a
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metaphor, what is it a metaphor for? If the literal future is continuity, why
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not describe a vision of continuity?) And you may also assume that the entire
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Bible is consistent on the matter of God's ultimate future, and on that
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assumption, bring your analysis of the rest of the New Testament to bear.
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Whatever you do with the problem texts, it seems clear to me that the
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overwhelming weight of Biblical evidence favours the traditional orthodox
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position over any of the alternatives. Given that, I'm happy to take it as a
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starting point as I continue to think about what happens to people after they
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die.
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So, I may go back to Neil now, and say - maybe not quite yet 'I have an
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opinion' - but at least 'I know what my working assumptions are.' I know what is
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the orthodox Christian view: that is, the consensus view of the relevant
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experts. The consensus view of relevant experts is generally a good place to
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start.
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I still have plenty of concerns, though. Here are my top three quandaries on
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this topic now.
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Firstly, it would be rather unsettling if the orthodox Christian vision for
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God's ultimate future popped entirely into existence after the Ascension. The
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apostles say that their teaching was given to them by the Holy Spirit - but are
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we going to trust our entire doctrine on the future to what a small number of
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men claim was told to them by an invisible being behind closed doors? If the
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view of the New Testament authors is trustworthy, then it at the very least
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needs to cohere very well with the Old Testament. The New Testament hope should
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be woven deep into the Old Testament promises. I find Genesis, Daniel, Isaiah
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and the Psalms promising, but I've only gotten skin-deep into comparing these
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texts to the New Testament: I'd like to go both deeper into these texts, and
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broader across the Old Testament.
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Secondly, I want to hear the opposition in their own words. Wright very openly
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admits that his view is currently a minority opinion even within Christianity,
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despite being Christian orthodoxy. Given that is the case, it's reasonable to
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expect the opposition to have some good arguments on their side. Wright has not
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presented any strong arguments from opposing views, which makes me suspect not
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that there are no good arguments, but that he has omitted to cover them in his
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short and accessible book. And if there really are no strong arguments against
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the traditional view, then we should expect powerful explanations as to why so
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few people accept what apparently they should.
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Thirdly, I have residual concerns from the metaphysics of mind. I recall from my
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undergraduate days that continuity is a major concern amongst the relevant
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experts. I think a minority of them even claim that the person who goes to sleep
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and the person who wakes up again are completely distinct people who just so
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happen to time-share the same body. If continuity is a major problem, then it is
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a major problem for resurrection doctrine, too, which even in the New Testament
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is compared to a kind of sleep, admitting that there is some kind of
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discontinuity between the old body and the resurrection body. Add to this the
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easily observable fact that many Christian bodies have rotted and are no longer
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suitable for re-animation: their new bodies will have to be physically
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discontinuous as well as mentally discontinuous with their old bodies. If I will
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be given a new body, is it metaphysically plausible that the person who inhabits
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that body will be the same 'me' that inhabits this body, now?
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Much love all. As always, answers on a postcard please.
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