My Annual Rant About The Resurrection and Science

"The Jesus who died on Friday is still dead on Sunday. Resurrection is not resuscitation. But the Jesus-now-resurrected on Sunday is as real as the Jesus-born-of-Mary."

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Argh!

Every year at this time, some well meaning preacher or pundit is quoted as saying something like:

• Science explains the "how" but religion explains the "why;" or,
• Easter happens in the hearts of Jesus' followers; or
• Resurrection happens whenever the followers of Jesus embody the love / message / passion / purpose of Jesus; or
• The resurrection story is a metaphor that explains what is "true" about life, not facts that explain what is "real;" or
• The resurrection is a story about hope triumphing over despair; life over death; etc., etc.

Argh!

Why is it that for 51 Sundays of the year, we talk about Jesus and God as though they are both actually, really real, factually existing, but suddenly on this most central of Sundays we go all soft and speak only of "meaning," "values," "purposes," etc.

Not that these are bad things to talk about. Far from it.

But science and religion have been in a 400 year long conversation (some would say fight to the death) not about the "soft" topics of meaning; but about the "hard" topic of what is really real; what is actually factual.

Easter Sunday is NOT the time to give up the conversation and let science be the sole arbitrator of what is really real, actually factual.

It is definitely the case that the resurrection is a singularity that current science has no explanation for.

But then again, current science has no explanation for any number of rather important things - time for example.

Or entanglement for another. (You'll have to Google that for an explanation of what "entanglement' is.)

Or of the rather nagging conviction humans have that they have actual "minds" that think, plan, make choices, have intuitions, etc. (There is a huge, and as yet unresolved, debate about the relationship between the meat we call the "brain," and the seemingly really real, actually factual but non-spatially locatable phenomenon we call the "mind." You can Google that too.)

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of science and what it has done to help us get a clearer picture of what is MATERIALLY really real, actually factual.

But our current science is very weak at explaining non-material phenomena.

I believe that within the next 50 years - if the earth survives its current troubles - there will be some major breakthroughs from science's side of the conversation that will open new ways of talking together about non-material really real, actually factual phenomena.

So for God's sake, I pray that none of us preachers will give up stating that the resurrection is really real, actually factual.

The scientific explanation of how it happened is something we will have to wait for future generations to answer. But like Paul, we will state unequivocally that Jesus IS raised from the dead; that Jesus IS alive - really, factually. And then go on to explain what meanings, values, and purposes follow from this singular glimpse of reality.

David Ewart,
www.holytextures.com,
Short, easy to use, faith inspiring explanations of the meaning of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John for your sermon, homily, bible study, or reflection.

 

Comments

[Cheryel Lemley-McRoy]

I'm not a scientist or even a science major, but I once read a description of Dark Energy that stated it was an intelligent, creative energy that was flowing to the edges of the universe, still creating, and constantly flowing through everything, even our bodies and solid objects. My reaction was that it sounded like a description of God, specifically the Holy Spirit. I believe that science is the study and discovery of how God did it.

[Barbara Anderson]

Excellent rant. Also, Holy Textures is excellent. Thank you for creating this blog.

[skepticalofskeptics]

thank you. My thoughts exactly. As we probe deeper into the whys and whats of the universe, more and more scientists are convinced that evolution is not the key or answer but divine intervention. Furthermore, I get so sick of arguments that ancient civilizations did not understand death such as "Lazarus was just asleep and not really dead." Give me a break! Lazarus was stinking, his body was already decomposing when Jesus brought him back to life. And the idea that when Jesus was walking on the Sea of Galilee, he was walking on rocks or stones really has irked me for years. For goodness sake, these were fishermen. They knew where the rocks were and the conditions of the water. Most people who criticize do not really read the scriptures, for the miracle begins in understanding the complexity of the scriptures in themselves. Simplicity mixed in with profound complexity. You have all these accounts of the same miracles and they hardly differ at all. All thru the centuries, scholars have tried to analyze and dismiss the gospels and have failed. Please stop the misinterpretations and vague symbolism about what has been exposed to extreme scrutiny for ages. Jesus died and was resurrected from the dead, period.