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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
John Macquarrie in his Jesus Christ in Modem Thought well formulates a criticism which is often raised about Schillebeeckx’s discussion of the resurrection of Christ. Macquarrie suggests that Schillebeeckx is arguing that the resurrection is better thought of as a powerful, but subjective, experience in the minds of the disciples. Macquarrie’s criticism echoes the point made by another of Schillebeeckx’s Anglican critics, David Brown, who is uncompromising in his characterisation of Schillebeeckx as a ‘deist’. Brown is certainly correct in identifying Schillebeeckx’s attempt at a more subtle account of God’s relationship to creation than a classic interventionist account might hazard, but I think the attribution of a deist position is wide of the mark. This is not the place to develop the general point other than to suggest that Professor Brown over-simplifies the issue in arguing that Christian discourse about God is inevitably either deist or theist in so far as it asserts the propriety of an interventionist or a non-interventionist account of God’s dealings with creation.
It is important to address the specific point which these critics raise in suggesting that Schillebeeckx is unable to maintain the objectivity of the resurrection. This can be better explored by considering the extended discussion in Peter Carnley’s important study of the resurrection, The Structure of Resurrection Belief (Oxford, 1987). Carnley goes rather further than either Macquarrie or Brown in acknowledging that, for Schillebeeckx, ‘the Easter faith certainly involves a post-mortem experience of encounter with the risen Christ’ (p 200). In spite of this Carnley is ultimately sceptical of Schillebeeckx’s account of the risen Jesus as fulfilling claims to objectivity.
1 Macquarne, John, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought, SCM, 1990, pp 308‐313,408Google Scholar.
2 Brown, David, The Divine Trinity, Duckworth, 1985, pp 138‐142Google Scholar.
3 See the critical discussion of theism in Lash, Nicholas, Easter in Ordinary, SCM, 1988, pp 103‐4Google Scholar. See also, Kerr, Fergus, ‘What's wrong with realism anyway?’, in God and Reality, ed. Crowder, Colin, Mowbray, 1997, pp 128‐143Google Scholar.
4 Brown points to a passage in Jesus which might serve to highlight the concern evident in the work of both critics regarding the inadequacies of Schillebeeckx's discussion: ‘May it not be that Simon Peter–and indeed the twelve–arrived via their concrete experience of forgiveness after Jesus’ death, encountered as grace and discussed among themselves (as they remembered Jesus' saying about, among other things, the gracious God) at the ‘evidence for belief: the Lord is alive? He renews for them the offer of salvation; this they experience in their own conversion; he must therefore be alive… A dead man does not proffer forgiveness. A present fellowship with Jesus is thus restored’ (Schillebeeckx, Jesus, p 391, cited Brown, op. cit., p 140). Macquarrie's conclusion focuses the criticism: ‘On this view, it was a study of the Old Testament and some of the deutero‐canonical literature that led Peter and then the others to believe that God would not desert his chosen servant, and it was this biblical promise that gave rise to the belief that Christ had risen and then to stories of an empty tomb and appearances, not the other way round. I have already sufficiently criticised this view on the ground that something much more dramatic than meditation on a few passages of scripture would be needed to bring about the belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. That there was indeed an intensive searching of the scriptures in the primitive church is attested by Luke (Luke 24.27) and was noted by Strauss in the early nineteenth century, but it is most improbable that it was a major factor in creating belief in the resurrection’ (Macquarne, op.cit, p 408).
5 Camley's discussion of Schillebeeckx is to be found principally on pp 199‐222.
6 Schillebeeckx states most clearly in his Interim Report on the books Jesus and Christ, SCM, 1980: ‘My intention here was to releave this visual element of die deep dogmatic significance which some people attach to it, namely of being the foundation of the whole of the Christian faith’(p 82).
7 ‘In these accounts of “private appearances”–a record of very intimate, personal religious experiences–die community recognises its own experience’ (Schillebeeckx, Jesus, p 345).
8 See Pelletier, André, ‘Les Apparitions du Ressuscité en termes de la Septante’, Biblica, 51, (1970), pp 76‐79Google Scholar.
9 See, also, Phil. 2.9, Col 2.15, Heb. 1.6 and also the early Judaeo‐Christian, Ascension of Isaiah, 11.23. On the meophany of the Burning Bush see the discussion and references cited in Robinson, Bernard, ‘Moses at the Burning Bush’, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 75 (1997), pp 117‐119Google Scholar.
10 Schillebeeckx, Interim Report, p 93.
11 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, The Apostles' Creed, SCM, 1972, p 171Google Scholar. See also as Scott Holland's rich comment, ‘at the resurrection it was not only Jesus who rose, but his whole life with him’ (cited in Evans, C. F., Resurrection and the New Testament, SCM, 1970, p 136)Google Scholar.
12 See Fitzmyer, Joseph A., Scripture & Christology A Statement of the Biblical Commission with a Commentary, Geoffrey Chapman, 1986, p 13Google Scholar.
13 Barr, James, The Semantics of Biblical Language, Oxford, 1961, perhaps especially pp 206‐296Google Scholar.
14 But see Barr's strictures on the use of the word ‘concept’, op. cit., p 210‐213.
15 See the discussion of Old Testament references in Jesus, pp 383–385.
16 Notably Peter's Pentecost sermon, Acts 2.34, the significance of which is explored brilliantly in Lindars, Barnabas, New Testament Apologetic, SCM, 1961, pp 36‐51Google Scholar, as well as Mk. 12.36,1 Cor. 15.25, Heb. 1.3,13. Luke's own ‘development and rethinking of eschatology in an individualistic direction’ is explored in Barrett, C.K., ‘Stephen and the Son of Man’, in Apophoreta. Festschrift fur Ernst Haenchen, (Beihefte zur ZNW 30), ed. Eltester, W., Berlin, 1964, pp 32‐38Google Scholar.
17 Perrin, Norman, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, SCM, 1967, pp 173‐185Google Scholar. See also, Perrin, Norman, ‘Mark 14.62: the end product of a Christian Pesher Tradition?’, New Testament Studies, 12 (January 1966), pp 150‐155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Robinson, John A.T., ‘The Most Primitive Christology of All?’, Journal of Theological Studies, 7, (1956), pp 177‐189CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Schillebeeckx cites this article in a bibliography, Jesus, p405.
19 See, particularly, Barker, Margaret, The Risen Lord, T&T Clark, 1996Google Scholar.
20 Jean Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, DLT, 1964, p 249.
21 Danielou, op.cit, p 249 and p 254.
22 See Margaret Barker, The Risen Lord, p 23. See also pp 12ff.
23 See Hengel, Martin, The Son of God, Fortress Press, 1976, p 91Google Scholar.
24 I must certainly agree with Carnley in dismissing Schillebeeckx's recognition of a distinct ‘Q community’ in a way that allows us to argue for an identifiable theology which may be contrasted with other New Testament communities (Carnley, 212‐213). Even if Q is to be considered as an independent tradition, it is impossible to reach definite conclusions as to what it does not contain. Schillebeeckx's claim, for example, that ‘not only is the resurrection not proclaimed; it is nowhere mentioned in the Q tradition’ (Jesus, p 408) cannot be used appropriately as the basis of a conclusive argument. We simply do not know whether Q has a resurrection kerygma, or not; there is not sufficient evidence to say.
25 James M. Robinson, ‘Jesus from Easter to Valentinus (or to the Apostles Creed)’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 101,1, (1982), pp 5–37.
26 Brown, Raymond, The Community of the Beloved Disciple, Paulist Press, 1979.Google Scholar
27 Gerard O'Collins (The Easter Jesus, DLT, 1973, p 51Google Scholar), in his discussion of these passages, suggests the exaltation theme is a later interpretation of an earlier resurrection tradition. [would be rather more hesitant in arguing this.
28 1 find Schillebeeckx's exegesis of I Cor. 15:3‐8 intriguing but not convincing. Failing to go along with Schillebeeckx at this point does not vitiate Schillebeeckx's interpretation of ophthe. Schillebeeckx sees the passage as a schematic account of the expansion of faith implying no ‘localising’ of the Jesus appearances: ‘the localising intended relates to the area of mission into which the resurrection was being taken’ (Jesus, p 350). One can only agree with his conclusion: ‘the initial recognition of the eschatological presence and epiphany of God in Jesus Christ and thence on Christian emissaries is then the immediate ground of the apostolic preaching of the crucified ‐and‐risen One to all the world’ (pp 350–351). See the discussion in Jesus, pp 346– 351.
29 Léon‐Dufour, Xavier, Resurrection and the Message of Easter, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1974, p 13Google Scholar.
30 I have touched on this theme in ‘Bonebound Spirituality’, New Blackfriars, June 1990, pp 297‐303.
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