The historical reality of the Resurrection

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'But the questionnaire [of silly questions about God] is not a scurrilous exaggeration, rather it is a meiosis compared with the debates actually conducted about Christ as a "historical figure," and about the "historicity" of Incarnation and Resurrection... if any event… has constituted meaning in history, it is Paul's vision of the Resurrected. To invent a "critical history" that will allow us to decide whether Incarnation and Resurrection are "historically real" turns the structure of reality upside down…' -- Eric Voegelin, The Ecumenic Age, p. 308

Comments

  1. Samson Corwell9:38 PM

    You're going to have to do better to explain your position of the historicity of Jesus' existence being irrelevant than Voegelin's obscurantism.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. gcallah10:37 PM

      You know what Samson? I actually don't have to!

      Delete
    2. Samson Corwell10:42 PM

      Okay, can you please help me understand it better? I get your point about a shift from the "noetic point-of-view", but I don't get how the authenticity of this shift can't be challenged.

      Delete
    3. gcallah11:43 PM

      A couple points here, Samson:
      1) when I make a blog post like this, I am just throwing out a pointer as to where to look. The book of Voegelin's that I'm reading now is about 500 pages. Unless I write a 500 page blog post, I will not do it justice. I throw out little tidbits, hoping they might interest someone enough to follow up the lead.
      2) Voegelin uses a difficult vocabulary often, much of it drawn straight from Plato and Aristotle. But you would really need to spend some time reading him to make a decent judgment as to whether he has a good reason for using that vocabulary or not.

      Delete
  2. Keshav Srinivasan11:31 PM

    It's hard for me to even parse the sentence "If any event… has constituted meaning in history, it is Paul's vision of the Resurrected [Jesus]." I think I have a pretty good command of my native language, but apparently not enough to understand Voegelin's quote.

    In any case, I think the best way to resolve my confusion would be to simply ask you this: what do you believe would be a good argument for the proposition "Humanity's sins were redeemed in the first century."? I'm talking about an argument that might convince someone who doesn't already accept the authority of the gospels.

    You said you don't think the argument that the historicity of the resurrection constitutes evidence for the truth of Jesus words, which is the argument given by Edward Feser and other Christian apologists, is a good argument. So what would be a better one (assuming such an argument exists)?

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