Friday, September 16, 2022

9/16/22 - If the Dead are not Raised

For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins.


I took a writing class freshman year in college. The textbook purported to teach the student how to read critically, in part by identifying logical fallacies in the selected texts. A portion of today's first reading was used as an example of "begging the question" (in the true sense of what that phrase means). Taken in isolation Paul does, indeed, appear guilty of circular logic. Go back a few verses, though, and we see that he appeals first to the reports of eye witnesses to make his point, not detached logical formulas.


There are times when God opens the veil to reveal what’s behind. Paul, in another place, writes of someone (some think he is referring humbly to himself) who was taken up mystically to the "third heaven," to see indescribable realities. Even then God does not engage in an act of divine dictation, but tells the seer to write what he sees. Paul found it impossible to recount the vision. John of the Apocalypse only could in the most fantastic way imaginable. Our difficulty in comprehending what is beyond may be a reason God used this means of revealing His message so sparingly.


For this reason ours is a God of history who communicates, for the most part, through experience. Scripture and Tradition are the distillation of that experience, reflected on and passed down, all by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 


Supernatural Faith is a gift. Yet at the same time we believe because, as the Beloved Disciple might put it, we find the witnesses trustworthy. It is as if God is saying, "if you don’t trust me who you can’t see, believe my witnesses who you can." If you find it hard to believe their words, believe the blood they shed rather than to deny what they saw, touched and tasted.



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