Resurrection (AQA A-Level Religious Studies): Revision Notes
Resurrection
Introduction to resurrection
Resurrection is a central belief in Christianity. According to the four Gospels, on the third day after Jesus' death, his tomb was found empty. Three Gospels describe occasions when the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples.
What the Gospel Accounts Show
The Gospel accounts reveal that Jesus was recognisable to his followers, but also different from before his death. He demonstrated both physical and supernatural characteristics:
- Ate normal food with his disciples
- Showed them his crucifixion wounds
- Could appear and disappear at will
- Was not immediately recognised in some encounters (for example, on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35)
What resurrection means
Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead - this does not mean simple revival or resuscitation. Through God's power, Jesus overcame death itself and appeared full of life from God.
Resurrection vs Revival: A Critical Distinction
This differs from other biblical accounts of people being brought back to life, such as Lazarus (John 11:1-57). Those individuals eventually died again at the end of their natural lives. Jesus' resurrection demonstrates that death, a consequence of sin in the world, can be overcome through God's power.
Christians believe Jesus' death on the cross cancelled out the consequences of sin for humanity. Eternal life is now available to everyone through resurrection.
The concept of soul
The Christian understanding of soul draws from both Jewish tradition and ancient Greek philosophy.
Jewish understanding
In Judaism, the physical body receives the 'breath of life' from God. This concept appears in Genesis 2:7, where God formed Adam from dust and "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life", making him a nephesh hayyah - a living being.
Jews believe everything that breathes has God's spirit within them. Life comes from God and is not unique to humans.
Key Hebrew Terms
Two important Hebrew words help us understand the Jewish concept of soul:
- Nephesh: Usually translated as 'soul', meaning the existence a creature has from receiving God's breath of life
- Ruach: Similar to Greek 'psyche', meaning 'spirit'. In Genesis 1:2, the ruach elohim (Spirit of God) moved over the waters during creation
Early Judaism did not include belief in life after death. However, by the time of Jesus, some Jews had begun to believe that because God is eternal, human life from God might continue beyond physical death.
Daniel's Prophecy of Resurrection
The book of Daniel (written second century BCE) contains this prophecy about the end times:
many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)
This represents one of the earliest Jewish references to resurrection and life after death.
Greek philosophy: Plato's influence
The Greek philosopher Plato (died 348 BCE) and his followers believed in two modes of existence:
- The physical world we observe
- A deeper reality called the world of Forms
Understanding Plato's World of Forms
The world of Forms contains perfect ideas. Physical objects are imperfect copies of these perfect ideas. For example, all chairs in the physical world reflect one perfect idea of a chair in the world of Forms.
According to Plato, everything in the physical universe is a particular instance of a perfect idea in the metaphysical world of Forms.
Plato believed the human soul:
- Separates from the body at death
- Goes to the world of Forms
- Contemplates the Form of the Good (Plato's closest concept to God)
- Is reincarnated ('re-enfleshed') into a new body
Dualism: A Key Philosophical Concept
This worldview is called dualism - humans have two aspects:
- Physical (perishable) body
- Spiritual (immortal) soul
Plato taught that the soul eternally pre-existed human life and is immortal. Our ability to recognise things comes from the soul's familiarity with the perfect Forms. The soul can identify imperfect physical copies because it knows the perfect ideas.
Early Christian synthesis
In early Christianity, Jewish ideas from Jesus and his followers combined with Greek philosophy (particularly Neo-Platonism), which was widely accepted in the first and second centuries CE.
The Jewish and Greek concepts of 'soul' were similar enough for early Christians to link them together. They believed:
- A baby receives a soul from God sometime before birth
- The soul is the inner existence of a person, inhabiting the body during life
- At death, the soul leaves the body and returns to God
- The soul is the moral and spiritual dimension of human existence
- The soul is the source of humanity's response to God
As Mary's Song of Joy (the Magnificat) expresses:
My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour (Luke 1:46)
Modern perspectives on soul
Contemporary Views on Soul and Consciousness
Some people today continue to see humans in dualistic terms as body and soul. In popular thinking, the soul makes a person who they are - the source of their beliefs, self-understanding, thought processes, moral judgement and conscience.
Others view humans as whole creatures in whom consciousness and thought are part of physical reality. For these people, there is no existence before conception and no life beyond death.
Modern psychologists, particularly since Sigmund Freud in the early twentieth century, tend not to use the term 'soul'. Instead, they speak of the 'psyche' (the Greek word for breath or spirit). Freud divided the psyche into:
- Id: Source of basic impulses like desire for pleasure
- Super-ego: Source of moral judgement
- Ego: Source of reason
Psychology does not address ideas about life before conception or after death.
Resurrection of the flesh: Augustine's teaching
For Christians, Jesus Christ's resurrection made it possible for all people to have life after death. By overcoming death on the cross, he restored the hope of resurrection and eternal life that had been lost through original sin. However, the exact nature of the hoped-for resurrection remained unclear.
St Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE)
Augustine addressed the question of resurrection directly, and his theology continues to inform Catholic teaching today. Born in what is now Algeria, he had some wayward years after losing his father as a teenager before turning to religion. As priest and later bishop, he wrote with great scholarship and insight into human nature.
Augustine's Major Works
His two most famous books are:
- Confessions: An account of his own conversion
- City of God: Where he develops his resurrection theology
Augustine's argument for bodily resurrection
Sin Affects Both Body and Soul
Augustine believed that sin, caused by the fall of Adam and Eve, affected every human born, both spiritually and physically:
- Souls were stained with sin
- Bodies, senses and desires were tainted with sinfulness
If Christ's resurrection offered hope for human resurrection, Augustine was certain this must be a bodily, physical resurrection where both spiritual and physical effects of sin would be removed.
Augustine argued that if God could create the wonderful bond between spirit and earthly body in human life, then surely God could raise an earthly body to become a heavenly body. He pointed out that the whole world had come to believe in Christ's bodily resurrection - both the learned and unlearned accepted that Jesus' earthly body was received into heaven.
Augustine identified two incredible things:
- The resurrection of our bodies to eternity
- That the world believed something so incredible
His point was that God predicted both would happen before either occurred, and both came to pass.
Catholic Church teaching today
Augustine's understanding that Jesus Christ rose physically from the dead and ascended to heaven in physical form remains the basis of Catholic teaching:
The Catechism on Resurrection
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body. It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life?
The Catechism explains that at death:
- The soul separates from the body
- The human body decays
- The soul goes to meet God while awaiting reunion with its glorified body
- God, in his almighty power, will grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls through the power of Jesus' resurrection
Spiritual resurrection
The idea of an immortal soul comes from Greek thought rather than the Bible. For some Christians, the concept of physical resurrection does not make sense because:
- Dead bodies decay to nothing in graves
- Bodies are completely destroyed by cremation
- The elements making up the body return to nature and are reused
This does not mean these Christians reject resurrection altogether. Instead, they believe it is the soul or spirit that is resurrected. When the body ends in death, the soul lives on with God.
Biblical support for spiritual resurrection
Paul's Teaching on Spiritual Body
Supporters of spiritual resurrection refer to Paul's first letter to the Church in Corinth:
It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44)
We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51)
These verses suggest the resurrected 'body' will be quite different from the body that died.
Different interpretations
Some Christians think Paul's words imply:
- Some kind of physical aspect to resurrection
- The soul may be resurrected into a new heavenly body with no previous physical existence on Earth
Others argue Paul means:
- A miraculous change will transform physical bodies
- Bodies will become perfect, no longer subject to ageing and decay
Unanswered questions
Theological Challenges
The spiritual resurrection view raises difficult questions that religion does not answer:
- What age and condition will the resurrected body be?
- Will bodies be the same age as at death, or all the same ageless form?
- Will someone who died in infancy be resurrected as an infant or as the adult they might have become?
- Will someone with a missing limb or organ be resurrected whole or as they were at death?
The significance of 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 and 50-54
Background and context
Paul wrote his first letter to the Church at Corinth to intervene in disputes that risked splitting the community. One dispute concerned resurrection. Paul wrote:
Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? (1 Corinthians 15:12)
The Corinthians struggled to understand both Jesus Christ's resurrection and the implication that humans could also be resurrected. This chapter of Paul's letter explains his teaching on resurrection.
Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians 15
Paul insisted that resurrection is possible. Humans can be resurrected and Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. If the Corinthians did not believe in resurrection, their faith in Jesus was pointless.
Paul stated:
In fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15:20)
The raising of Christ is the beginning of the resurrection of all humanity.
Paul's Response to the Corinthians' Questions
The Corinthians had questioned how physical bodies could be resurrected when they grow old, become sick, decay, and are disfigured by disease and injury. Paul responded by explaining the transformation that occurs:
There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another...So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body...flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. (1 Corinthians 15:40-50)
Paul described the transformation:
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53)
Three reasons for the passage's importance
1. Early Christian theology
Dating Paul's Letter
This is a very early piece of Christian theology. Paul's authentic letters were written before 58 CE, and 1 Corinthians dates from approximately 53-57 CE. This means it was written only 20-25 years after Jesus' death.
The passage shows the development of Christian thought at an early stage when people who remembered Jesus would still be alive. It demonstrates how Paul used his certainty about Jesus' physical resurrection to argue that belief in resurrection is both rational and essential for Church members.
2. Foundation of Christian teaching
This passage forms the basis for Christian teaching on resurrection. According to Paul, Jesus' death and resurrection was not a one-off spectacular event. It was:
- The cause of a new relationship between humanity and God
- Evidence for the start of this new relationship
- A relationship no longer damaged by Adam's sin
- Proof that death is not the end
- Hope for eternal life in God's presence alongside the risen, ascended Christ
3. Hope during persecution
Martyrdom and Christian Faith
The passage provided hope during periods of persecution and theological justification for martyrdom. The first persecution of Christians occurred under Roman emperor Nero in 64 CE, after he blamed Christians for a fire that destroyed large parts of Rome.
It would have been easy for Christians to abandon their faith rather than risk imprisonment, torture or death. However, belief in resurrection to eternal life was so compelling that Christians were prepared to die bearing witness to Jesus Christ as Lord. Without these martyrs, Christianity might have died out altogether.
Influences on Christian ideas about resurrection
Christian thinking about resurrection shows a range of interacting influences:
Ancient burial practices
Burial rituals from ancient times emphasise the body's importance in defining a person. The ancient Egyptians practised mummification for the spirit to return to. The Christian concept of bodily resurrection, as expressed in Augustine's teachings and Catholic Church doctrine, reflects this understanding of the person's importance.
Catholic Church and cremation
Until 1963, cremation was forbidden in the Catholic Church because it was seen as a statement of disbelief in bodily resurrection. Acceptance after 1963 depended on cremation not being intended as such a statement. Burial is still recommended over cremation.
Christian art
Christian art contains countless examples of Jesus' bodily resurrection and the physical resurrection of the dead in general. Without physical bodies, it would be impossible for resurrected beings to experience heaven's physical delights or hell's torments in traditional depictions.
Greek philosophical influence
The alternative view that resurrection is spiritual was influenced by the Greek concept of soul, particularly through Plato and his followers. This influenced the body-soul dualism of philosophers like Descartes, who believed he had proved philosophically that the mind must survive the body's destruction.
Christians hold different ideas about resurrection's nature depending on which influences dominate in their Church traditions and personal thinking.
Protestant perspectives
Protestant Churches are more likely to support cremation, sometimes on the grounds that:
- Resurrection is spiritual
- The method of disposing of dead bodies is less important than maintaining respect for the dead person
Impact on martyrdom
Regardless of disposal methods, belief in resurrection influenced the Christian tradition of martyrdom. A martyr was someone who gave witness or testimony, meaning those who testified to the Christian gospel's truth with a great likelihood of being killed.
Stephen: The First Christian Martyr
The first recorded Christian martyr was Stephen. Just before his death, Stephen was upheld by a vision of the resurrected Jesus standing at God's right hand (Acts 7:56). Christians generally believed that God, being all-powerful, would reconstitute even the bodies of martyrs burned at the stake.
Remember!
Key Points to Remember:
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Resurrection is a central Christian belief - Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, demonstrating God's power over death and offering hope of eternal life to all believers.
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The Christian concept of soul combines Jewish ideas (breath of life from God) with Greek philosophy (Plato's immortal soul separating from the body).
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Augustine taught bodily resurrection - both body and soul would be resurrected in perfected form, free from sin's effects. This remains Catholic teaching today.
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Some Christians believe in spiritual resurrection - only the soul is resurrected, not the physical body, based on Paul's teaching about "spiritual body" in 1 Corinthians.
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1 Corinthians 15:42-54 is crucial because it provides early theological teaching (written 20-25 years after Jesus' death), forms the basis of Christian resurrection doctrine, and gave hope during persecution.