Do we need then expressly to insist on the fact that man's new life, involving as it does the ultimate reality, God himself, is a priori a matter of faith? It is an event of the new creation, which breaks through death as the last frontier and therefore the horizon of our world and thought as a whole. For it means the definitive breakthrough of one-dimensional man into the truly other dimension; the evident reality of God and the rule of the Crucified, calling men to follow him. Nothing is easier than to raise doubts about this. Certainly "pure reason" is faced here with an impassible frontier. At this point we can only agree with Kant. Nor can the resurrection be proved by historical arguments, traditional apologetics breaks down here. Since man is here dealing with God and this by definition means with the invisible, impalpable, uncontrollable, only one attitude is appropriate and required believing trust, trusting faith. There is no way to the risen Christ and to eternal life which bypasses faith. The resurrection is not a miracle authenticating faith . It is itself the object of faith.
The resurrection faith - and this must be said to bring out the contrast with all unbelief and superstition - is not however faith in some kind of unverifiable curiosity, which we ought to believe in addition to all the rest. Nor is the resurrection faith a faith in the fact of the resurrection or in the risen Christ taken in isolation; it is fundamentally faith in God with whom the risen Christ is now one.
The resurrection faith is not an appendage of faith in God, but a radicalizing of faith in God. It is a faith in God which does not stop halfway, but follows the road consistently to the end. It is a faith in which man, without strictly rational proof but certainly with completely reasonable trust, relies on the fact that the God of the beginning is also the God of the end, that as he is the Creator of the world and man, so, too, he is their Finisher.
The resurrection faith therefore is not to be interpreted merely as existential interiorization or social change, but as a radicalizing of faith in God the Creator. Resurrection means the real conquest of death by God the creator to whom the believer entrusts everything, even the ultimate, even the conquest of death. The end which is also a new beginning. Anyone who begins his creed and faith in "God the almighty Creator" can be content to end it with faith in "eternal life." Since God is the Alpha, he is also the Omega. The almighty Creator who calls things from nothingness into being can also call men from death into life.
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Since yesterday I spoke up for the reading of front material that is put before the main contents, I think it is especially useful after this passage which contains some of the most challenging beliefs which can be said to define Christian belief (in fact, much of it would certainly be challenged by other Christians, the German Council of Bishops condemned parts of Kung's book) to note that Kung wrote a couple of pages, "Those for whom this book is written." It starts
This book is written for those who, for any reason at all, honestly and sincerely want to know what Christianity, what being a Christian really means.
It is written also for those who do not believe, but nevertheless seriously inquire; who did believe, but are not satisfied with their unbelief; who do believe, but feel insecure in their faith, who are at a loss, between belief and unbelief; who are skeptical, both about their convictions and about their doubts. It is written then for Christians and atheists, Gnostics and agnostics, pietists and positivists, lukewarm and zealous Catholic, Protestants and Orthodox.
He continued:
Even outside the Churches, are there not many people who are not content to spend a whole lifetime approaching the fundamental questions of human existence with mere feelings, personal prejudices and apparently plausible explanation?
And are there not today also in all Churches many people who do not want to remain at the childhood stage in their faith, who expect more than a new exposition of the words of the Bible or a new denominational catechism, who can no longer find any final anchorage in infallible formulas of Scripture (Protestants), of Tradition (Orthodox), of the Magisterium (Catholics)?
These are all people who will not accept Christianity at a reduced price, who will not adopt outward conformism and a pretense of adaption in place of ecclesiastical traditionalism, but who are seeking a way to the uncurtailed truth of Christianity and Christian existence, unimpressed by ecclesiastical doctrinal constraints on the right or ideological whims on the left.
If you are not in any of those groups, especially the incurious, contented-college-credentialed would-be people of fashion, I guess it's not surprising that you aren't getting much out of this. Especially those who wish to remain at a "childhood stage" of their disbelief or their mealy-mouthed attitude of agnostic indifference. As a former agnostic, I do have to say that it is something I don't much respect for, even though as an intellectual pose, it is based in a half-truth. I saw through my own agnosticism, after all.
For me, reading not only what Hans Kung has to say but reading theologians from the entire period from the time when the Scriptures were written (much of which is theological in its content) through the beginnings of Christian theology, especially, in may case, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and, then current and recent theology has accomplished, for me, some of what Kung said wash his stated intention. A lot of what I'd learned in the form of catechism or even encyclopedia style abbreviation is far more subtle and far different from what I rejected in the several decades I could have honestly said "I am not a Christian". The Christianity I rejected - largely out of a. disillusionment with the Vatican and right-wing hierarchs, b. having bought the often untrue or exaggerated slanders about the history of Christianity and curiosity about other religious practices, especially Buddhism - that Christianity was certainly not Christianity as meant by Hans Kung, Walter Brueggemann, you know the list of those I frequently mention.
Oh, and I should include c. while I was wallowing in agnosticism, in the cowardly refusal to choose to believe. Oddly, it was an atheist who, I'm sure, would have been surprised to find that reading what he wrote about the dangerous corruption of instrumental reasoning, Joseph Weizenbaum, who helped me see the dishonesty that was inherent in agnosticism, or at least the agnosticism I held as a position. Though it was certainly not a belief, it was a cowardly refusal to believe. It is the difference between deciding and choosing, certainly, but also facing honestly that even what we call knowledge, scientific knowledge, even mathematical knowledge rests, solidly and inevitably on our early choices to believe.
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