{"id":34006,"date":"2018-03-20T06:06:02","date_gmt":"2018-03-20T10:06:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=34006"},"modified":"2018-03-15T08:52:21","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T12:52:21","slug":"resurrection-and-hope-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Resurrection and Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it \u2013 and my reply \u2013 interesting.<\/p>\n

Dear Dr McGrath<\/p>\n

I have been a follower of your blog for a while now, always enjoyed hearing your opinions on religion and biblical interpretation.<\/p>\n

While I appreciate that you are doubt a busy person, I had a couple of questions in regards to some of the things I\u2019ve read on your blog.<\/p>\n

First off, I know that you consider yourself a Panentheist, and I find something appealing in the ideas of Clayton and Moltmann myself in that regard. However, something that always seems to evade my own understanding is what traits we expect the \u2018Ground of all Being\u2019 to have. For instance, do you believe that said Ground could be described as conscious? I ask because while I am open to different views of God, I worry that some of this discussion is basically reducing the term \u2018God\u2019 to purely a metaphor for human hopes or ideals rather than a metaphor for any form of actual divine presence that actually gives a fig about us in any way.<\/p>\n

Secondly, while I understand that you are sceptical of the prospect of an afterlife, I wonder what your opinion would be on the possibility of a physical resurrection, and could that be something that a Christian could responsibly hope for, if not expect. Tying into this, I know, as you\u2019ve asserted multiple times on your blog that we cannot expect to prove the Resurrection happened historically, but would you say there is still room to hope for the possibility that it happened?<\/p>\n

Finally, in terms of believing in God, what would you say to someone who claimed that there was no reason to posit any kind of divine presence, who would claim that with no evidence, any beliefs in any kind of God is simply na\u00efve at best, which I personally feel is perhaps the biggest challenge atheists and sceptics have levelled against religion. To perhaps put it in better terms, what rational basis do you think we have for being Christians?<\/p>\n

For context, I\u2019m a student studying world religions in college, which naturally has me dwelling on these questions for a bit and I feel your two cents might help me make better sense of the bigger picture. While I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d consider myself a full-on liberal Christian [Not least because that term can be somewhat vague at times], I do understand the need to move away from some of the more \u2018dogmatic\u2019 aspects of Christianity.<\/p>\n

I understand you\u2019re probably quite busy, but if you could respond to me sometime in the near future, I would be grateful.<\/p>\n

If these are things you\u2019ve already covered in your blog and I\u2019ve simply missed, I apologise for wasting your time, and would appreciate being directed to those posts.<\/p>\n

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and hope to hear from you soon.<\/p>\n

Regards<\/p>\n

X<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here is what I wrote in reply:<\/p>\n

Dear X<\/p>\n

I apologize for having neglected your e-mail for almost a year. I had indeed addressed the topics that you asked about on my blog, but I had intended to go back and track down some of those posts and send them to you. At this stage, I think the best thing to do to make amends for my long silence will be to actually write some new blog posts on the topics that you asked about. But I do want to say a couple of things as brief answers by e-mail so that you don\u2019t have to wait even longer than you already have. I think that we do indeed need to be cautious, because it is very easy to turn a move away from excessive anthropomorphism in our talk about God, in the direction of delimiting God just in different ways from conservatives. And while I do think there are limits to what we can prove using historical tools, I don\u2019t think there is any limit to what we can hope for. And I think that, while we need to take what fields like science and history tell us fully into account as we formulate our worldview, including those hopeful aspects of it, I have yet to find someone who fails to hope for things beyond those which can be proven.<\/p>\n

Apologies again for the long delay in replying. I hope you are well!<\/p>\n

Best wishes,<\/p>\n

James<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How would you have responded, if the question had been posed to you? What else would you have added? I probably should have worded one part more carefully: there are no limits to what we can hope for, apart from those provided by evidence, assuming (as I do) that we allow evidence to constrain our beliefs. I do not find hope for that which is without evidence, but which is not incompatible with evidence, objectionable in the way that I find the assertion of beliefs that are at odds with available evidence. Whether we ought to hope for things that we do not have clear evidence for is a different matter \u2013 but I think we all do so, if we are honest. Would you agree?<\/p>\n

Of related interest, see Pete Enns\u2019 recent blog post about the lack of bodily resurrection as a form of afterlife expectation in the Jewish Scriptures\/Protestant Old Testament<\/a>, apart from in the Book of Daniel.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it \u2013 and my reply \u2013 interesting. Dear Dr McGrath I have been a follower of your blog for a while now, always enjoyed hearing your opinions on religion and biblical interpretation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":43895,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[163],"tags":[4763,8661,10276],"class_list":["post-34006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-progressive-christianity-religion","tag-hope","tag-panentheism","tag-resurrection"],"yoast_head":"\nResurrection and Hope<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it - and my reply - interesting. Dear Dr\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Resurrection and Hope\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it - and my reply - interesting. Dear Dr\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-20T10:06:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-03-15T12:52:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2018\/03\/resurrection-hope.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"210\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html\",\"name\":\"Resurrection and Hope\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-20T10:06:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-03-15T12:52:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\"},\"description\":\"I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it - and my reply - interesting. Dear Dr\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Resurrection and Hope\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/\",\"name\":\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\",\"description\":\"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf\",\"name\":\"James F. McGrath\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"James F. McGrath\"},\"description\":\"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5\",\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf\",\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof\",\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Resurrection and Hope","description":"I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it - and my reply - interesting. Dear Dr","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Resurrection and Hope","og_description":"I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it - and my reply - interesting. Dear Dr","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html","og_site_name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","article_author":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","article_published_time":"2018-03-20T10:06:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-03-15T12:52:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":280,"height":210,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/719\/2018\/03\/resurrection-hope.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"James F. McGrath","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ReligionProf","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"James F. McGrath","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html","name":"Resurrection and Hope","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-03-20T10:06:02+00:00","dateModified":"2018-03-15T12:52:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf"},"description":"I received an e-mail from a blog reader a while back, and have long meant to share it here in case others found it - and my reply - interesting. Dear Dr","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/03\/resurrection-and-hope-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Resurrection and Hope"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/","name":"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath","description":"The Blog of Dr. James F. McGrath, Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University, Indianapolis","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/78342576667b872e3d259c153ce4c5bf","name":"James F. McGrath","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/88ca096942acd474313f7ef4227a49da?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"James F. McGrath"},"description":"Clarence L. Goodwin Chair in New Testament Language and Literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. BD University of London, PhD Durham University. Author of John's Apologetic Christology, The Only True God, Theology and Science Fiction, and The Burial of Jesus, as well as (with Charles Haberl of Rutgers University) the two-volume Mandaean Book of John critical edition, translation, and commentary. Also author of numerous articles (and a few science fiction short stories) and the editor or co-editor of several volumes.","sameAs":["https:\/\/amzn.to\/3Ge8ul5","http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/jamesfmcgrath\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/jfmcgrat\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/ReligionProf","http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/soundcloud.com\/religionprof","https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/James_F._McGrath"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/author\/james-f-mcgrath"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}