For those whose minds are obstinately closed to the truth, no amount of evidence can convince them.
That is the disquieting lesson contained in the surprising end to the familiar gospel parable of Lazarus and the rich man.
As most of us remember it, the parable is a story about a reversal of fates that also reads as a commentary on the virtues of suffering and the perils of wealth uncoupled with charity. Lazarus—a New Testament version of Job—is beset with abject poverty, disease, and general misery. The antagonist is the rich man who lives it up while turning a blind eye to the suffering of his neighbor. In the end fortunes are reversed: Lazarus is received into the bosom of Abraham while the rich man finds himself in hell.
But the story doesn’t end there. It goes on in a brief interrogatory that has enormous implications for Christian apologetics. Here’s the ending, from Luke 16:27-31:
And he [the rich man] said: “Then, father, I beseech thee, that thou wouldst send him to my father’s house, for I have five brethren that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments.” And Abraham said to him: “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.” But he said: “No, father Abraham: But if one went to them from the dead, they will do penance.” And he said to him: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead” (Douay-Rheims translation).
That last line, at first blush, is quite shocking: If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe, if one rise again from the dead. From the standpoint of modern Christian apologetics, this is unsettling. After all, conventional wisdom holds that when it comes to arguing for the truth of Christianity, the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ is Exhibit A.
But here, Abraham—as quoted in a parable told by Jesus—seems to be saying that the rich man’s brothers would not be led to belief in God were they to be warned about the realities of the afterlife by someone who had been there. Or is he?
The statement needs to be reread carefully. Abraham is not saying that a resurrection from the dead would be unconvincing. He is saying that it would be unconvincing to those who think Genesis is a creation myth and the prophets are fables and fakes.
The lesson is nonetheless critically important: openness to the truth is a necessary precondition of faith and conversion. Those who can’t imagine that God would work in the world, as Creator and Savior—as recounted by Moses and foretold by the prophets—would not be very receptive to claims about the resurrection of God Incarnate or anyone else for that matter. (As one Church Father well notes, Lazarus himself was resurrected in the gospels.)
This principle is confirmed by Christ Himself after His resurrection. It comes the day the empty tomb was discovered, on the road to Emmaus, seven miles from Jerusalem. Two of his disciples are discussing the recent events—including the news that an empty tomb had been found. As they were talking Christ appears on the road—“drawing near”—and accompanies them. This encounter with the resurrected Christ differs notably from His later manifestation to the disciples. He is not recognized. He does not invite them to put their hands into His wounds, as he does with Thomas.
So how does Christ persuade them that He has been resurrected? Here’s how Luke recounts it:
Then he said to them: “O foolish, and slow of heart to believe in all things which the prophets have spoken. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and so to enter into his glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things that were concerning him (Luke 24:25-27, Douay-Rheims).
Pause for a moment to imagine this scene: here is Christ, presumably bearing all the signs of an authentically resurrected body and what does He do? He begins with a Bible lesson. Such is the importance of Moses and the prophets.
The lesson of Emmaus is the same as the ending of the Lazarus parable: Moses and the prophets are an essential preamble to faith in Christ. (“Moses and the prophets” is an obvious shorthand for the five books of the Pentateuch and the writings of prophets like Isaiah and Daniel.)
One might ask quite simply: why? It actually isn’t obvious why the Old Testament is so important. It’s something we tend to take for granted as part of the heritage of Scriptures. We pray through the Psalms and many of the stories of the Old Testament provide us with vivid illustrations of faith at work in the lives of others, from Abraham on the mountain with Isaac to Daniel in the lions’ den. The prophets also foretell the story of Christ and, in that context, form a backdrop to the stories of Advent, Christmas, and the Passion.
But the two gospel stories indicate that Moses and the prophets are more than just useful, edifying, or instructive. They suggest the writings of Moses and the prophets are indispensable to the story of Christ. Why is this?
The answer, of course, could—and does—consume many volumes of biblical theology. Here it is worthwhile to consider a few teachings of Moses and the prophets that are critical preconditions to faith in Christ as God Incarnate who died and was resurrected.
A personal God: The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a personal God, as Pope Benedict XVI reminds in Lumen Fidei. This was not the norm in the ancient world. As Benedict notes, deities were often regionalized, being tied to particular places and areas. In ancient Greece and Rome, the gods often embodies forces of nature, human impulses and desires, or various arts and skills.
The goodness of God: We take this for granted, but it’s not necessarily obvious to a nonbeliever that God must be good. This is a key principle of the Old Testament, established through the Mosaic law, prophetic pronouncements, and stories of God’s actions in the history of Israel. The idea of an Incarnation, of a savior who rescues us from our sins entirely presupposes an infinitely and perfectly good God who wants the best for us.
The goodness of creation: This too is not obvious outside of Christianity (and Judaism). The history of the Church is littered with heresies that denied the goodness of creation—with devastating results (obvious examples are Manichæism in the early Church and Albigensianism in the medieval period). Again, the Incarnation only makes sense if creation is good, as Genesis 1 constantly reminds us. Were creation not “good” a perfectly good God would not have assumed a human body.
Original sin: This is a teaching unique to Christianity. Outside of the Genesis story there would be no terrestrial paradise, no satanic serpent, no fateful fruit. While Christian skeptics may claim to find elements of the Eden story elsewhere, there is no equivalent to the story in any other religion or myth. And that story is the foundation for the doctrine of original sin. While Christ came to save us also from our personal sins, the “original” sin is what predisposed us to sin in the first place. Obviously, without sin, there would be no need for a divine savior, a God Incarnate who suffers, dies, and is resurrected.
image: Rich Man and Lazarus, Rila Monastery via Apostoloff / Wikimedia Commons