Rising to Life: The Resurrection as an Existential Call

                                                            Acte de foi (The Act of Faith), René Magritte, 1960

Introduction

Kerk & Leven (“Church & Life”) is the leading weekly Catholic magazine in the Flemish region of Belgium. Since October 2025, on the invitation of the chief editor of the local edition of the parish of Olen, Cis Marinus, I have been writing a reflective article every two weeks from a philosophical and theological perspective, exploring Christianity in a scientific age.

8 April 2026

Rising to Life: The Resurrection as an Existential Call

In the Orthodox tradition (as in the Eastern Orthodox Church), Christians greet one another during the Easter season with a fixed Easter greeting: “Christ is risen!” (Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!, Christos anesti), to which the traditional response is “He is truly risen!” (Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!, alithos anesti). In our regions, by contrast, we tend to be more reserved, sticking to “Happy Easter” or, even more neutrally, “Enjoy the Easter holiday.” A certain hesitation overcomes us when the theme of the resurrection arises. We prefer to give it a wide berth, while indulging in chocolate Easter eggs as a way of keeping up appearances.

I also sometimes hear religious education teachers wonder in despair how they can still present the resurrection credibly to their students as the time of Easter approaches. They experience that today’s students are increasingly reluctant to remain open to miracles as they are literally described in the Bible, with the resurrection at the forefront. As children of their time, they have grown up within the self-evident framework of a worldview based on science and immutable natural laws. The idea that Jesus died, was buried, and after three days physically rose from the dead is difficult, if not downright impossible, for them to accept. This creates a challenging dilemma, because in traditional Christian doctrine the resurrection of Jesus is indeed regarded as a historical fact. For many Christians, it is a concrete event that truly took place in history: the tomb was empty, and Jesus appeared several times to his disciples.

A possible way out of this difficult situation can be found in the work of the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976), one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. In his well-known work Neues Testament und Mythologie (New Testament and Mythology)(1941), he starts from an important question: how can modern people, living within a scientific worldview, still understand the message of the New Testament? The stumbling block is that the New Testament makes use of “mythical language,” that is, images and representations typical of the time in which it was written. Think, for example, of a three-tiered cosmos with a flat earth in the middle, heaven above, and an underworld below, populated by angels, demons, and all kinds of supernatural interventions. Bultmann does not want to reject this mythical language outright, but to “demythologize” it. By this he means that we must search for the deeper meaning behind these images. Behind the mythical stories, we should look for an existential truth. What does this story say about human existence, about fear, hope, guilt, freedom, and meaning?

Bultmann takes a bold step by placing the resurrection outside the realm of objectivity. Since the resurrection cannot be objectively established using historical methods, it is not meaningful, in his view, to try to prove that it literally happened in that way. Doing so would make Christian faith dependent on historical facts, whereas faith is fundamentally a personal and existential choice. The insistence on proving the resurrection as a historical fact reflects a desire for certainty. But demanding certainty for religious faith ultimately stifles it at its root.

Instead of seeing it as a purely historical fact, Bultmann understands the resurrection as an “event of faith”. This means that the resurrection takes place in proclamation and in the believer’s faith. When someone hears the Gospel and comes to faith, something new happens. That person experiences a turning point, a new beginning. As in the painting Acte de Foi (The Act of Faith) by René Magritte, where through a closed door one sees the open night sky: this, according to Bultmann, expresses the true meaning of the resurrection. In other words, the resurrection means that Jesus lives today in the proclamation and faith of people. It is not an event confined to the past, but something that happens again and again.

For Bultmann, the cross and the resurrection belong closely together. The cross of Jesus represents his total self-surrender and the confrontation with death and meaninglessness. The resurrection then signifies that this death does not have the final word. This should not be understood as a physical miracle that breaks the laws of nature, but as a message: in faith, human beings can be freed from fear and despair. The resurrection thus proclaims that there is hope, even in the face of death. It invites people to trust and to begin a new life.

Bultmann frequently uses the term “existential.” By this he means that faith concerns how one lives and makes choices. In this sense, the resurrection calls people to step out of their “old existence.” That old existence is marked by fear, guilt, and being trapped in the past. Through faith, a person can begin a new existence: a life of freedom, trust, and openness to the future. Bultmann calls this an “authentic” existence. The resurrection, therefore, is not only about Jesus, but above all about human beings: we can change, we can begin anew. In that sense, the resurrection does not occur just once in the past, but again and again whenever someone is touched by this message. It is an existential event, something that unfolds in the lives of people here and now. Its meaning lies in the transformation it brings about. People can rise from a life of fear, guilt, or meaninglessness into a new existence marked by trust, freedom, and responsibility.

Within a scientific worldview, this means that the resurrection does not have to conflict with the laws of nature. It does not take place at the level of measurable facts, but at the level of human existence. The question is not whether a body biologically came back to life, but whether a person can come to new life inwardly. The resurrection thus becomes an existential call: leave the old behind and choose an authentic existence.

The question Bultmann raises remains relevant today: how can we understand ancient religious texts in a modern world? His answer is that we should not remain stuck in literal interpretations, but search for deeper meaning. The resurrection then becomes not a biological miracle, but a message of hope and renewal. For believers, this can help deepen their faith. For non-believers, it offers a way to read the Bible without having to accept all miracle stories literally.

Rudolf Bultmann thus offers a renewed perspective on the resurrection of Jesus. Instead of focusing on whether it was a historical miracle, he emphasizes its significance for human existence. Through his demythologizing approach, he seeks to make the message of Christianity more accessible to modern people. The resurrection becomes an invitation to change, to a new beginning, and to a life of trust and hope. Although his view is not accepted by everyone, it remains an important and influential perspective within theology, one that challenges us to reflect more deeply on what faith can truly mean in our lives today.

Originally published as: van Biezen, A. (2026). Opstaan tot leven: de verrijzenis als existentiële oproep. In Kerk & Leven, edition 0584, 8 April 2026, p. 4.

 

A World in God’s Light: The Final Great Vision of Hildegard of Bingen

                                                     Den énvingede (The One-Winged), Nis Schmidt

Introduction

Kerk & Leven (“Church & Life”) is the leading weekly Catholic magazine in the Flemish region of Belgium. Since October 2025, on the invitation of the chief editor of the local edition of the parish of Olen, Cis Marinus, I have been writing a reflective article every two weeks from a philosophical and theological perspective, exploring Christianity in a scientific age. 

25 March 2026

A World in God’s Light: The Final Great Vision of Hildegard of Bingen

In September 2025, I was invited by the Belgian Study Group Hildegard of Bingen to give a lecture for their annual Hildegard Day. In search of a suitable topic, I noticed that all the major works of Saint Hildegard of Bingen had already been translated into Dutch. Only her final great visionary work, the Liber Divinorum Operum (“The Book of Divine Works”), has not yet been translated into Dutch. This intrigued me. Is it a forgotten work?

The fact that The Book of Divine Works ran the risk of disappearing under the dust of history for a long time is mainly due to a convergence of historical circumstances. After the fall of the Roman Empire, much knowledge from classical antiquity had been lost in the West. It was mainly through the reconquest (the Reconquista) of Arab Spain (Al-Andalus) that, in the course of the 13th century, the works of Aristotle reached the West. This (re)discovery of Aristotle led to a true transformation in the Christian West. Great Church scholars such as Thomas Aquinas and Albertus Magnus gratefully used Aristotle’s thought to establish the foundation of the impressive cathedrals of medieval theology. Hildegard’s mystical vision of the divine works did not fit into this Aristotelian-inspired transformation and was therefore skillfully pushed into the background.

At the heart of this majestic work lies the image of the cosmos as a living organism in which everything is interconnected. Hildegard offers an extensive commentary on the biblical story of creation. Remarkably, she does not read this story as a purely literal account, but as a cosmic vision expressing the unity of God, cosmos, and humanity. For Hildegard, the creation story is a revelation of divine wisdom that brings order and harmony into the world. The entire universe reflects God’s plan. Man is created in the image of God and, in turn, forms a microcosm that encompasses and summarizes the whole of creation. In Hildegard’s vision, Adam is connected both to heaven and to earth. The Fall, for her, represents a rupture in the original harmony, through which humanity becomes estranged from the original order of the universe.

This vision stands in sharp contrast to the philosophy of Aristotle, which would dominate medieval theology from the 13th century onward. Hildegard sees God, the entire cosmos, and the human being as one single reality: a sacred space in which everything has its place. She recognizes God in man and in humanity’s great responsibility for life, the well-being of the earth and the environment, and in the mysterious way in which the cosmos exists at all.

Hildegard’s thinking is profoundly organic: she does not see the cosmos as a mechanical system, but as a living, sacred body in which everything circulates and breathes. Images of flowing blood, breath, fertility, and light express that the world is a sacred space in which God is continuously at work. Her concept of viriditas (“greening power”) symbolizes this life force that animates everything. For Hildegard, the universe is not merely an ordered, knowable cosmos, but a holy, sacred space in which God is constantly active. In this sense, the cosmos is for her a temple: not a dead space, but a holy domain in which God and creation are inseparably connected. Man who lives well maintains this balance and participates in the divine work.

Thus, the cosmos as a sacred space becomes for us a space of sanctification in which man actively becomes a co-creator of God’s work. This vision resonates, among others, in the understanding of liturgy proposed by the Leuven theologian Dr. Joris Geldof, who views church buildings not merely as sacred spaces, but as spaces for sanctification.

Hildegard’s Book of Divine Works can be read as a comprehensive vision of creation that stands in stark contrast to the outlook of modern humanity, which sees itself as the measure of all things. A work of art that beautifully represents this modern vision is the sculpture Den énvingede (“The One-Winged”) by the Danish artist Nis Schmidt, which can be admired in the Abbey of Averbode. It is a bronze statue depicting an angel with only one wing. The sculpture refers to Thomas Aquinas, who states that man need two wings: the wing of faith and the wing of reason. Beneath the statue is a quotation from Pope Benedict XIV commenting on this idea: “Faith and reason are the two wings by which the human spirit rises to seek the truth. Perhaps it can no longer fly precisely because one wing, faith, has been broken off. With the other, reason, much can be achieved, but rising to the sustaining insights of human existence is no longer possible by that alone.”

For Hildegard, human beings are not passive spectators within God’s creation; rather, they are addressed and actively invited to become co-creators of God’s work. Humanity is fundamentally called to responsibility and plays an active role in preserving and sustaining the harmony of the universe, a harmony that depends on human moral and spiritual action. As a microcosm, human being reflect the structure of the entire creation and bear responsibility for maintaining that harmony. Sin and disorder are understood by Hildegard as disruptions of this cosmic balance.

The Book of Divine Works presents a cosmos that lives, breathes, and is animated, a cosmos in which human beings do not stand outside or above creation, but participate as a microcosm in God’s organic, sacred order. We are here to partake in the wonder of the universe and to respond to the divine call to understand ever more of this wondrous cosmos. In this interconnectedness of God, cosmos, and humanity, human beings are not only collaborators of the Creator; we are also invited to be co-workers, co-creators of God’s work. The Creator is still at work, to the very end. Cosmogenesis (the coming-into-being of the cosmos) is our shared service to God and to the world. In this, we show and bear witness to our gratitude for being here, the gift we leave behind when we depart this earthly life.

Hildegard’s visions have by no means lost their relevance, on the contrary. Whereas in the past we could hardly imagine that human beings might have any significant impact on the overall ecological balance of nature, it has now become painfully and urgently clear how profoundly we are disrupting the order and harmony of our environment and the global climate. Hildegard’s vision of our care and responsibility for the environment, the earth and the global climate, is a visionary message whose physical and spiritual necessity is increasingly becoming evident. It offers a strikingly аctual perspective on the current state of the world, marked by severe environmental pollution and climate change, in which humanity’s role is unmistakable. A new, more sustainable attitude toward nature is urgently needed. The spiritual, harmonious vision of Hildegard of Bingen in The Book of Divine Works can serve as a powerful source of inspiration in this regard.

 

Originally published as: van Biezen, A. (2026). Een wereld in Gods licht: het laatste grote visioen van Hildegard van Bingen. In Kerk & Leven, edition 0485, 25 March 2026, p. 4.