Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil  anyone who thinks we are without bodies while we wait for our resurrected bodies must say that they are *in fact* separate entities. Now, it is natural, best, the intention, etc., that we be *joined* or *united* with our bodies, but that doesn't mean that they are not logically distinct. |
Doesn't that prove to much? Wouldn't those who have lost limbs and wait to be reunited with them at the resurrection also prove that limbs are separate entities and thus force us to divide the essence of a human up into even more separate entities? Look: I can in one sense think of a human as essentially one. When do they cease to be human? I can, pardon the way I'm expressing this, chop off their finger. Still human. Chop off their legs. Human. Arms. Still a living human. Then I can destroy the rest of their body. I can say a soul (think, "a human") can not be destroyed by cutting off their body. The soul remains. The human remains. They are still human because as God was sustaining them before, he is still sustaining them. But they are not being sustained by God through what we call "natural processes." So to me it makes sense that we might say that they are being sustained through "supernatural processes." They continue to exist as a human. We just can't see that existence any more, and their existence is not being sustained by God through the processes of their natural body anymore. However, we don't have
the ability to see that continued existence that scripture tells us is true. We humans experience ourselves two "parts": the seen and the unseen, and this is particularly pointed out at death when we cease to see God sustaining their existence. It appears to me that we see this dichotomy because of the limits of our senses. This limit of ours + the scriptures revelation that God sustains after death means we as Christians experience human existence as a dichotomy.
At least that is what makes sense to me right now. Who knows what I'll think a year from now
