Here is an intersting question?
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Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
As opposed to what?
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
That man without a body is not human.
dudley
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
After death I think all those who are saved will have glorified heavenly bodies.
Philippians 3:20-21 says Jesus will change our "vile" bodies. Vile means depraved and those of us who are Calvinists know that the first statement of TULIP is total depravity. I think our glorified bodies will appear different. We will therefore recognize each other by the spirit. What we really look like on the inside will be apparent to all. Jesus' body could go through walls (John 20:26).It felt like ours; Thomas touched it (Luke 24:39-40). On the road to Emmaus, the disciples didn't recognize His new body and He vanished in front of them (Luke 24:13-32). Jesus even ate with His disciples. I think in our glorified bodies, we don't have to eat for sustenance, but we will be able to eat for pleasure (Luke 24:39-43; Matthew 26:29). It will have no pain, no sickness, no aging, no restrictions and be able to appear in different forms.
I think all of this is just the tip of the iceberg, of what God has prepared for those He loves and are saved. I do not think we can even begin to imagine what heaven is like and the infinite God we will see when we are judged with our finite minds and our frail present state.
Philippians 3:20-21 says Jesus will change our "vile" bodies. Vile means depraved and those of us who are Calvinists know that the first statement of TULIP is total depravity. I think our glorified bodies will appear different. We will therefore recognize each other by the spirit. What we really look like on the inside will be apparent to all. Jesus' body could go through walls (John 20:26).It felt like ours; Thomas touched it (Luke 24:39-40). On the road to Emmaus, the disciples didn't recognize His new body and He vanished in front of them (Luke 24:13-32). Jesus even ate with His disciples. I think in our glorified bodies, we don't have to eat for sustenance, but we will be able to eat for pleasure (Luke 24:39-43; Matthew 26:29). It will have no pain, no sickness, no aging, no restrictions and be able to appear in different forms.
I think all of this is just the tip of the iceberg, of what God has prepared for those He loves and are saved. I do not think we can even begin to imagine what heaven is like and the infinite God we will see when we are judged with our finite minds and our frail present state.
Does man quite being a living soul? Does he quit being a person?
Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
Could you give me a scriptural reference for that?
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Of course I agree that man after he dies and before the resurrection is still a man or a person but is without a body. So I guess is a physical body needed to be classified as a human is the question.
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Of course Jesus did not have have His resurrected body till His resurrection nor will we till the resurrection of the dead at the end of time.
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toddpedlar
Iron Dramatist
Is not our soul human?
If it is, then why is connection to the physical body a necessary indicator of humanness? A person who dies in a fire and loses his physical body does not cease to be human. I'm not sure how one could justify such a claim. At most, I should think it reasonable to say that he is a human being who presently is without his physical body.
If it is, then why is connection to the physical body a necessary indicator of humanness? A person who dies in a fire and loses his physical body does not cease to be human. I'm not sure how one could justify such a claim. At most, I should think it reasonable to say that he is a human being who presently is without his physical body.
dudley
Puritan Board Post-Graduate
The best answer I can give is we will be transformed into a Glorified body which is not the human body we know here on earth. God will take all the atoms that made us who we were but then transform our bodies to be glorified bodies, much different than the bodies we have now, since "flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of God. (I Cor. 15:50)
See also my earlier post.
See also my earlier post.
jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
Bahnsen seems to think that before the new heavens and new earth God will provide us with an intimediary physical body of somekind. I think our materiality is essential to what makes us human but if we die and lose our present bodies than no matter what happens we will still be humans.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
That sounds strange to me though.
---------- Post added at 11:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:12 AM ----------
Good stuff! esp the "Is not our soul human?" Thanks Todd.
Andres
Puritan Board Doctor
I don't know that we'll be saying much after we die.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Exactly that is the jist in that without a physical mouth to move the molecules together in the air can we make a audible noise even though we are with The Lord.
Zenas
Snow Miser
Yes, you can say it. You can also say unicorns exist. Whether it is true doesn't depend on your ability to say it though.
You're getting old Josh. I'm picking up your slack.
earl40
Puritan Board Professor
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
Angels are spirits and yet - sometimes at least - can be seen.
God is a Spirit, and yet can be seen, not as He is in Himself, but by a theophany or through the incarnate, risen, glorified and exalted Christ.
Elijah and Moses were seen with Christ. Of course they are somewhat different to the most of the saints in that their bodies were taken into Heaven. Enoch too is in Heaven body and soul. Also the saints that were raised at the time of the crucifixion may well have ascended into Heaven.
How is this passage of Scripture usually dealt with by the Reformed exegetes? :-
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened--not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord (II Cor 5:1-6, ESV).
God will make provision for the fact that our bodies are in the grave and that our souls are without the body in Heaven. Unless I'm mistaken, that provision is somewhat mysterious.
God is a Spirit, and yet can be seen, not as He is in Himself, but by a theophany or through the incarnate, risen, glorified and exalted Christ.
Elijah and Moses were seen with Christ. Of course they are somewhat different to the most of the saints in that their bodies were taken into Heaven. Enoch too is in Heaven body and soul. Also the saints that were raised at the time of the crucifixion may well have ascended into Heaven.
How is this passage of Scripture usually dealt with by the Reformed exegetes? :-
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened--not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord (II Cor 5:1-6, ESV).
God will make provision for the fact that our bodies are in the grave and that our souls are without the body in Heaven. Unless I'm mistaken, that provision is somewhat mysterious.
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rbcbob
Puritan Board Graduate
There continues personal, human identity in the grave.
John 6:40 "And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."
John 6:44 "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
It is and even he didn't have all the answers to this question. I for one don't completly agree with him because in the same paper, which I will try to find, he describes us a "materiality, which posses intellegence and moral awarness." But how can he avoid a kind of materialsim, which he clearly disagreed with, here.
I don't think that the WCF was meant to answer in a comprehensive way difficult philosophical questions like this. If you feel that only a greek dualistic view of body and soul is confessional than I think you may be mistaken, I agree that it is one view but not the only view.
Tripel
Puritan Board Senior
Huh? Moses died, and God buried him in Moab.
Some people believe that the reference in Jude to the dispute with the devil over the body of Moses, along with Moses' appearance at the transfiguration, indicates that he was resurrected and translated sometime before the events recorded in Matthew 17.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
I'd never heard of Bahnsen's view. Technically speaking he wouldn't necessarily be contradicting the Confession, as long as he held that the remains of our true bodies are here in the natural world until the resurrection.
He's just saying that - for various reasons - he believes God will make somekind of physical provision for our souls in Heaven. It would be interesting to see what he bases this on.
---------- Post added at 10:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 PM ----------
To be perfectly honest I haven't looked at this Q closely. But that's the possibility which I was guessing at.
jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
To elaborate a little further on what I mean. The Westminster Divines pulled what was essential about anthropology out of scripture without making any real essential rulings on the various metaphysical problems associated with a dualistic mind(soul)/body problem. I know that Descarte had written some works a few years before the Divines met but how much did they even interact with him at all? What philosophers did the Divines interact with on these issues?
But if we say that the confession took a decided stance on certian philosophical issues here, they did rule out materialism and platonism though, than we might not be correct. We must then work out a philosophical anthropology taking the broad theological ideas worked out in the confession and go from there. Dooyeweerd as an example might enlighten our discussion here.
Dooyeweerd held that the confession was what he called scholastic in its view of the soul/body problem. He claimed that the Divines set a basically greek dualistic view of the person and therefore commited the error of scolasticism, taking a pagan/apostate philosophy and setting it next to a biblical one with equal authority or truthfulness (basically denying the fall). Later Dooyeweerdians revolted against the confessions on this, and maybe other things?, in which they called for a reformation of the confessions. But were they correct?
I would say a big fat emphatic NO here. They erred in thinking that the Divines were keenly interested in these sort of heavy philosophical issues directly, rather than indirectly dealing with them as they came up (which I think). They left some mystery in the whole thing that means that there are boundries on what shape a christian philosophy can develop on this issue but enough room to alow differences of opinions here. Bahnsen's view, although strange, is withen the confession (no one brought him up on charges for one). If one holds that a certian greek view is the only view allowable than I would be inclined to think that they may, not definantly, be in error of what Dooyeweerd called scholasticism. As long as we allow for some essential, inteeligable part of us to survive death than we are withen the confession in my opinion.
But if we say that the confession took a decided stance on certian philosophical issues here, they did rule out materialism and platonism though, than we might not be correct. We must then work out a philosophical anthropology taking the broad theological ideas worked out in the confession and go from there. Dooyeweerd as an example might enlighten our discussion here.
Dooyeweerd held that the confession was what he called scholastic in its view of the soul/body problem. He claimed that the Divines set a basically greek dualistic view of the person and therefore commited the error of scolasticism, taking a pagan/apostate philosophy and setting it next to a biblical one with equal authority or truthfulness (basically denying the fall). Later Dooyeweerdians revolted against the confessions on this, and maybe other things?, in which they called for a reformation of the confessions. But were they correct?
I would say a big fat emphatic NO here. They erred in thinking that the Divines were keenly interested in these sort of heavy philosophical issues directly, rather than indirectly dealing with them as they came up (which I think). They left some mystery in the whole thing that means that there are boundries on what shape a christian philosophy can develop on this issue but enough room to alow differences of opinions here. Bahnsen's view, although strange, is withen the confession (no one brought him up on charges for one). If one holds that a certian greek view is the only view allowable than I would be inclined to think that they may, not definantly, be in error of what Dooyeweerd called scholasticism. As long as we allow for some essential, inteeligable part of us to survive death than we are withen the confession in my opinion.
jwright82
Puritan Board Professor
Exactly right on Bahnsen! Here is his article:
PA143.
Warning it is very steeped in heavy philosophical language but with help you may be able to understand it. I am happy to help where I can and I can recomend others who could help also, I hope he doesn't mind me naming him here but P. F. Pugh is very knowledgable in philosophy and can answer any questions you might have on technical issues of philosophy.
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Well I'm glad that you've put your picture up James so that I'll be able to recognise you in Heaven.
I just hope the fact that I am Irish doesn't mean you will hold it agianst me
.
Peairtach
Puritan Board Doctor
Our Lord (the Gospel), Enoch (the Patriarchs), Elijah (the Prophets) and maybe Moses (the Torah). That's four people with their bodies in Heaven (Heavenly Bodies). Plus, probably, the saints of Jerusalem who rose at the time of our Lord's crucifixion.
Are there any others mentioned in the Bible?
---------- Post added at 10:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:15 PM ----------
The more Irish in Heaven the better.
Are there any others mentioned in the Bible?
---------- Post added at 10:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:15 PM ----------
The more Irish in Heaven the better.
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