Theology of the Body and Immortality

In reading this post this morning, it was the first time I'd ever seen someone who believes in the resurrection posit that there is no human soul. The relevant paragraphs were:

I don't believe people have souls.  We are bundles of tissues and nerves and synapses that, when working properly, constitute a person.  When they are no longer working, they constitute a dead person.  There is an abstract and purposive part of human consciousness that could be called the soul, but I don't believe it is self-existent or capable of being abstracted from human physicality.  So when you die, you die. 

Some might think (and certainly Prof. Kagan thinks) that challenging the belief in the soul would be problematic for evangelical Christians, but I don't see any real obstacles.  It is not on the basis of an immortal soul that Christians believe in life after death, but on the basis of the saving activity of God.  There's nothing special about humans that makes us innately immortal.

Now obviously, right from the start, I disagree. Traditional Christianity, and the Catholic Church, have always maintained the existence of an immortal soul that survives the death of the body, and indeed the definition of death is the separation of soul and body. To believe otherwise puts us at odds with certain scripture passages, for instance Matt 10:28 "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell."

Further, Saint Paul speaks of our bodies as earthly tents, which will be destroyed so that we may enter into heavenly dwellings (2 Corinthians 5:1).

The entire tenor of the Bible is impossible to understand without the assumption that there is something in humans that is immortal, which we call a soul. Without that understanding, the arguments of Jesus with the Sadducees, or Paul's escape by pitting them against the pharisees, or the story of the witch of Endor, even the injunctions against divining and necromancy, make no sense. When reading the Old Testament, one gets the idea that communication with the dead was forbidden, not because it doesn't work, but because there was the horrible possibility that it might.

However, the argument was not so much whether there is life after death, but rather why there is life after death. The supposition was that there is nothing innately in our nature that would keep us alive, but rather (I take it) that God keeps us alive, or brings us back to life, by a miracle.

There is some truth to this, but it is formulated in such a way as to draw a false distinction, as if the possibility of humans being innately immortal somehow negated the constant work of God. Of course it is the constant and inescapable attention of God that keeps us alive, before and after death. We are the sort of creatures who sustain themselves in a physical environment, but that does not negate the fact that it is God who keeps us in existence. Our nature as physical beings is to live. That nature comes from God. There is no contradiction between the two. In the same way, if our nature is such that our consciousness continues after and independently of the death of the body, it was God who designed and created that nature and keeps it in existence.

The problem, then, with saying that "It is not on the basis of an immortal soul that Christians believe in life after death, but on the basis of the saving activity of God" is that it creates the false impression that immortality was something tacked onto our nature after the fact, rather than our destiny from before the world began. It also connotes salvation with immortality, as if the mere fact of living forever was synonymous with resurrection into glory. It is also part of our faith that humans can live forever in hell, forever cutting themselves off from God's saving love.

There is, however, another kernel of truth there, in the insistence on the bodiliness of the soul. The human person was never meant to exist without a body. In fact, the very urge to cheat death, to live forever, to survive in legend, in memory, in monuments, in descendants, all prove that we were never meant to die. We are the sort of creatures who were created to live. The fact that we get thirsty indicates that we were meant to drink water. The fact that we hunger for immortality indicates that we were meant to live forever.

(It may be argued that animals also struggle to escape death, but I would disagree that this is the same thing. I've noticed that it isn't the fact of dying that animals mind, but the fact of being killed. To me that seems to indicate that the present violence and destruction in the animal kingdom were not part of the original order of creation, but that animals were still always meant to die.)

The basic premise of Theology of the Body is that the human being is a creature that is meant to be body and soul, a union of two types of creature into one. Originally that union was indissoluble, just as the union of marriage was originally indissoluble. It was only with the entrance of sin that marriage and the unity of the human person became unstable. There is a profound rightness to this understanding. From the beginning God created man, body and soul, and humans, male and female. He created the different unions to be dependent on and sacramental of each other to some extent, so that it is through the fact of being bodily that a masculine soul and a feminine soul can unite, and it is through a bodily act that this is done. It is through sin that death and divorce enter the world, both being the same reality in different unions. Death is the disintegration and disunion of the union of the human person, body and soul. Divorce is disintegration and disunion between the male and female, the man and woman in the communion of persons. Body and soul, male and female, one flesh. After sin, corpse and ghost, pimps and prostitutes, disintegration and death.

Thus the natural meaning of the human person, and the natural state of the human person, was one that tended toward eternal life by nature. We tended toward God. To say that it was by nature is not to diminish God's role, anymore than saying that I breath by nature negates God's constant saving work in keeping me breathing. After sin we tend away from God, so the curiosity is not the desire for and longing for immortality. Rather, the curiosity is the human who attempts to deny it. That is the freak, the anomaly, the stunted creature, who will not accept that he is human and therefore going to live forever. He would rather be an animal.

The glory of Eden was something we don't understand, but probably more like immortality than anything else we can comprehend. (The tree of life seems to us like mythical language, though I see no reason why God shouldn't create a fruit tree which, when eaten of, would bestow eternal life.) The reality of fallen man is death, but the soul, being spiritual, does not die. It continues separate from the body, an abomination, a corruption. Even the souls of the just are not as they were meant to be as long as they are unbodied. But now we witness the saving might of God, who out of death can bring resurrection. Not the undoing of the evil that was done in Eden, but the redemption of it. The body and soul will be reunited. They will be intrinsically joined so that the body, while still being bodily and even more fully bodily than it is now, will nevertheless be also spiritual. We see glimpses of this in the transfiguration, and in the Risen Body of our Savior which could pass through walls and yet still enjoy some grilled fish, appear and disappear undeterred by the ordinary boundaries of space and time, and yet still be tangible to the touch of dear friends. Saint Paul tells us that "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." 1 Corinthians 15:44.

There is more going on than meets the eye. Our souls are immortal, because God created them to be. Immortality is not the anomaly, death is. Resurrection is the eternal plan of redemption of death, the final conquering. After that, "What we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 1 John 3:2

Currently Adventures in Orthodoxy By Dwight Longenecker see related

Adventures in Korean

I think it is safe to say that Korean is probably the most interesting thing I've done in the Army. The most interesting thing I've done academically anyway. It's the most challenging, certainly, since I left highschool.

I think, left to itself, the Army makes you dumb. There are plenty of guys in the Army who were very capable of critical thinking, reason and humor before they entered the Army. After a few years, unless you strive actively to cultivate the habit, the natural atmosphere of the military tends to drag the best minds down, so that critical thinking devolves into mere criticism, reason devolves into blind acceptance of the status quo, and humor is degraded to the level of cynicism. Even the best minds follow this track, while the rest, who were never taught well to begin with, are confirmed in their lack of higher function forever. This is why, throughout the Army establishment, it is generally accepted that it requires no very great degree of intelligence to make Sergeant Major, only a knack for minding other people's business.

So it's nice to be in a classroom again, learning something that requires effort, and is interesting in its own right. I did a classroom school before, the EOCA course in 2006. That was challenging, but for the most part not that interesting. It involved memorizing vast quantities of arbitrary data, with only a very little real information. We had to memorize all the standardized marking systems for all ordnances of all countries who produce ordnance, with the understanding that failure to make the right call on the ground could theoretically result in death or dismemberment. It was this little incentive that lent all semblance of interest to the otherwise monotonous class. My real interest in explosives lies in the area of explosives effects, while all the demo we did at EOCA was crude. Simple, and effective, but not cool.

Korean, on the other hand, is intrinsically interesting, because it is about something real, as opposed to an arbitrary system of colored lines that is only partially standardized. An entire culture, with its history, its thoughts, its values, its traditions and everything that has made it what it is today, is bound up in this language. This language is more than just another system of talking heads who happen to talk with different words. Most of the students keep trying to translate words and concepts from Korean to English and back on a one-to-one basis, and you can not do that. There are some concepts that simply will not translate. Instead you have to accept it simply, as it is, and allow it to change how you think. That's why I think it is in many ways one of the most difficult things I've had to learn, because I have to relearn how to speak, and for someone as verbal as myself, that is tantamount to relearning how to think. There are some things that carry over due to the nature of language and of human thought. There are others that carry over simply by coincidence, and then there are other things that simply have no direct relationship at all. For instance, in English I can say, "My father has been a farmer all his life." If I said that in Korean, people would assume that my father was dead. Instead I would have to say, "My father has been a farmer until now."

The existence of an entire way of speaking that is honorific shows the legacy of a Confucian society, (which, incidentally, is dying out in Korea among the younger generation,) as opposed to the bland inferiority complex of our democratic society.

The histories of cultures, and the lives of the people who made them up, are contained in the languages they spoke. When we learn language, we aren't merely learning how to express the same things in a different way, we are acquiring an entirely new linguistic and traditional history, and trying to take on a whole life that we never knew before. We become new people.

I can't wait to get to medic training next summer. That is going to be even more intense, and probably even more interesting.

Currently The Authentic Catholic Woman By Genevieve Kineke see related

Choral Poetry

This is my first attempt at choral poetry. It is written in two parts, and both are meant to be read aloud simultaneously. I was first introduced to this kind of poetry about a week ago, during the late night poetry marathon at my Aunt and Uncle's house. The ones we read there were so good, and so cool when done well, that I thought I would try to write one. Of course I can't read them, because I only have one voice, but I can almost hear them in my head, and they sound like they might work.

Now if I can just figure out how to format them into two columns

Hush

                                                                                    Hush

Let’s listen with care

                                                                                    Let's be very wary

Better beware!

We’re scared little house mice                                       We're tiny brave housemice

This isn’t our house.

                                                                                    It belongs to the big folks

The giants

                                                                                    The clodpoles

With big noisy feet

                                                                                     Not like ours

Not a bit!

                                                                                     They stomp when they walk

We scurry and flit

                                                                                      But now they're asleep

Are you sure?                                                                 I'm quite sure

I’m still scared.

                                                                                     I'll go check

What?!..........

                                                                                     ........   Just watch

                                                                                     It's as easy as pie

                                                                         I'll just scamper on in, and be back in a trice

 But what if you wake them?

                                                                                     I'll be quiet as mice.

                                                                                      See it's just as I said 

Thank goodness you’re here.

                                                                                      They're all passed out snoring

Oh, so that’s what I hear.

Those silly old humans                                                     Those great lazy humans

They’ll sleep now for hours                                              Abed at all hours

                                                                                       The house may be theirs

But right now

It’s all ours!                                                                     It's all ours!

I had to format it manually.

Oh well, that's the price you pay sometimes.

A Cup of Water in the Night

One of the most pivotal quotes in the book "A Severe Mercy" by Sheldon Vanauken, has stuck with me ever since I first read that book in Iraq. (I still remember that I was wearing my sunglasses even though it was dusk, so the other guys couldn't see that I was blinking back tears, and I couldn't read more than a sentence at a time without having to look up and swallow hard to compose myself.)

Sheldon Vanauken's theme in the book was the rather exceptional married love he shared with his wife Davy, and their journey to Christianity, but the book touches on so many other themes. It is actually a rather frightening story at the beginning, a pagan, excessive love story that very gradually came under the control of God (largely through the influence of C. S. Lewis.) However like all the best of paganism, it was an excess of good. They chose one good, marital love, and made it the center of their universe, and followed it so singlemindedly that they really did achieve almost a model of the relationship between husband and wife.

I'm getting sidetracked here. I do not intend to critique the book, or their choices, or their story. Instead, I want to share one quote, because it came to my mind as I was thinking about courtesy.

So I ask, what do you think courtesy is? Is courtesy politeness? A matter of customs and agreed upon rituals, mere social conventions? I think it is deeper than that. In fact, I think of courtesy as one of the strongest and most dangerous virtues in human life. Not the absolute deepest virtue, but an expression of it. I'm slowly being taught (by very wise teachers) a theology of courtesy, a theology of food, a theology of manners, a theology of humor, a theology of so many things that we don't ordinarily think of as theological at all.

This is the quote I keep thinking about: "Whatever one of us asked the other to do - it was assumed the asker would weigh all the consequences - the other would do. Thus one might wake the other in the night and ask for a cup of water; and the other would peacefully (and sleepily) fetch it. We, in fact, defined courtesy as 'a cup of water in the night'. And we considered it a very great courtesy to ask for the cup as well as to fetch it."

Does that passage, especially the very last sentence, not simply change your whole view of courtesy? Of chivalry? Of manners? Of what love is? For that is the undercurrent to all the lesser philosophies, food, jokes, etc. It is all sacrificial love. And this couple, in their pagan, pre-christian days, discovered and lived this principle so deeply that they considered it a courtesy not only to sacrifice, but to ask for a sacrifice.

Of course without God they could, and probably did, make an idol of each other, or more likely their relationship. But I am with C. S. Lewis in believing that it is not possible to love any human being too much. It is not because we love people too much that they become idols, but because we love God too little.

This goes along with what I said about love in Heaven being harder than love on earth. It must be deeper and more self-giving, than our feeble attempts here. It requires the most noble and mighty courtesy, and also a profound humility, to love so deeply and so totally that there is delight both in giving and in asking. Most of us very quickly come to the point where we don't mind giving so much. What we really hate is receiving. We don't like to "be a bother", or "put other people out" or some such nonsense. But in my own heart I'm beginning to see a lot of false humility in that position. What I'm really saying is, "I don't want your help." But that pride is the most deadly of all sins, I think. It is the most insidious and crippling, because we literally want to be God. Only God can give all the time, and never receive. We want to feel like we have everything to give, but we don't need help. We want to be the strong ones. We'll make an exception, and allow God to help us, because He at least is high enough to be of some use, but from other people, we don't need it.

When we refuse to serve the least of our brethren, we refuse to serve Christ. But what if, when we refuse to be served by the least among us, we are really saying "You shall never wash my feet."

A "Darnedest Things" moment

I am taking ten minutes before I leave for class to share this story of a darnedest things moment:

This weekend I visited my Aunt and Uncle and Cousins in VA, and spent a very happy two days goofing off and hanging out. They are the sort of people who consider dramatic poetry reading and semi-impromtu four part harmony choral singing to be legitimate evening diversions. So I fit in with them pretty well.

At any rate, during a spirited game of Jenga on the living room floor (and believe me when I tell that spirit and Jenga are very hard to mix safely) my seven year old cousin says to me out of the blue:

"You know you need to get married soon right?"

I laughed a little bit and asked, "Why is that, Celine?"

She gravely expalined, "Well, you have to get married soon, so you don't keep getting bigger and bigger."

I couldn't make that up if I tried. Does she know something I don't know?

And now, back to my regular programming....