Physical Resurrection

[wondersforoyarsa]

Hello Mitch,

I wanted to dialogue with you a little about the whole "physical resurrection" thing. I think a lot of it may come down to semantics, but there are some important sticking points for me that I'd like to hear you speak to. I wrote an essay on this that gets to what for me is the heart of the matter (pun intended). If you are willing to read it, I'd like to know how much of this you can affirm.

Mont St. Michel and the Chicago Suburbs



I’ve never seen a thing like it. Pictures do not begin to do it justice. Set nearly a mile from the shores of northern France among land completely flat as far as the eye can see, it could once only be accessed by crossing the quicksand exposed at low tide. In 1017, Abbot Hildebert II began designing the mass of buildings on the island of rock, providing a base on which the abbey’s church rests. The scheme was preserved through the centuries, with the majestic choir finally completed in 1520. It’s truly awe-inspiring, and, even in a country riddled with great Cathedrals, the remote location and glorious architecture make Mont St. Michel unique upon the Earth.

Four thousand miles west, the terrain is also completely flat, though the eye cannot see very far among the densely packed buildings. The once-rich farmland lies suffocating beneath the concrete of parking lots in the Chicago suburbs. On asphalt tollways, cars and tractor-trailers spawn a choking haze of exhaust in their struggle for supremacy. What sky might be seen above is obscured by the screaming of countless billboards, each using every possible ploy to peddle mass-produced commodities to the swarm of rapacious consumers below. Yet no ad-pasted billboard, no factory-molded car, no hastily-paved street, no cookie-cutter building is at all remarkable, as another few miles yields a carbon-copy of each. One fears that the monotony simply goes on forever, world without end.

This hideous landscape stretches beyond the physical limits of the bulldozers; we who reside here feel its ugly, uncreative uniformity plowing over our very souls. In the end consumption is valued above creation – even the consumption of pleasure over the creation of life. When the abuse of the created order is taken to this level, many Christians in North America finally begin to draw the line. Yet if you try to talk to them about the destruction of an old family farm for a new subdivision, or the degeneration of Church architecture, they simply shrug their shoulders, saying that there are much more important things to worry about. The betterment of land or culture is just so much polishing brass on the Titanic:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! (2 Peter 3:10-12, ESV)

The end of the world presumably includes the end of Mont St. Michel, and all the hard work building a church upon that rock will be lost. Yet the monks therein would be the first to warn against attachment to the world, and, indeed, are sometimes seen as icons of a reactionary rejection of it. Why then is our world so much uglier than that of the ascetics?

The key to unlocking this apparent contradiction lies in verse 13 of the above passage, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” Whatever their faults, these men saw a continuity between this earthly country and the new creation which is obscured to our eyes. The notion that what we create on earth will simply be lost leads not to the glory of Mont St. Michel but to the dullness of suburbia. We must go to scripture if we are to correct the vision that leaves both us and creation defenseless against the concrete Leviathan, and what better place to begin than one of the most hopeful chapters in Paul’s epistles:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. (Rom. 8:18-23, ESV)

Here lies an overlooked promise thrilling to anyone who has ever trained a dog, hiked in the mountains, planted a garden, or, indeed, had any love for a specific thing or place. We hear echoes of John 3:17, that “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Only this time the “world” seems to refer to more than humanity. This shouldn’t surprise us. In the Old Testament, the blessing of God on His people is inseparable from His blessing on the land. In the face of judgment and exile on the people of Israel, the Lord assures them, through the prophet Isaiah, of eventual redemption:

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isa. 55:12-13, ESV)

Notice the lack of thorns and briers, an indication of the curse’s lifting. This is not merely a passage about the people returning from exile, but of creation itself set right. In chapter 65, Isaiah continues by linking Israel’s restoration is the restoration of all things in the created order:

“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. … They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. … The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the Lord. (Isa. 65:17-19,21-22,25, ESV)

Here the words “new heavens and a new earth” are used for the first time in scripture. The echoes of Genesis are strong. Man is not redeemed in a vacuum; he carries with him the good things of creation: houses, vineyards, the work of his hands. The peace in the city from hostile attacks brings with it a change in the nature of the animals. They no longer attack and kill one another, and the serpent is finally defeated.

In the resurrection of Christ, we see the first act of this new creation necessitated by the fall and prophesied about in Isaiah. His resurrection gives us in Christ assurance of a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17) of our own mortal bodies, and a preview of what to expect:

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. … So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor. 15:37-38,42-44, ESV)

The new creation is not creation ex nihilo like the first; it requires a seed. In our case, that seed is our physical existence, buried in Christ. Though it may seem that the physical is simply destroyed and replaced with the spiritual, Paul goes on to clarify that what occurs is not destruction but metamorphosis.

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Cor 15:50-53, ESV)

To use an oft-cited analogy from nature, our mortal body is the caterpillar, Christ’s death is the cocoon (in which we are baptized), and our imperishable body is the butterfly. If the future of creation is tied up in our future, also being born again, then what is the seed of creation? And what composes its cocoon? Romans 8:21 suggests a startling answer: as we are raised in Christ, creation will be raised in us!

Having established that the physical creation does have a future in us, one wonders if this implies an active role on our part. Do we transform creation simply by our being the sons of God, or is there a work of sub-creation that we still have to accomplish. That man is indeed a sub-creator is easily established from his creation in the image of God. A reader new to the scriptures would come across this assertion in the first chapter of Genesis, knowing nothing about God at that point except that he is the creator of good things. Yet it baffles reason as to how ordinary people can accomplish a true new creation.

In order to come to terms with these mysteries, we need to think sacramentally. After all, our atonement was accomplished by a physical body pierced with iron nails on a wooden cross, and the skin and bones hanging there somehow comprised the body of the infinite Creator. Vinoth Ramachandra, at the Urbana 2000 missions conference, contrasted the Incarnation with the religious stories of Buddhism, Hinduism, and New Age Philosophy, which insist that, “ultimate transcendence lies in breaking free from our individuality, our physical embodiment, and from our entanglements in this meaningless world of historical existence, the ordinary, everyday world of work and home and family.” On the contrary:

The cross speaks of a god who is entangled with our world, who immerses himself in our tragic history, who embraces our humanity in all its vulnerability, pain and confusion, including our evil and our death. Here is a god who comes to us, not as a master, but as a servant who stoops to wash the feet of his disciples, to suffer brutalization and dehumanization at the hands of his creatures. And in identifying with us in our humanity, he draws the human into his own divine life.

So what this means is that the closer we get to God, the more human we become, not less. Our created physical bodies have a future. In raising Jesus from death, the creator was affirming our humanity, that this historical, embodied existence does have a future.

So you see, our salvation lies not in an escape from this world, but in the transformation of this world. Everything that is good, and true, and beautiful in human history is not lost forever, but will be restored and directed to the worship of the true God. And all our human activities in the arts, in the sciences, in the worlds of economics and politics, and even the non-human creation, will be brought to share in the liberating rule of God.

This is exactly what we should expect of a God who is both creator and incarnate savior, though it runs counter to many notions of what is spiritual. The early heresies tended to focus in on these points: a good God would not dirty his hands with a physical creation; a divine savior could not be fully human; if Christ was truly a man, he could not be God as well. Even today, many viewers who saw Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ were shocked by the brutal physical violence, asking “where is the spirituality?” The answer is simple – you’ll find the spirituality right in the middle of that mess of flesh and blood.

Sacramental thinking corrects our unbiblical notion that spiritual and physical are polar opposites. The word “spiritual” today carries with it a Platonic connotation of some sort of informational, disembodied, ethereal existence (like the internet). On the other hand, Scripture uses words like “gold” and “precious stones” in contrast to “wood, hay, and stubble” to show us that the spiritual is something thicker and heavier than what we are now, more “real” than what we consider reality. The chief characteristic of spiritual things is their endurance, and corrupted nature is wispy and transient by comparison. It is through sacramental contact with God that physical things become spiritual, and our physical bodies are the seeds that bloom into glorious spiritual ones, having an “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.” (2 Cor. 4:17, ESV)

So how does this notion of our sacramental participation in the new creation help us trade the Chicago suburbs for Mont St. Michel? Most importantly, it reminds us that we are meant to be creators rather than consumers and that what we do with our physical home has spiritual consequences. We cannot afford to shrug off the homogenization of every cultural artifact and desolation of every unique natural feature. For if we, the image-bearers and little-Christs, have no sacramental contact with these things, how can they be raised in us?

Individually, we must eschew entertainment for re-creation. How do we spend our free time? If it is simply in consuming commodities, whether they be trash novels, media brainwashing, pointless amusements, or the latest and greatest toy, they need to give way for potentially spiritual things. Try gardening, for example. Care for a small plot of earth, nurture a plant from seed to fruit, and use the fruits to feed others accustomed only to unripe monstrosities laden with preservatives. Train a dog from puppy to proud canine, teaching her to be obedient and loyal, and run with her as you explore the woods near your home. Learn to play an instrument, bringing to life music composed by others long gone, or even compose a tune of your own. Make a habit of eating at local restaurants rather than chains, where you can get to know the owners and the unique flavor and story of the place – their creation should be honored. Use your excursions into cyberspace creatively, learning new forms of communication and expression, being wary of spending too much time merely consuming information (or indulging in carnal lusts). Draw the good of this world into your life, and create good of your own within your sphere of influence.

Corporately, let us build the city of God. The reckless paving machine needs to be stopped – we need to consider why we build what we build. Farmers and their families have much to teach us (even much of scripture would be inscrutable without having a rudimentary knowledge of their work). Their way of life must be preserved, if nothing else so that those in the cities may visit them. The cities themselves must look forward to that holy city, the New Jerusalem, and our buildings must be built to the glory of God.

And to those who argue that what we create on Earth will simply be destroyed, the sacramental view stresses the mystery of the spiritual substance behind the physical world. The value of creation is not in what appear now to be tangible results. Let the perishable creation with us yearn and long for His coming, and let us value the act of creating and the hope that it reveals along with the creations themselves. Even if 2 Peter’s talk of destruction was only speaking metaphorically about the end of the current world order, good things are still lost all the time. Perhaps they will burn, but let them burn in the same way we will: sown in corruption to be raised in the glory that will be revealed in us.

[mitchellmckain]

In Genesis 8:21-22, God says, "I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I ever destroy every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease."

No there is absolutely nothing wrong with creation, when God created it He said it was good, and that has not changed. He did say after creating man that this was very good, but this did change, and in Genesis 6:6-7, we see that God is grieved to His heart. With the above verse the reason is clear. The evil of men had grown so great that they there was only one way to redeem mankind but it was at an enormous cost to all the rest of creation. Thus had God's children made God do that which was so extremely unpleasant for Him, so much so, that God said He would never do such thing for our sakes ever again.

The only thing wrong with the world is mankind, and what is wrong with mankind is not his body or physical nature, but the spirit. The human spirit is dead. And so Jesus said in Luke 9:60, "leave the dead to bury their own dead", for human beings are the walking dead. And when we die a physical death what survives is nothing but a pathetic shadow. But that is why the resurrection that we require is not a physical resurrection but a spiritual resurrection.

We were created to be the lords of creation, and we can still see this nature in us, for there is no other creature on the planet that would not only live his whole life studying some rare species of beetle but who would fight passionately to save that beetle from extinction. But the fall has transformed us from caretakers of the planet to a disease which infects the planet. So yes indeed "creation has been groaning in travail" waiting with "eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God". We are the mind of creation though whom the world becomes aware of itself to call it beautiful and give it names and meaning, and so in this way it is through us that creation is transported to the realm of eternal existence.

Thus with the resurrection of the human spirit not only individually or in part as we see it now but corporately and in whole, both heaven (spiritual) and earth (physical), that is promised for the future. All of creation will finally see the completion of its purpose, where its head (mankind) is heathy rather than diseased. And so the old heaven and earth, ruled by evil men grasping for power, will pass away and will be reborn as a new heaven and earth. But as I said before there is nothing wrong with the earth physically and therefore no reason for it to be destroyed, so its rebirth will be in the same way that we are reborn, by changing its head in the resurrection of the spirit -- reborn in us just as we are reborn in Christ.

Sacramental thinking corrects our unbiblical notion that spiritual and physical are polar opposites. The word "spiritual" today carries with it a Platonic connotation of some sort of informational, disembodied, ethereal existence (like the internet).

Not to me it doesn't. I have always held Plato in contempt, and I have no regard for christianized Plato. God is spirit, so it is perfectly obvious that the greater reality is found in the spirit. What is disembodied and ethereal, shadowy and dreamlike is the human spirit which is dead. So Jesus showed us what a living spirit is like. It was neoplatonism that equated spirit with form, but this is as absurd and as un-christian as identifying God with some universal mind. The physical and the spiritual are two different forms of energy. But whereas the physical form is this mathematical structure of space-time binding all physical things into a single being under mathematical laws, the spiritual form is not mathematical at all and its existence derives from its own choices and not from any mathematical relationships or laws.

On the other hand, Scripture uses words like "gold" and "precious stones" in contrast to "wood, hay, and stubble" to show us that the spiritual is something thicker and heavier than what we are now, more "real" than what we consider reality. The chief characteristic of spiritual things is their endurance, and corrupted nature is wispy and transient by comparison. It is through sacramental contact with God that physical things become spiritual, and our physical bodies are the seeds that bloom into glorious spiritual ones, having an "eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." (2 Cor. 4:17, ESV)

THAT is correct! But the thing to understand is that not even our physical bodiy is defined by the matter which it constantly replaces but by the pattern which it is constantly repairing with new matter. This pattern is indeed the seed for our spiritual body, but the matter is meaningless dust. This is quite clear in 1 Cor 15.

Most importantly, it reminds us that we are meant to be creators rather than consumers and that what we do with our physical home has spiritual consequences. We cannot afford to shrug off the homogenization of every cultural artifact and desolation of every unique natural feature. For if we, the image-bearers and little-Christs, have no sacramental contact with these things, how can they be raised in us?

Absolutely correct. But let us not be regressive like only non-technological creativity is pure or something, for all of human efforts in every kind of art is creation. Though some things, like parenting, are more intense and and challenging than others. There is of course a balance between the appreciation of the art of others (consuming) and participating in creation ourselves, but if all we do is the former then I agree that to some extent we letting others do our living for us - and vicarious life is a poor substitute.

And to those who argue that what we create on Earth will simply be destroyed, the sacramental view stresses the mystery of the spiritual substance behind the physical world. The value of creation is not in what appear now to be tangible results. Let the perishable creation with us yearn and long for His coming, and let us value the act of creating and the hope that it reveals along with the creations themselves. Even if 2 Peter’s talk of destruction was only speaking metaphorically about the end of the current world order, good things are still lost all the time. Perhaps they will burn, but let them burn in the same way we will: sown in corruption to be raised in the glory that will be revealed in us.

Yes this kind of talk is very familiar to me from Wright's "Surprised by Hope". I applaud the pragmatic approach and I very much agree that the the eschatological talk of the destruction of the earth is what you call metaphorical but which I would in my own terminology call spiritual not physical. The fire that will burn all the earth is the truth in the word of God.

[Pseudonym]

That was really beautiful, wonders. Have you considered lay preaching?

[wondersforoyarsa]

Thanks! Being a layman, that wouldn't be up to me though.

I'm actually perusing ordination as an Anglican deacon, in my copious spare time - so it is conceivable that I might preach some day at my church on Sunday morning before all is said and done. But that's up to the clergy.

By the way, Pseudonym, you identify yourself as a liberal Christian. Just out of curiosity, what does that mean to you?

[wondersforoyarsa]

Hi Mitch,

It looks like we more-or-less agree, and perhaps differ on semantics and some peripheral matters.

[Pseudonym]

I'm actually perusing ordination as an Anglican deacon, in my copious spare time - so it is conceivable that I might preach some day at my church on Sunday morning before all is said and done. But that's up to the clergy.

Oh, excellent. I'm sure you'll do well.

By the way, Pseudonym, you identify yourself as a liberal Christian. Just out of curiosity, what does that mean to you?

As you probably know, it's an umbrella term that covers pretty much everything between William Ellery Channing/Henry Ward Beecher and John Shelby Spong/Richard Holloway and the Jesus Seminar. So while there are no two liberal Christians who are likely to agree on everything, the important threads in common are methodological: critical analysis of the Biblical text using the best research, a strong contemplative component with particular emphasis on exploring questions rather than providing simple answers, and a lot of existentialism.

[wondersforoyarsa]

As you probably know, it's an umbrella term that covers pretty much everything between William Ellery Channing/Henry Ward Beecher and John Shelby Spong/Richard Holloway and the Jesus Seminar. So while there are no two liberal Christians who are likely to agree on everything, the important threads in common are methodological: critical analysis of the Biblical text using the best research, a strong contemplative component with particular emphasis on exploring questions rather than providing simple answers, and a lot of existentialism.

I think you lost me at the existentialism. I just find it interesting, since a fundamentalist of just about any variety would probably call me a liberal, but I consider myself deeply conservative.

[mitchellmckain]

Hi Mitch,

It looks like we more-or-less agree, and perhaps differ on semantics and some peripheral matters.

Well ok, lets test this a little bit with a few questions, ok?

Does God resurrect people in order to send them to hell?

If you believe in an historical Adam and Eve would they have experienced physical death even if they had not "eaten the fruit"? (If you don't believe in an historical Adam and Eve, then I would assume you accept evolutionary theory where physical death is a necessity)

Assuming you are resurrected, when do you expect that to ocurr?

Where do you expect to spend eternity? On the earth?

[JustJim]

If you don't believe in an historical Adam and Eve, then I would assume you accept evolutionary theory where physical death is a necessity

Just a side question, Mitch. If I'm not mistaken, you've said, maybe more than once, that you accept evolutionary theory. You also claim to believe, I think, in an historical Adam and Eve. (For example, in a post to imagesmith Tuesday, you said, "I think there is a way to affirm both the truth of evolution and that Adam and Eve were real people".)

Since one doesn't fit with the other, can you please explain a little bit on how you resolve evolutionary theory with an historical Adam and Eve?

Jim

[wondersforoyarsa]

Does God resurrect people in order to send them to hell?

I think St. Paul would lean toward "no" and St. John would lean toward "yes". I think both are probably true in a sense. Part of me wants to say that the resurrection of judgment isn't "real" resurrection in the sense of truly sharing in the life of the new Creation. But then Kalimirosmakes me reconsider. Anyway, put me down for "undecided".

If you believe in an historical Adam and Eve would they have experienced physical death even if they had not "eaten the fruit"? (If you don't believe in an historical Adam and Eve, then I would assume you accept evolutionary theory where physical death is a necessity)

I just don't see any distinction in the scriptures between "physical" and "spiritual" death - certainly not in the Genesis story or anywhere in the Old Testament. I don't think that's a helpful way of putting it. Death is death. The economy of evolution and the conservation of matter requires it, but death is a curse nonetheless - and one woven into the fabric of our universe. See David Hart on this.

Assuming you are resurrected, when do you expect that to ocurr?

My current conception of it is a future expectation in the parusia as a historical event.

Where do you expect to spend eternity? On the earth?

In our space-time universe, yes - though utterly transformed and united to the presence of God in ways we can't comprehend.

[mitchellmckain]

If you don't believe in an historical Adam and Eve, then I would assume you accept evolutionary theory where physical death is a necessity

Just a side question, Mitch. If I'm not mistaken, you've said, maybe more than once, that you accept evolutionary theory. You also claim to believe, I think, in an historical Adam and Eve. (For example, in a post to imagesmith Tuesday, you said, "I think there is a way to affirm both the truth of evolution and that Adam and Eve were real people".)

Since one doesn't fit with the other, can you please explain a little bit on how you resolve evolutionary theory with an historical Adam and Eve?

Jim

I have answered this in this forum quite a few times now so I hope you don't mind if I just answer with a quote this time (though the part in italics has been added).

Were Adam and Eve the first two humans? Or where they just the ones bore the image of God? And how does this tie into evolution? Just curious.

I have discussed this several times in other threads.

Yes Adam and Eve were the first two humans, but they were not the first homo sapiens. Consider Genesis 6:1-4, which I believe to be the answer to the age old question, who did Cain and Seth marry. I reject the way many Christians interpret "sons of god" in this passage to be angels in complete contradiction of how this term is used throughout the rest of the Old Testament to mean the chosen people. So basically it is saying that Cain and Seth did NOT marry sisters that are never mentioned being born but married the "daughters of men" who were not the "chosen people" and their children were the "mighty men that were of old, the men of renown" -- the founders of human civilization (not fairy tale giants spawned from sex with angels).

Basically I don't believe that our humanity is found in our Biology or genetic inheritance. I think the human mind is a form of life in its own right with its own inheritance transmitted via human communicaton. Our humanity is found in fundamental ideas about what it means to be a person that came directly from a parent-child relationship between God and Adam&Eve. In a sense you could say that humanity was like our first religion/philosophy, and thus the spread of humanity throughout the world was not a matter of genetic descent but the spread of ideas marked historically by the start of human civilization.

[mitchellmckain]

My answers to the same questions.

Does God resurrect people in order to send them to hell?
No. Those in hell are those who have refused resurrection. Hell is eternal existence without eternal life - without that which makes eternal existence worthwhile.

If you believe in an historical Adam and Eve would they have experienced physical death even if they had not "eaten the fruit"?
Yes. I have seen abundant evidence throughout the Bible (like Genesis 2:17 and Luke 9:60) that there are two kinds of life and death.

Assuming you are resurrected, when do you expect that to ocurr?
It has already begun. Resurrection and sanctification is pretty much same thing.

Where do you expect to spend eternity? On the earth?
Spiritual entities are not bound together in a mathematical system of time and space. They have their own time and space within them to share as they choose. But as much as we can use the word "proximity" in some non-spatial sense, I exect to find eternal life in proximity to God. Nevertheless, not only does the earth remain where it is for us to appreciate and joy but so does all the physical universe which we are free explore when we are outside the limitations of physical law. The physical universe was created as womb - a womb in which life could be created, but that does not mean that the womb does not have value in its own right or that it would cease to exist for us when we no longer have need of it.

[Pseudonym]

I just find it interesting, since a fundamentalist of just about any variety would probably call me a liberal, but I consider myself deeply conservative.

If you're seeking a label for yourself, given that, it's probably "mainline".

Having said that, there's definitely a strong contemplative component in your writings. For those whose religion is more introspective, or practice-based (e.g. emergents), it's often hard to determine where they sit doctrinally, because doctrine isn't that important.

[mitchellmckain]

Death is death. The economy of evolution and the conservation of matter requires it, but death is a curse nonetheless

I find this incomprehensible in the context of David Hart. I also find it clashing terribly with the literary reference in your own user name. In both David Hart and C.S. Lewis' "Out of the Silent Planet" we see the message that death is a natural part of life that needs to be accepted and embraced. I very much agree with both of these and therefore my conclusion is that the only death that is the consequence of sin and the fall of man - is the un-natural death of the spirit not physical death, which is perfectly natural.

The economy of evolution and the conservation of matter requires it, but death is a curse nonetheless - and one woven into the fabric of our universe.

YES and I see this as irrefutable evidence that this kind of death - physical death is NOT something that is wrong with the world - is NOT a curse. The curse is found in our spiritual poverty which causes us to look upon death with fear and loathing.

Put quite simply, the world is clearly the beautiful, glorious creation of God, but it is bound inextricably to the forces of death and decay – so much so that we can’t even imagine a world without such ruthlessness. And here the deist theodicy says that this is as good as it gets. If you want the glory, you have to endure all the death and decay that makes it possible. True paradise is a logical impossibility, and you must simply resign yourself that this is as good as it can get – the best of all possible worlds. Take it or leave it.

I can imagine a world without pain - a world without death - a world without sacrifice. But this world is no paradise. There is a children's story called "The Giver" that imagines an attempt by human beings to create such a world. It is a world without real love. It is world without real life. It is a world without truth. It is a living hell.

True paradise IS a logical possibility, but not if you fight God's natural order of things with the kind of wrong-headed-ness that we find in the character of Weston in "Out of the Silent Planet". True paradise IS a logical possibility when we shed the trantrum logic of the child that demands things which are inconsistent to learn instead the logic of God who sees the requirements of logical consistency that we childishly refuse to accept.

Let me repeat once again so that you may understand it more clearly in this context: THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WORLD. The problem is found in us ALONE - in our head - in our wrong-headedness - in our feeble spirit - in our imaturity and childishness.

You never enjoy the world aright, till you see how a sand exhibiteth the wisdom and power of God; and prize in everything the service which they do you, by manifesting His glory and goodness to your soul. Wine quencheth my thirst, but to see it flowing from his love who give it unto man quencheth the thrist even of the holy angels. Your enjoyment of the world is never right till every morning you awake in Heaven: see yourself in your Father’s palace; and look upon the skies and the earth and the air, as celestial joys. You never enjoy the world aright till the sea floweth in your veins; till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the starts are your jewels; till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in God for being good to all. The world is a mirror of inifinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a temple of majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of light and peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the paradise of God.
Hart concludes:

To see the world as it should be seen, and so to see the true glory of God reflected in it, requires the cultivation of charity, of an eye rendered limpid by love.

Yes the problem is not in the world as it is but in how we see it. To see the world as it should be seen and enjoy the world aright, you would simply have to understand that physical death is just a birthing event -- a passing from the confinement of the womb into the greater and more vast world of the spirit.

[ScottBarger]

Heya folks, thought I would jump in here.

It is my opinion that the writers of the NT believed in a bodily resurrection and that the new body would be a very physical one, albeit a different, perfected one. The dead are raised. Jesus was raised, therefore we will be raised. This is the essence of 1 Corinthians 15, in which the natural (or "earthy body") is compared and contrasted to the spiritual (or "heavenly body"). If the physical body is not raised as an imperishable physical body, then death's sting is still severe, in my opinion.

Here I would loosely quote N.T. Wright in the aforementioned "Surprised by Hope," if there is no bodily resurrection, then death is not conquered it is only redefined.

"THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE WORLD. The problem is found in us ALONE - in our head - in our wrong-headedness - in our feeble spirit - in our imaturity and childishness."

I disagree. There is a brutality and decay which is evident in the world around us. Pain, disease, strife. These things are not only evident within humanity, but outside humanity as well. It is my opinion that this is the substance of Romans 8, not that creation is simply waiting to observe the redemption of human beings and their bodies (and therefore only experience the redemption vicariously through us), but that creation is eagerly waiting to take part in that same redemption and finally be released from the bondage of decay.

Other than that, I find myself agreeing with most of what you both are saying. Good thread.