George,
You are correct. I focussed more on the moment of death and should have
mentioned the "resurrection of the body" in the Apostles' Creed. I don't
have a Bible with me at the lab (I should bring one in), but I seem to
recall a reference to the "souls under the altar" waiting impatiently for
the resurrection.
Sorry about any confusion.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
Sent: Tuesday October 17, 2000 6:41 AM
To: Vandergraaf, Chuck
Cc: 'Allen Roy'; asanet
Subject: Re: TE-man
"Vandergraaf, Chuck" wrote:
> Allen,
>
> I seem to remember one of my philosophy professors mentioning that "the
body
> is an expression of the soul." That would seem to fit with your reading
of
> the Bible that the soul eats, gets hungry etc.
>
> When God takes the soul to heaven, the soul has no further need for the
> earthly body.
This last sentence shows how problematic the "soul" concept can be.
It
is unpleasantly close to the idea held in different ways by Plato, the
gnostics,
&c. that that the soul is imprisoned in the body & is released at death to
go to
its true home.
The genuinely Christian idea is that we are not fully human without
our
bodies. The Christian hope is not "immortality of the soul" but
"resurrection
of the body." Even if one believes that we "have" souls which are separable
from our bodies, their state between physical death & the resurrection is an
interim one - in "heaven" or wherever. We should really be content to say
with
the "The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God" (Wisdom 3:1).
Shalom,
George
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