Re: Question for Clergy

I am sorry but as far as I can tell there is no reason to believe that DNA
is the source of the pattern of personhood. If that was the case then
clones would be the same person. We don't have adult human clones yet so it
cant be tested, but identical twins who have the same DNA are clearly
different persons.

I am not sure at all that this is what Polkinghorne is saying here. I also
do not agree with his interpretation that the Hebrew understanding is that
we are "animated bodies". And I still stand by the original concept of
dualism, I think that is what the bible teaches. How does Polkinghorne
explain the intermediate state?

This is from John Cooper's essay Biblical Anthropology, and the Body-Soul
Problem:

"The most compelling reason against conceding Old Testament anthropology to
the monists is its picture of the afterlife. Just as the Israelite view of
human life was similar to their neighbors' psychophysical holism, the
Israelite view of death exemplifies a typical ancient Near Eastern form of
animism. Death is not the end of existence. It is rather the entrance of
the individual as a ghost-an ethereal quasi-bodily being, not a Platonic
soul or Cartesian mind-into the dreary and lethargic, if not soporific,
existence of the underworld, Sheol, Abaddon, or in the Septuagint, Hades."

And regarding intertestamental Judaism: "Judaism followed the line of
Isaiah and elaborated an eschatology which involves temporary separation
form fleshly existence until the final resurrection."

In addition to this, there is New Testament support for dualism:

From the testamony of Christ, Matthew 10 28Do 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.

Paul certainly thought that existing in a disembodies state was possible:
II Cor. 12: 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up
to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not
know-God knows. 3And I know that this man-whether in the body or apart from
the body I do not know, but God knows- 4was caught up to paradise. He heard
inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.

And John discusses the intermediate state of the OT saints in Revelation 6
9When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who
had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had
maintained.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
To: <tandyland@earthlink.net>; "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 21, 2006 1:40 PM
Subject: Re: Question for Clergy

> Following up on a comment of George Murphy, let me share what John
> Polkinghorne writes in _Quarks, Chaos & Christianity_, p. 92-93. After
> agreeing with the Hebrew understanding that we are "unities," "animated
> bodies" rather than "embodied souls," he goes on:
>
> "So, what is the soul, then? It must be the 'real me'. This certainly
> isn't the material of my body, because that's changing all the time. I
> have very few atoms left among those that were there a few years ago.
> Eating and drinking, wear and tear, mean that they're continually being
> replaced. The real me is the immensely complicated 'pattern' in which
> these ever-changing atoms are organized. It seems to me to be an
> intelligible and coherent hope that God will remember the pattern that is
> me and recreate it in a new environment of his choosing, by his great act
> of final resurrection. Christian belief in a life beyond death has always
> centered in a resurrection, not survival. Christ's resurrection is the
> foretaste and guarantee, within history, of our resurrection, which awaits
> us beyond history."
>
> At this moment in my journey toward wisdom and understanding, this
> explanation makes as much sense as any and more than most. It also seems
> to me to be a coherent hypothesis that the ground of our pattern lies in
> our DNA.
>
> Bob Schneider
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "D. F. Siemens, Jr." <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
> To: <tandyland@earthlink.net>
> Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 7:22 PM
> Subject: Re: Question for Clergy
>
>
>> There are various contributions to the question of the resurrection body
>> that I'm not resending. I too have various surmises on the matter, but I
>> cannot prove them with the paucity of evidence available. The one thing I
>> am confident of is that the Almighty is fully competent to produce ME in
>> a state that continues my current individuality yet fits me for his
>> presence. One of my surmises is that human beings are only at home with a
>> /soma/, but the current /soma/ is not the /soma pneumatikos/ which awaits
>> the saints. If it involves atoms and molecules, they are somehow
>> different from those currently composing bodies. At least this applies if
>> our resurrected bodies are like those of our risen Lord. Whatever the
>> state, none of us will be able to say, "This is not as good as what I
>> anticipated." But there always seem to be some creatures who think
>> they're smart enough to ask, "Say, God, did you think of ...?"
>> Dave
>>
>
>
Received on Fri, 21 Apr 2006 15:21:10 -0400