Re: Question for Clergy

I would suggest that the DNA provides the framework - like the armature
of a sculpture - but not the function. It would seem that personhood
would have something more to do with a combination of the disposition of
the biological elements in the brain AND the specialized communication
among them (plus anything else that remains yet undiscovered about how
this complex functions, as for example the characteristics we attribute
to spirit/soul). At the moment of death, the biology (DNA - as well as
the specific structures) might remain the same - more or less - but the
functionality that the system supported is suddenly different. Its
"host" function has changed. The difference, the functionality
(personness) has ...uh ....quit? dissipated? disappeared? been freed of
its physical constraints? Dunno. Could it exist independent of the host
functions of the physical brain, or is the essential "us" so connected
to physicality that something of that nature is required to sustain or
restore that essential us at a future time? I can't see that anything so
unique about atoms and molecules that we would have to have the old to
specially reconstite or even create a new Generation body should that be
required. Meanwhile, the scriptural descriptions are so interleaved with
images of the day that they are more poetic than helpful from the
perspective of specifics. So, I guess I'll have to wait along with the
rest of you to see how it really works.
JimA

jack syme wrote:

> 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 Apr 21 19:06:58 2006