Re: Question for Clergy

I have to agree with Jack that DNA won't do. Presumably, it is one of the
things that makes me an individual. But it seems certain that there are
some changes in the DNA in the zygote from which I began and that in at
least some of the cells making up my current body. It is necessarily so
in some people I have encountered. I think of a woman with one blue and
one brown eye. Statistically, it should be so in me. So which would form
my resurrected body?

There is nothing that I know has been demonstrated in DNA that has me
speaking Spanish and English. That's a function of where I grew up. There
are no end of other traits that similarly spring from my environment at
various times. What makes the me the individual that I am is the whole
combination of nature (mostly DNA) and nurture.

But there is something else that I believe has to be considered. If
nonreductive physicalism does not allow the Incarnation (see my paper in
PSCF, 57:3 (2005) 187), it also doesn't fit my being. I admit that I have
not seen Green's book (n. 7) that was claimed to consider all the
relevant scripture passages, so there may be a defense out there. But I
expect it to be holey rather than holy.
Dave

On Fri, 21 Apr 2006 16:06:18 -0700 "Jim Armstrong" <jarmstro@qwest.net>
writes:
> 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 Sat Apr 22 00:22:09 2006