{"id":84829,"date":"2020-05-03T16:29:34","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T22:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=84829"},"modified":"2020-05-04T00:54:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-04T06:54:52","slug":"on-temporary-disembodiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2020\/05\/on-temporary-disembodiment.html","title":{"rendered":"On temporary disembodiment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Veronica,<\/a>
When I think of heaven, I confess that I think of Alpine mountain peaks and meadows. So I include here this image, from the region of Cusco, Peru: Among many other names, this mountain is known as Ver\u00f3nica. At 19,334 feet (5,893 meters), it\u2019s a genuinely serious peak.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m something of a fan of the Claremont philosopher Stephen T. Davis, who is a believing Christian. \u00a0Here are some passages that I\u2019ve marked in his book\u00a0After We Die: Theology, Philosophy, and the Question of Life after Death<\/em> (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2015. \u00a0He\u2019s talking about the period between death and resurrection:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Temporary disembodiment is the theory that strikes me, as it has struck most theologians in Christian history, as the most plausible. \u00a0(60)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This happens to be what is taught at Alma 40:11-15<\/a>, and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The state of being without a body is an abnormal state of the human person. \u00a0This is one of the clear differences between temporary disembodiment and immortality of the soul, for the second doctrine (at least in versions of it influenced by Plato) entails that disembodiment is the true or proper or best state of the human person. \u00a0On the theory we are considering, however, the claim is that a disembodied soul lacks many of the properties and abilities that are normal for and proper to human persons. \u00a0Disembodied existence is a kind of minimal existence. \u00a0(61)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aquinas argued that the disembodied existence of the person in the interim state is so deficient that attainment of ultimate happiness is impossible. \u00a0No one who lacks some perfection is perfectly happy, for in such a state there will always be unfulfilled desires. \u00a0It is contrary to the nature of the soul to be without the body, Aquinas says. \u00a0He takes this to mean both that the disembodied state must only be temporary, and that the true bliss of the human person is only attained after re-embodiment, that is, in the general resurrection. \u00a0He says, \u201cMan cannot achieve his ultimate happiness unless the soul be once again united to the body.\u201d \u00a0(62)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m reminded in this context of the words of President Joseph F. Smith, recounting his great October 1918 Vision of the Redemption of the Dead, that \u201cthe dead had looked upon the long absence of their\u00a0spirits from their bodies as a bondage\u201d (Doctrine and Covenants 138:50)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Fathers and scholastics insisted . . . that both body and soul must be present or else the person, the human being, does not exist in the fullest sense. \u00a0If only the soul survives, the person survives only in a truncated and bare sense. \u00a0Thus Athenagoras wrote, \u201cA man cannot be said to exist as such when the body is dissolved or completely scattered, even though the soul remain by itself.\u201d \u00a0And Aquinas agreed: \u00a0\u201cMy soul is not I, and if only souls are saved, I am not saved, nor is any man.\u201d \u00a0Thus the real Christian hope of survival is not the hope that our souls will survive death (though on temporary disembodiment that is one important aspect of it), but rather the hope that one day God will miraculously raise our bodies and reunite them with our souls. \u00a0(63)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The eminent English New Testament scholar N. T. Wright, reacting to the emphasis that some, including Christians, put on near-death experiences and on the hope that they support of sheer immortality, likes to remind his audiences that the full promise of Christianity isn\u2019t merely survival of death but what he calls \u201clife after life after death\u201d \u2014 which is to say, fully resurrected life in a redeemed community of the redeemed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I\u2019m something of a fan of the Claremont philosopher Stephen T. Davis, who is a believing Christian. \u00a0Here are some passages that I\u2019ve marked in his book\u00a0After We Die: Theology, Philosophy, and the Question of Life after Death (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2015. \u00a0He\u2019s talking about the period between death and resurrection: \u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1727,11105,2794,10259,10256,11117,11120,1008,11123,11132,11129,1011,11102,9886,4786,1366,2340,2337,9821,5814,11108,8819,11111,11126,9755,11114,8564],"class_list":["post-84829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-afterlife","tag-aquinas","tag-body","tag-claremont","tag-davis","tag-disembodied","tag-disembodiment","tag-immortality","tag-incorporeal","tag-interregnum","tag-interval","tag-life-after-death","tag-life-after-life-after-death","tag-n-t-wright","tag-paradise","tag-resurrection","tag-soul","tag-spirit","tag-spirit-prison","tag-spirit-world","tag-st-thomas","tag-stephen","tag-stephen-t-davis","tag-temporary","tag-thomas","tag-tom","tag-wright"],"yoast_head":"\nOn temporary disembodiment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I'm something of a fan of the Claremont philosopher Stephen T. 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