Speaking of resurrection, Newsweek has an excerpt from Lisa Miller’s new book, Heaven, that ask why religious believers are so skeptical that we’ll have bodies in heaven. As Miller asks, “If you don’t have a body in heaven, then what kind of heaven are you hoping for?”
Despite the insistence of the most conservative branches of all three Western religions on resurrection as an incontrovertible fact, most of us are circumspect. The number of Americans who say they believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ has dropped 10 points since 2003 to 70 percent, according to the most recent Harris poll; only 26 percent of Americans think that they’ll have bodies in heaven, according to a 1997 Time/CNN poll. Thanks to the growth here of Eastern religions, reincarnation—the belief that after death a soul returns to earth in another body—is gaining adherents. Nearly 30 percent of 2003 Harris poll respondents said they believed in reincarnation; of self-professed Christians, that number was 21 percent. Reincarnation and resurrection have, traditionally, been mutually exclusive. Among Christian conservatives, a private hope of reincarnation would be seen as not just illogical but heretical.
April 5th, 2010 | 9:57 am
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April 5th, 2010 | 11:53 am
Very curious indeed. Why do people bother to believe in a god who can only do things they can understand? But then I realize I am the problem. I can not believe in such a god. I need God who is so far beyond me, that I have no chance of understanding Him in any kind of detail. I depend on what He has chosen to tell humankind. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” I, for one, believe Him.
April 5th, 2010 | 12:16 pm
Our Awareness conscious/mind has reincarnated many time in the past. The body we have is a Robot. When our body dies, providing we qualify, we transfer to another dimension of understanding and become the Awareness conscious mind of that Robot. The Robot we transfer to has no need for food or drink and we communicate with each other via thought transfer.
April 5th, 2010 | 12:51 pm
Our Awareness conscious/mind has reincarnated many time in the past. The body we have is a Robot. When our body dies, providing we qualify, we transfer to another dimension of understanding and become the Awareness conscious mind of a specially prepared Robot, which has no need for food or drink and we communicate with each other via thought transfer.
April 5th, 2010 | 12:59 pm
I’ve always wondered where Christ’s body is, if heaven isn’t just a place up in the clouds. Is it floating in stasis in some far-flung corner of space somewhere? In another dimension? Never heard a good answer to that one.
April 5th, 2010 | 3:47 pm
Hey Sean,
That’s because there isn’t a “good” answer. When it comes to God, “We don’t know.” is the most common answer. I would add that if we did know in any such particular case, we wouldn’t be able to make heads or tails of the knowledge. Ever studied string theory? Imagine something several orders of magnitude more difficult. And then you would still be far from understanding God.
April 5th, 2010 | 4:18 pm
Sean, you asked “I’ve always wondered where Christ’s body is, if heaven isn’t just a place up in the clouds. Is it floating in stasis in some far-flung corner of space somewhere? In another dimension? Never heard a good answer to that one.” Check out Douglas Farrow’s book on the Ascension (the full title escapes me right now – Ascension and Ecclesia, I just remembered). While he might not “answer” the question simply, he does discuss the question in full. I recommend his book to you.
April 5th, 2010 | 7:49 pm
If one is speaking of the place where angels and saints reside, then Heaven is a spiritual (non-corporeal) realm. But if one is speaking of the place from which God created Heaven (and Earth), then there are no answers – although it’s implied that this divine “otherwhere” is God’s alone.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church
325 The Apostles’ Creed professes that God is “creator of heaven and earth”. The Nicene Creed makes it explicit that this profession includes “all that is, seen and unseen”.
326 The Scriptural expression “heaven and earth” means all that exists, creation in its entirety. It also indicates the bond, deep within creation, that both unites heaven and earth and distinguishes the one from the other: “the earth” is the world of men, while “heaven” or “the heavens” can designate both the firmament and God’s own “place” – “our Father in heaven” and consequently the “heaven” too which is eschatological glory. Finally, “heaven” refers to the saints and the “place” of the spiritual creatures, the angels, who surround God.
327 The profession of faith of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) affirms that God “from the beginning of time made at once (simul) out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and then (deinde) the human creature, who as it were shares in both orders, being composed of spirit and body.”
328 The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls “angels” is a truth of faith. The witness of Scripture is as clear as the unanimity of Tradition.
330 As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.
April 5th, 2010 | 9:23 pm
It seems to me rather strange that the notion of reincarnation has gained more adherents recently. This doctrine presupposes a dualistic theory of mind, which is inconsistent with the findings of modern neurobiology, which indicates that one’s thoughts, memories, etc., are the result of neuronal processes. for reincarnation to be true, it would not matter what body one is ”using”, indeed, no body would be necessary at all. It seems that the doctrine of resurrection, is more congruent with the findings of neural science, since it takes seriously the importance of the human body for our identity. The christian version of personal identity stipulates how essential one’s physical body is to one’s identity. True, this view also has logical problems, such as what is one’s personal identity between death and resurrection, but it’s still more plausible than reincarnation. It’s also silly for people to worry that bodies cannot be resurrected unless they’re fully intact, as if a God pwerful enough to bring life back to a dead body, could not mange to bring the molecules of detached flesh back together!
April 6th, 2010 | 1:01 pm
My mother told me she thought she believed in reincarnation. I told her you can’t believe that and be a Christian. She asked why not, and I said because if you’re going to perfect yourself, you don’t need a Savior. It cured her.
April 6th, 2010 | 3:30 pm
Reincarnation is true in one sense – the elementary particles that make our bodies are reused ad infinitum. Imagine if we could Google the atoms within ourselves and trace their myriad histories: the past personified!
April 6th, 2010 | 7:23 pm
It’s also interesting how a contemporary understanding of atomic particles neatly solves the problem that worried some early moderns (and a few contemporaries that still worry about organ transplants): what happens to destroyed or replaced body parts.
Since we believe that atomic particles are identical and therefore interchangeable, and since we gain and lose particles throughout our earthly lives, we can view our bodies as particular *configurations* of matter rather than collections of particular *pieces* of matter. So it’s quite plausible to see the “resurrected” body as a re-assemblage of various particles into a particular configuration rather than a re-collection of particular particles.
April 7th, 2010 | 7:01 pm
I find it amusing when a non-believer’s own limitations on God limit His miracles. Not only can they not believe in God, but they cannot even imagine that believers can believe this unbelievable God performing unbelievable acts. They appear unable to even momentarily, on a purely academic basis, understand the believer’s paradigm. For the believer, the miracle of Creation – the Universe out of nothing -Gen. 1:1, is sufficient to support all the succeeding miracles of the faith. Is it not perfectly coherent?
April 9th, 2010 | 4:02 pm
[...] Joe mentioned on Monday, Lisa Miller has a new book out on heaven, and while I haven’t read it yet, the excerpt at [...]
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