Re: a question for monists

At 08:08 PM 3/26/2005, jack syme wrote:
>After death we are going to receive a perfect sinless body. If monism is
>true there are no disembodied spirits. So what bodies do non-believers
>get? If they get the same sinless body as believers, how can a just God
>send them to eternal torment? If they get bodies that are corrupted by
>sin, how is that universe any different than this one? Sin exists in both.
>
>So, it seems that the most likely scenario, if monism is true, is that
>everyone gets a perfect sinless body, or, only believers get one, and
>non-believers cease to exist.

The notes below are not to be seen as a final formulation. It is not a
scientific paper, but it does

1: I cannot see why a resurrection for believers would be possible, while
not possible for non-believers.

2. The main point here is, though, that I do not believe that man is body
plus soul. That is old-Greek philosophy, but not founded on the Bible. I
do admit, though, that the Bible translations have imported the idea that
man=body+soul. It would be good if some one knowing the old languages
better than I do would spend some years on checking every place where the
Hebrew and Greek words translated as "life", "heart", "soul" etc.
appear. The translations appear to be more based on what the translator
thought, than on what it meant. For example the word "nephesh" is
translated as "life" in Gen. 1:`24 when it is talking about animals, and
in Gen., but in Gen.2:7 "soul" when talking about men. A thorough study
taking into account as well the word "leb" and another one, which I don't
remember at the moment. The equivalents in the New Testament: "psyche",
"pneuma" etc. should not be forgotten. However, I am not a linguist and go
by what I learned in Philosophy class.

3. We will die, yes, but we will be resurrected on the "last day" either to
eternal "life" or to eternal "death." The words in that sentence do not
mean too much in our language. Eternity id not necessarily "unending time"

4. "Time" is part of God's creation, so is "eternity." "Eternity" is
either "eternal bliss" or "eternal punishment", but since we have no idea
of the meaning of "eternity" we cannot say too much about that.

5. "Being with the Lord" "without sin" is probably the best way of
expressing it.

6. The difficulty here is not what I wrote above, but the concepts of
"time" and "eternity". Both are created by God. We are used to think in
three dimensions, when we talk about earthly life. Those dimensions can go
up and down, left and right, forward and backward. "Time", however, has
for us only one direction. Or, has it? We still can talk about "earlier"
and "later".

7.Still, I do think, that we have to be very careful in talking about what
we will be like "after" being resurrected. I do believe, that we who
accept Jesus as our Saviour, will have an "after" life, but I do think as
well that beyond the fact that we always be with the Lord, we cannot
speculate about what it will be like.

8. "Easter": the Lord received a new body, which was still recognizable as
His body, as Thomas proved. However, the Lord moved in more than three
dimensions. The Bible simply says "he was not there any longer". when
going "through" walls? Let us not speculate too much about that, but it is
clear that the physics we learned in High School does not apply any longer
after death and resurrection.

Jan de Koning
Received on Mon Mar 28 13:20:06 2005