Re: [asa] Physicalism and Incarnation

Of course it involves the physical body of Jesus, because
the tomb was empty.

That is not to say however, that we will be resurrected in
the same way. I do not believe in resurrection of the
body either, with the special exception of Christ.

And that is what Paul is talking about in I Cor. 15. Our
physical bodies will decay, and a new incorruptible
spiritual body will rise. But Christ and his body, never
saw decay because his body was without sin.

On Thu, 1 Mar 2007 11:54:29 -0500
  "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> Nor do I. "Bodily resurrection" does not entail the
>physical body of Jesus. That would be resuscitation, not
>resurrection. I believe that what the disciples
>experienced was the real presence of the risen Messiah,
>but read carefully 1 Cor. 15 to see how Paul wrestled
>with this matter.
> Bob
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Michael Roberts
> To: Alexanian, Moorad ; Johan Jammart ; asa@calvin.edu
>; Janice Matchett
> Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 10:44 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Physicalism and Incarnation
>
>
> Like Bishop Tom Wright I do not believe in a physical
>resurrection.
>
> Michael
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Janice Matchett
> To: Alexanian, Moorad ; Johan Jammart ;
>asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Thursday, March 01, 2007 3:07 PM
> Subject: RE: [asa] Physicalism and Incarnation
>
>
> At 09:45 AM 3/1/2007, Alexanian, Moorad wrote:
>
> One must understand what the word "incarnation"
>means and see if one can define it in purely physical
>terms. If one cannot, then the incarnation of Christ is
>incompatible with physicalism. ~ Moorad
>
> @ For those interested, the commentary at this link
>touches on that subject:
>
> The Impossible Faith Or, How Not to Start an Ancient
>Religion - James Patrick Holding
> [snip]
> Below I offer a list of 17 factors to be considered
>-- places where Christianity "did the wrong thing" in
>order to be a successful religion. It is my contention
>that the only way Christianity did succeed is because it
>was a truly revealed faith -- and because it had the
>irrefutable witness of the resurrection. I may add more
>factors as my research continues. For now, this should be
>enough to keep the skeptics busy if they aren't otherwise
>engaged in such scholarly pursuits as looking for
>contradictions between numbers in 1 Kings and 1
>Chronicles or digging up obscure and irrelevant pagan
>figures who sold snake oil. Veteran readers will note
>that there is little new actually reported in this
>article that is not found elsewhere on this site; indeed
>much of what is below is taken verbatim from other
>articles -- it is only the application that is new.
> [snip]
> Factor #3 -- Getting Physical! The Wrong
>"Resurrection"
>
> As we have shown here, the resurrection of Jesus,
>within the context of Judaism, was thought by Gentiles to
>be what can be described as "grossly" physical. This in
>itself raises a certain problem for Christianity beyond a
>basic Jewish mission. We have regularly quoted the dictum
>of Pheme Perkins: "Christianity's pagan critics generally
>viewed resurrection as misunderstood metempsychosis at
>best. At worst, it seemed ridiculous." It may further be
>noted that the pagan world was awash with points of view
>associated with those who thought matter was evil and at
>the root of all of man's problems. Platonic thought, as
>Murray Harris puts it, supposed that "man's highest good
>consisted of emancipation from corporeal defilement. The
>nakedness of disembodiment was the ideal state." Physical
>resurrection was the last sort of endgame for mankind
>that you wanted to preach.
>
> Indeed, among the pagans, resurrection was deemed
>impossible. Wright in Resurrection of the Son of God
>quotes Homer's King Priam: "Lamenting for your dead son
>will do no good at all. You will be dead before you bring
>him back to life." And Aeschylus Eumenides: "Once a man
>has died, and the dust has soaked up his blood, there is
>no resurrection." And so on, with several other quotes
>denying the possibility of resurrection. [32-3] Wright
>even notes that belief in resurrection was a ground for
>perseuction: "We should not forget that when Irenaeus
>became bishop of Lyons he was replacing the bishop who
>had died in a fierce persecution; and that one of the
>themes of that persecution was the Christians' tenacious
>hold on the belief in bodily resurrection. Details of the
>martyrdom are found in the letter from the churches of
>Vienne and Lyons to those of Asia and Phrygia. The letter
>describes how in some cases the torturers burnt the
>bodies and scattered the ashes into Rhone, so that no
>relic of the martyrs might still be seen on earth. This
>they did, says the writer, 'as though they were capable
>of conquering god, and taking away their rebirth
>[palingenesia]'."
>
> Judaism itself would have had its own, lesser
>difficulty, albeit not insurmountable: there was no
>perception of the resurrection of an individual before
>the general resurrection at judgment. But again, this,
>though weird, could have been overcome -- as long as
>there was evidence! Not so easily in the pagan world. We
>can see well enough that Paul had to fight the Gnostics,
>the Platonists, and the ascetics on these counts. But
>what makes this especially telling is that a physical
>resurrection was completely unnecessary for merely
>starting a religion. It would have been enough to say
>that Jesus' body had been taken up to heaven, like Moses'
>or like Elijah's. Indeed this would have fit (see here)
>what was expected, and would have been much easier to
>"sell" to the Greeks and Romans, for whom the best
>"evidence" of elevation to divine rank was apotheosis --
>the transport of the soul to the heavenly realms after
>death; or else translation while still alive. So why
>bother making the road harder? There is only one
>plausible answer -- they really had a resurrection to
>preach.
>
> [snip] Continue here: http://www.tektonics.org/
>
> ~ Janice
>

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Received on Thu Mar 1 12:23:56 2007