Re: [asa] Physicalism and Incarnation

Jack wrote:

> I wish you would explain more about how your understanding of how a
> new heavens and a new Earth, and the holy city, are related to your
> ideas of personal eschatology.
>
> Which comes first, do you interpret resurrection as physical, but
> more so, because you are expecting a entirely new creation, or is
> it the other way around? It seems to me that may be interpreting
> one unclear portion of scripture with another unclear portion.

I really don't have much more to explain. My point is merely that I
think that throughout scripture the portrayal of God's plan is one of
redemption and restoration. That restoration includes all of
Creation, not just us. Creation rejoices with God's people in the
Psalms and yearns for our redemption in Romans. I also think that it
is critical that the "spiritual" not be seen as good and the
"material" as bad. God declared the Creation "very good" and took
upon himself that creation in the incarnation. We are material
beings - we are part of the good Creation. Our humanity rests in
that as much as it does our apprehension of the divine. Our
redemption must include the physical if it is really redemption --
that seems to be the point of Paul's emphasis on the bodily
resurrection.

To place the resurrection in purely spiritual terms would seem to
reflect Greek ideas that the material is bad, and only pure spirit is
good.

Keith

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Received on Sat Mar 3 11:50:06 2007