format_quote Originally Posted by
Traditio
1. My apologies for not getting around to answering you sooner.
2. You are mistaken. My objections don't arise in the context of Christianity.
A. I think that angels and demons don't have bodies. I think that they are finite, incorporeal, spiritual, intellectual substances. They don't naturally have bodies. As such, they occupy a middle place in the heirarchy between human beings (spiritual and corporeal) and God (spiritual, infinite and uncreated). Claiming that there are rational animals composed of fire or light or air or...to sum up, anything other than primarily of earth...is simply unreasonable and unnecessary.
B. I think that God does not promise a carnal reward in the afterlife. What He offers is the face to face vision of Himself, the Supreme Good. A carnal reward would be an excellent reward for us...if we were pigs, and the best thing about us were our animality. But we aren't. We are human beings with reason and will. We are persons, intellectual universes of knowledge and love, and have a natural longing for infinite being, truth and goodness which only the face to face vision of God can satisfy, but which only God can freely offer to us by grace (which, I say, He has made possible by grace through Jesus).
Yes, it's true that, after the final resurrection, we will get our bodies back again, either to join our souls in unending punishment, or else, in everlasting glory. But for all that, the chief pains of Hell will not be bodily, nor will the real delights of Heaven be bodily. The chief pain of Hell is the loss of God and knowing that you will never see God because of your own sins. The pleasure of Heaven is knowing and loving God face to face, in being caught up in His love and clinging to Him forever. Yes, this delight will overflow into the body as well, but the delight of seeing God face to face is intellectual, not carnal.
C. I think that it's always wrong to lie. As Jesus says, Satan is the father of lies, whereas God is Truth Itself.
This makes sense in the context of the ancient theory of the four elements. If we assume that theory, then it's still evident that we are primarily made of earth. Our bodies are apparently held together by solid, firm stuff. But it makes no sense to speak of an animal made of fire, air or water. That stuff doesn't "stay put," so to speak.
Again, this is just wrong. If you read books II and III of Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul), Aristotle think that it's pretty obvious that our bodies are made up of a great deal of earth (if you want to call it "clay," then that's fine). We are made up of a great deal of firm, solid stuff that stays put, plus a suitable admixture of the other elements (air, fire and water) to enable us to sense and interact with our environment.
I thought that they're supposed to be invisible?
I don't think that we can see the demons (fallen angels) because they don't naturally have bodies. Incorporeal realities aren't sensible.
Fair enough. I thought the invisible fire/light people, and it occurs to me that this doesn't work. I believe that, after the resurrection, the bodies of the ****ed will be tormented by a fire that doesn't give off any light. Why? In order to torment both the senses of sight (with darkness) and touch (with fiery pain).
This is another objection I have to Islam. Do you really think that you can "earn" your way to Heaven?
Let's get this straight. Are you telling me that, whereas human beings are composed of body and soul, demons and angels, even though they have bodies, don't also have souls?
There are different things I could say about this, but I'll rest here: that there's a disproportion between man's beginning (what man is capable of and given by nature) and end (that to which he is called as his final perfection).
If you are correct, then there can be no rewards or punishments until the final resurrection. Unless you want to say that they have different bodies now, and will be given another set of bodies at the resurrection, which is just patently wrong (for reasons Aristotle gives in the De Anima). That involves the error of thinking that any soul can go into any body. That's wrong. My soul naturally is suited to actuated my body! Note here that we find a correlate of this in the Christian faith. Jesus didn't "hop" from one body to another. No! When Jesus appeared to his apostles, the tomb was empty.
Contemplate that.
Even in this life, not all delights are bodily. Plato makes this point outstandingly in the Symposium and in other places, Plotinus fastens onto it excellently. Yes, there are beauties and pleasures of bodies and of the senses. But don't these pale in comparison with the beauties and pleasures of good and morally fine ways of life? With the beauties and pleasures of thoughts and sciences? Of contemplation of divine things?
The greatest pleasures are contemplative, not carnal.
In this life, it is fitting for human beings, as animals, to eat and drink (to preserve their bodies) and to get married and have children (in order to keep the human race going). But these things have no place in the next life. For the ****ed, it would be would be inconsistent with their punishment. For the Blessed, it would be unnecessary and superfluous: they have attained true immortality. They have attained the original, the reality, of which marriage and the begetting of children here is but a dim reflection and shadow.
I have a vague idea of what you're talking about, but not entirely. Would you explain the question more?
Yes, this doesn't make any sense to me. How can a Muslim, in one and the same breath, claim that Allah wants him or her to restrain himself in this life, but also offers him a reward of everlasting gluttony and debauchery in the next? Or am I misunderstanding the claim?
I'm not a Jehovah's witness.
Food and drink are naturally ordered to survival. Sex is naturally ordered to bearing children. Of course, people go to excess. The fact of the matter is that people have disordered and unruly desires and appetites. Humanity is fallen because of original sin.
I'm afraid that you don't understand our doctrine. How do you understand this claim, that "God has taken himself a son"? What do you think we mean by it?
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