Monday Munchies...food for thought: Anti-Dualism
Monday munchies…food for thought. I hope every one is looking forward to my weekly blog as much as I am. Before we get into this stuff, a little bit about me and where I’m coming from. I’ve known Jesus for as long as I can remember, I’ve always been very close to Him. I grew up in a
Way back in the day Plato came up with this idea of Dualism (later called Platonic Dualism). It basically said that there were two worlds, the spiritual and the physical. Things that were non-materialistic belonged to the spiritual and all physical things belonged to the physical world. When you die you go back to the spiritual world. This seems like a really good idea to a point, that point seems to be that the two worlds can’t combine. This idea was so popular that the Greeks in
That being said, I propose an idea. I propose that spiritual and physical are intricately woven. Now I’m not like the pagans thinking every tree is a god or spirit. What I’m saying is that our physical world is spiritual. Look at creation, God made everything. What we see is physical and what we touch is physical. God made the spiritual too, but we experience both physical and spiritual at the same time, not in the same way, but at the same time. God made everything, and saw that it was good. God likes physical things. God likes spiritual things. Why was it ever thought to separate the two? Does our spiritual condition not effect how we feel physically, and does our physical condition not effect how we feel spiritually (self-esteem, state of mind, ect.)? How many sins are physical in their nature? Now because I believe that spiritual and physical are interwoven, that means I believe heaven is a very physical place. I also believe our souls and our bodies are interwoven, and that when we do meet with Jesus it will be a physical meeting and we will have our own bodies that Jesus has already given us. That means we had better take good care of our bodies. I don’t know what exactly the implications for this are, but its just a little something to munch on through the week. Hollar at me and let me know what you think.
4 comments:
I like the idea of questioning your faith because when you think about it something must be wrong if you're not questioning it. Otherwise you'd know everything right?
Since we talked about dualism in my Religious Ethics class I have to agree with you. You can't seperate the body from the soul because they work together. I'm not sure if our physical bodies will be in heaven or not, never really thought about it, but since the Bible says our soul goes to heaven it makes me think we don't need our bodies. Doesn't mean you shouldn't take care of your bodies because the Bible also says our bodies are a temple.
That sounds pretty good, I think I understand what you are getting at. I have thought about this a lot over the years and what I think seems to agree with what you were saying, but I wanted to post some thoughts and scriptures and see if it was what you were getting at.
It mainly comes from Jesus resurrection, which is what Christianity hinges on. (1 Cor. 15:14-17). We believe that Jesus was resurrected physically unlike the Jehovah's Witnesses and many groups that say Jesus did not rise physically, but spiritually. The physical body that Jesus rose in was the same physical body that he died in. After the resurrection he was able to eat (Luke 24: 42-43), people grabbed his feet and worshiped him (Matt 28:9), and Thomas touched the scars (John 20:27).
"And He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39"See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." (Luke 24:38-39).
Jesus was raised in the same body he died in. He claimed that he had flesh and bones, does a spirit body have flesh and bones, no, it just doesn’t make sense that he was resurrected with a purely spiritual body.
35But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?. . .39All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. . .42So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (1 Cor. 15:35, 39, 42-44)
In this verse it sounds like Paul is saying the physical body and spiritual body are two different things but he is really not. The "it" he is talking is the same body not separate bodies. This same body becomes a resurrected body, which is the spiritual body he is talking about. In other words, the spiritual body is the very same body he previously had, but it had been changed into a spiritual one.
"For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "Death is swallowed up in victory," (1 Cor. 15:53-54).
Our perishable and mortal bodies put on the imperishable and immortal aspects of the spiritual body (which is basically the physically resurrected and changed body of the believer). Jesus was simply the first fruits of this resurrection (1 Cor. 15:20). I think this is basically saying our future resurrected bodies will be spiritual bodies but, those spiritual bodies are in fact physical, the same bodies we have now, only glorified.
Anyway it kind of agrees with what you were saying about the physical and spiritual being intertwined. I also believe you should "question" your faith in a way, but I believe that you have to be careful and not just think about something or come up something out of your own mind ( which is what Plato was doing), but go to the Bible and search for the truth. Thats all I gots for now. That was good stuff though, keep em coming and ill tune in next week.
right on walk, and you too Rebecca, we do need to take care of our bodies because Christ lives here, and how much more if this is the only one we get? I think heaven will be a very physical place and if its a phsyical place, I guess we'd have a phsycial body to take advantage of it.
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