Neurodiversity: Evolution, The Image of God, and the Fall

I was thinking about this doing dishes. I think our ideas of life in the New Creation are often skewed by the same Platonic ideas of “perfection” that skew people’s ideas of Eden. We know we will be raised imperishable, and I think there is reason to infer, healed of our “afflictions,” but I don’t think there is evidence we will be “made perfect” in some ideal sense or that everyone will the same. In Revelation, the image is that people keep their ethnic identities, so I would imagine we would keep other aspects of our unique identities and personalities too. I like to think that the loves that shape us now endure and shape our eternal selves. So an artist stays an artist and a thinker stays a thinker and those who thrive on giving care will always have something to nurture. So to the extent that the atypicality of a person’s mind contributes to the good and beautiful in who they are, I think it endures.

We will not be in rebellion and sin will be done away, so maybe the end to suffering and pain and tears comes mostly from being able to perfectly extend and receive grace without the interference of pride, self-doubt, shame and all the other things that make life hard for people with exceptionalities. I doubt spelling or sitting still and staying focused during long sermons is a thing in Heaven. Maybe a lot of the “disadvantages” become irrelevant in a perfectly just society where power structures imposed by “normal” people are done away with.

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