I’ve listened to Bill Newsome’s episode! A good one. I’ll dig into the online resources some more.
Thanks!
Yeah, the appearances of those individuals is an interesting piece of the puzzle. It’s a little easier in my mind to grasp how an immaterial soul could have that continuity, but I wonder how they would continue in the mind of a physicalist.
I think we frequently use a word like “soul” as a placeholder for some concept (or set of concepts) we don’t actually grasp. Or perhaps, people have wildly different associations with the word.
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I think using the word “copy” or “clone” implies making a separate entity that is “the same” in every other way aside from subjectively. The resurrection implies a raising of our self again in some way, and that I (my first-person self) will be experiencing it.
I know you’ve said before that you believe a different kind of body, the spiritual body that Paul mentions, will be what we are made of. But with the knowledge of how our brains are essential to “us,” if those atoms disperse after our death and decaying, how will God “transfer” us to that other body? Or how will there be continuity?
I’m probably not the right person to answer for physicalists because I’m not a physicalist.
What I find interesting is that Paul’s own language isn’t “immortal soul” but a σῶμα πνευματικόν (sōma pneumatikon)—a spiritual body. Whatever exactly that means, it seems intended to preserve continuity of the person while also describing a transformed mode of existence. The risen Jesus appears to be the model: the same Jesus who was crucified, yet somehow transformed in ways that transcend ordinary physical limitations.
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Oh, for sure. I’ve definitely learned that “soul” is a confusing term. Some people see it as the platonic idea of our self being immaterial and trapped in a body. Others, like my husband, see it as the spiritual part of us that God connects with, and that it works together with our brain to make us who we are. Some see it as the whole self, all pieces and parts together, which could include an immaterial component or be all material.
I guess I’m trying to figure out what makes sense, where I land on the soul, and what would preserve the Christian story.
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Paul’s language of a sōma pneumatikon (“spiritual body”) suggests continuity of the person, not merely continuity of information. The risen Jesus was not presented as a copy of Jesus but as Jesus himself. If the continuity problem cannot be solved, perhaps that is evidence against physicalism rather than against resurrection.
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I’ve heard proposals that the bodies could be rebuilt from the atoms or particles of the originals. Some religious faiths (including some Jewish and Christian divisions) oppose cremation because of the need for bodily resurrection.
Sometimes Jesus appears as a wheat-based cracker. That’s the ‘unrisen’ state…
1 Cor 15 does not say the spiritual body is created after death only that it does not come alive until after death.
What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
On the contrary it implies that the spiritual body exists before death in the comparison to a plant growing from a seed and the following statement.
If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
So what is the difference from the idea of the soul in Plato and other religions?
The soul idea that the mind is in some supernatural thing giving the body life and making it a person and which can move around… transmigration of souls… leaving the body at death.
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Bad news for the early humans then, huh? 
I sense that God reconstructing something or preserving our continuity in some way isn’t dependent on that, seeing as most bodies will be completely decayed after enough time passes.
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Not just decayed, but the atoms scattered and become parts of later humans.
Interesting perspective. So, it could be that as we make choices and grow in the Holy Spirit, our spiritual bodies are formed, which will still be us and therefore capable of our first person perspective?
That is a good way of looking at it! I think I understand your position better now.
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I wouldn’t want to get in a custody fight over whose atoms belong to whom.
- I suspect that, initially, you may question the relevance of what I’m going to say here, but …
- Benjamin D. Sommer, born July 6, 1964, is an American biblical scholar and Jewish theologian. He is a Professor of Bible at The Jewish Theological Seminary of America and a Senior Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. He is a former director of the Crown Family Center for Jewish Studies at Northwestern.
- Sommer has written a book: The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel 1st Edition
- An interesting and useful introduction to Sommer’s views is Jewish Theology Is a Dialogue, Not a Conclusion [12:57]
- Edited Transcript: Jewish Theology Is a Dialogue, Not a Conclusion
An Australian Lutheran theologian dismissed a question based on such an issue by pointing out that God could just make all the new atoms He needed. It was a good response IMO to what was supposed to be a “Gotcha!” question.
- Benjamin D. Sommer: The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel
- Central Thesis of the Book: Sommer argues that the Hebrew Bible contains an ancient Near Eastern conception of deity that modern Jews and Christians have largely forgotten. According to this view, God possesses a body and can possess more than one body simultaneously. Divine selfhood is fluid rather than sharply bounded.
- The Hebrew Bible preserves an internal debate about this issue. Later Judaism and Christianity inherited different aspects of this older theology.
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Introduction. “God’s Body and The Bible’s Interpreters”
Main Thesis: The Biblical God has a body. The real question is not whether God has a body but whether God can have multiple bodies. Major Arguments: Sommer surveys passages where God walks in Eden, appears to Abraham, speaks face-to-face with Moses, sits enthroned, possesses hands, back, feet, and clothing. He argues that these texts should be read straightforwardly rather than allegorically.
Targets of Criticism: He critiques scholars who spiritualize God, treat anthropomorphisms as metaphor, import later philosophical theology into biblical texts.
Conclusion: The Hebrew Bible contains genuine divine embodiment and must be interpreted accordingly.
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Chapter 1. “Fluidity of Divine Embodiment and Selfhood: Mesopotamia and Canaan”
Main Thesis: Ancient Near Eastern peoples possessed a concept of deity fundamentally different from modern Western concepts. A god could occupy multiple bodies, exist in multiple locations, possess a fluid identity, overlap with other divine beings.
Major Evidence.
- Ishtar. Multiple Ishtars exist simultaneously: Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, Venus-Ishtar. Distinct yet somehow the same goddess.
Divine Fragmentation: One deity can manifest in several centers simultaneously.
Divine Overlap: Texts identify one god as aspects of another god.
- For example: Marduk contains other gods. Ninurta contains other gods.
Key Concept: Fluidity Model. Gods possess bounded individuality, but permeable boundaries. Their selves are not sharply separated. Importance: This becomes Sommer’s lens for reading parts of the Hebrew Bible.
Chapter 2. “The Fluidity Model in Ancient Israel”
Main Thesis: Some biblical texts preserve precisely this ancient Near Eastern model. YHWH can manifest simultaneously in multiple forms and locations.
Major Examples: The Angel of YHWH sometimes distinguished from God, yet speaks as God, receives worship, acts as God. The distinction repeatedly collapses.
The Divine Name: God’s “Name” functions almost as an independent manifestation.
The Divine Glory (Kabod): The Glory can appear while God remains elsewhere.
Sinai Narratives: God is both in heaven and on the mountain simultaneously.
Key Conclusion: Ancient Israelites sometimes understood God as one deity with multiple embodiments. Relevance to Christianity: Sommer repeatedly notes that this creates conceptual space later occupied by: Logos theology, Incarnation, Trinity.
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