Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: ciriello@lafcol.uucp (Patrick Ciriello II) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: immortality in this life? Message-ID: Date: 8 Jul 89 04:54:56 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: NET Manager, Lafayette College Lines: 40 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu [quotation from my comments, saying that it is possible for a Christian to believe that the soul is a process, which ceases when the body dies, and is restarted only by the resurrection of the body. --clh] If the soul is not separate from the body, then how could the thief on the cross be in paradise while his body was in the ground? This is not a flame ... I think your points are quite valid ... but this just sort of came to mind to mind ... if the theif wasn't ressurected, then his spirit must be separate (of course, maybe soul and consiousness are two different things ... ) Maybe you can be (in spirit) absent from the body, present with the Lord, but your consiousness (or, rather, the process of think, acting, 'living' that we call consiousness) is still locked in you now defuct body (or ashes). Argh .... looks like one of those things we could argue about forever! Pat [When you're dealing with eternal life, issues of time tend to become a bit complex. There are several possible answers to your initial question: - that time in heaven isn't the same as time on earth, and things can have a time gap one place but be nearly simultaneous in the other - that the thief actually won't be resurrected until the end time, but since he won't be conscious of the time he is dead, he will experience it as immediate resurrection, and that's what Jesus meant. At any rate, I see no reason that the thief can't be living with his resurrection body in heaven while his original body is still decaying on earth. Jesus' example and Paul's statements tell us that the body that is raised is a different kind than the original one. I see no reason to think that the same atoms are reused. If they were, what happens to atoms that have been part of several people's bodies? By the way, I'm not selling any particular theories on these issues. I'm simply performing my usual duty as moderator of making sure people realize the range of Christian views. --clh]