freigeister

In order to understand what is meant by "spirit" we have to look at how it is used in the Bible. For this, I refer you to Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise (find "spirit of God").

The entire NT can be seen as a study in the dichotomy between body and spirit. In spite of the NT's clear separation of the two, traditional Christianity has been trying to unite them for millennia. And it cannot be a surprise that our current materialistic monists see spirit as a kind of matter. The plain fact is that the vast majority of people are unwilling to contemplate the immaterial. All of our thinking is about material things. We cannot think except in terms of the material. The fact that the prophets and the apostles call on us to do so makes no difference. We refuse to heed them, and distort their words until they fit our comfortable realm of material things. 'Twas ever thus.

Orthodox_Freethinker

I would recommend that you please improve your comprehension of Scripture before you comment on its words. If the last Adam's becoming a "life-giving spirit" means that He no longer possessed a fleshly body, does that also mean that the first Adam, as a "living soul", did not have a fleshly body either? Again, you can't have it both ways. The "soul" and "the spirit" are both spiritual things. If being a "life-giving spirit" precludes a fleshly body then so does being a "living soul".
I see that you've ignored the Greek word "psyckikon" which literally means "soulish". How predictable of you.

Given that Jesus, in His incarnation, is both fully divine and fully human, His fleshly body before His resurrection was imperfect, just like ours.
The contrast that Paul draws between the "soulish" body and the "spiritual" body is not a contrast between material and immaterial (given that the soul and the spirit are obviously immaterial things) but between the qualities of being before and after one's resurrection.
While our current bodies are corruptible, our resurrected bodies will be incorruptible, etc.
The resurrected Christ was of the flesh but a transfigured flesh, no longer susceptible to death and decay nor bound by our current human limitations. This is why not only did Jesus have a fleshly body which the Apostles could touch and feel but He was also able to walk through walls.

Steven Carr

Do you actually bother reading what people write?

I have said time and time again, that Paul is contrasting the fleshly body of Adam with the body of spirit of Jesus.

I have said time and time again that Paul has no conception of a soul as a spiritual thing. That is the point of the contrast - soul is not spirit. You are turning Paul's contrast into gibberish, just because that suits your agenda. No matter how many times you parrot the idea that Paul thought a living soul was spiritual , it doesn't make it true. Adam was flesh, according to Paul.


To him, the word 'psyche' that he uses , just means 'life' - the thing that you lose when you die. Adam lost that when he died. He had a psychicon body -

In Paul's thought, people who rely on psyche (life) have a living body which will perish, while people who rely on pneuma (spirit), will get a body of spirit.

Steven Carr

Jesus had transfigured flesh at the Transfiguration. So much for your idea that Jesus (God Incarnate!) did not have spirit before the Resurrection. But I suppose you will now claim that the Transfiguration was yet another form of flesh.

Let us see how many types of flesh OF has to believe in.

There is the flesh Adam had before the fall, uncorrupted by sin.

There is the flesh Adam had after the fall, corrupted by sin.

There is the flesh Jesus had as a human.

There is the transfigured flesh Jesus had at the Transfiguration.

There is the differently transfigured flesh Jesus had at the resurrection.

Not to mention the huge difference, OF claims there is between 'Flesh and bones' and 'Flesh and blood'.

What a bizarre belief system Christianity is!


Paul is clear 'Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God'

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Orthodox_Freethinker

You've just committed the fallacy of equivocation.

Transfigure
v 1: elevate or idealize, in allusion to Christ's transfiguration [syn: glorify, spiritualize] 2: change completely the nature or appearance of; "In Kafka's story, a person metamorphoses into a bug"; "The treatment and diet transfigured her into a beautiful young woman"; "Jesus was transfigured after his resurrection"
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=transfigure

I would recommend that you please read some actual exegesis and Christian theology, something which you are in desperate need of.

"24 [50-53] Flesh and blood . . . corruption: living persons and the corpses of the dead, respectively. In both cases, the gulf between creatures and God is too wide to be bridged unless God himself transforms us."
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/1cori...inthians15.htm

Evidently, the fleshly body can enter the Kingdom of God but not by its own accord. Its quality of being must be transformed from "soulish" to "spiritual".

What you are sadly neglecting is that the nature of the resurrected body is mysterious, something which Saint Paul himself admits. Your attempt to take his words out of context in order to discredit the physical resurrection of Christ only shows your lack of understanding on the matter.
My recommendation is that you find your nearest Orthodox priest and politely engage him in a discussion of Scripture but please remember to leave any hubris at the door.

Steven Carr

'The first Adam became a living being, the second Adam became a life-giving spirit'. 'The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from Heaven'.

'Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God'.

'God will destroy both stomach and food'.

No matter how many times you ignore Paul, I will just keep quoting him, when he is clear that our present bodies will not be transformed. They will be exchanged for new bodies, made of a different material altogether.

His whole letter only makes sense when you realise that the Corinthians were idiots for wondering how dead bodies could be transformed and resurrected.

Paul just ignores this question, as totally irrelevant. It is like asking how a car can fly. Just stupid. There are two different types of machines. Cars and planes are fundamentally different.

Paul tells the Corinthians there are two fundamentally different bodies. Just as it is stupid to wonder how a car can be transformed into a plane, the Corinthians were stupid for wondering how a corpse could be transformed into a spiritual body.


First the living or biological body, such as Adam had at his creation, and then the spiritual body, made in Heaven.

All you can do is claim that there is 'soulish' flesh.

Paul thinks Adam had that 'soulish' flesh *before* the fall. God breathed life (psyche) into the dust of the earth, and this formed a living being (with a psychicon body). Adam did not have a spiritual body before the fall, he had a natural body. Paul is clear 'First the natural, then the spiritual.


'Soulish' flesh has nothing to do with being fallen, and needing to be redeemed. It just means a body formed from matter found on earth, as opposed to a spiritual body, which Jesus had, as he became a spirit.

Oh, and by the way, your claim that I equivocate on 'transfiguration' meaning metamorphosis is rather silly, as the Gospels themselves say it was a metamorphosis. Please feel free to apologise.

Orthodox_Freethinker

1 Corinthians 15:51
But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed.

Again, please remember to leave your hubris at the door. I'd recommend that you perform some personal study on Scriptural exegesis before engaging your nearest priest in discussion.

You equivocated the transfiguration of Jesus on the mountain with the transfiguration in His resurrected body. They are not one in the same, yet the word 'transfiguration' is used in both instances.

Steven Carr

'We' , not our bodies. Paul omits a mention that our bodies will be transformed. Of course, when we leave our mortal body and enter our heavenly dwelling (see 2 Cor. 5), we will certainly be transformed, although our bodies have not been.

And the word 'transformed' is badly translated there. It certainly can mean swapped, as in Romans 1:23 where God was 'transformed' into an idol, by your logic.

So the word does not always mean what you want it to mean, to accuse me of hubris.

A better word would be the one the Gospels use to describe the transfiguration, where Jesus undergoes a metamorphosis. Paul does not use that word.

You ought really to think of me , more in a Nemesis sort of way.

All your tired , old arguments can be met ,simply by quoting Paul. (see Romans 1:23 and 2 Cor. 5 for a good understanding of the word 'transformed'. Even in Galatians, the word can mean having a new thing, instead of an old thing)

Orthodox_Freethinker

The problem is that "We will not all die but will all be transformed" suggests that some will be changed into the 'spiritual body' without dying first. How could one leave the body of the flesh, however, without dying? Again, this is a transformation of the flesh into a new state of being.
You can willingly misinterpret Saint Paul as much as you'd like but I'd recommend that you engage an actual clergyman or theologian on the matter.

Steven Carr

'With God all things are possible'

Doesn't Paul claim to have had an out-of-the-body experience in 2 Cor. 12?

Paul seemed to believe it was possible for God to do what OF claims is impossible for God to arrange.

'The last Adam became a life-giving spirit'