Kevin007
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Introduction to Christianity
Josheph Cardinal Ratzinger
p 356-358 c. The question of the resurrected body
Let us start from verse 50 (1Cor15), which seems to me to be
a sort of key to the whole:"I tell you this, bretheren: flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit
the imperishable." It seems to me that the sentence occupies much the
same position in this text as verse 63 occupies in the eucharistic
chapter 6 of St.Johns Gospel: for these two seemingly widely separated
texts are much more closely related than is apparent at first sight.
There in St. John, it says, just after the real presence of the flesh
and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist has been sharply emphasized;
"It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail." in both
the Johannine and the Pauline texts, it is a question of developing
the Christian realism of "the flesh". In John the realism of the
sacraments, that is, the realism of Jesus' Resurrection and of his
"flesh" that comes to us from it, is emphasized; in "flesh", of the
resurrection of Christians and of the salvation achieved for us in it.
But both passages also contain a sharp counterpoint that emphasizes
Christian realism as realism beyond the physical world, realism of the
Holy Spirit, as opposed to a purely worldly, quasi-physical realism.
Here English cannot fully convey the enigmatic character of the
biblical Greek. In Greek the word soma means something like
"body", but at the same time is also means "the itself".
and this soma can be sarx, that is, "body" in the earthly historical,
and thus chemical-physical terms, can, again, appear definitively
in the guise of a transphysical reality.
In Pauls language "body" and "spirit" are not the opposites; the
opposites are called "physical body" and "spiritual body". We do
not need to try here to pursue the complicated historical and
philosiphical problems posed by this.
One thing at any rate may be fairly clear; both John (6:63) and Paul
(1 Cor 15:50) state with all possible emphasis that the "resurrection
of the flesh", the "resurrection of the body", is not a "resurrection
of physical bodies." Thus from the point of view of modern thought
the Pauline sketch is far less naive than later theological
erudition with its subtle ways of construing how there can be
eternal physical bodies.
To recapitulate, Paul teaches, not the resurrection of physical bodies, but
the resurrection of persons, and this not in the return of the
"fleshly body", that is, the biological structure, an idea he
expressly describes as impossible "the perishable cannot become
imperishable"), but in the different form of the life of the
resurrection, as shown in the risen Lord.}
JohnR
Josheph Cardinal Ratzinger
p 356-358 c. The question of the resurrected body
Let us start from verse 50 (1Cor15), which seems to me to be
a sort of key to the whole:"I tell you this, bretheren: flesh and blood
cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit
the imperishable." It seems to me that the sentence occupies much the
same position in this text as verse 63 occupies in the eucharistic
chapter 6 of St.Johns Gospel: for these two seemingly widely separated
texts are much more closely related than is apparent at first sight.
There in St. John, it says, just after the real presence of the flesh
and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist has been sharply emphasized;
"It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail." in both
the Johannine and the Pauline texts, it is a question of developing
the Christian realism of "the flesh". In John the realism of the
sacraments, that is, the realism of Jesus' Resurrection and of his
"flesh" that comes to us from it, is emphasized; in "flesh", of the
resurrection of Christians and of the salvation achieved for us in it.
But both passages also contain a sharp counterpoint that emphasizes
Christian realism as realism beyond the physical world, realism of the
Holy Spirit, as opposed to a purely worldly, quasi-physical realism.
Here English cannot fully convey the enigmatic character of the
biblical Greek. In Greek the word soma means something like
"body", but at the same time is also means "the itself".
and this soma can be sarx, that is, "body" in the earthly historical,
and thus chemical-physical terms, can, again, appear definitively
in the guise of a transphysical reality.
In Pauls language "body" and "spirit" are not the opposites; the
opposites are called "physical body" and "spiritual body". We do
not need to try here to pursue the complicated historical and
philosiphical problems posed by this.
One thing at any rate may be fairly clear; both John (6:63) and Paul
(1 Cor 15:50) state with all possible emphasis that the "resurrection
of the flesh", the "resurrection of the body", is not a "resurrection
of physical bodies." Thus from the point of view of modern thought
the Pauline sketch is far less naive than later theological
erudition with its subtle ways of construing how there can be
eternal physical bodies.
To recapitulate, Paul teaches, not the resurrection of physical bodies, but
the resurrection of persons, and this not in the return of the
"fleshly body", that is, the biological structure, an idea he
expressly describes as impossible "the perishable cannot become
imperishable"), but in the different form of the life of the
resurrection, as shown in the risen Lord.}
JohnR
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