Body and Soul
Romans 12:1

Some young people are experimenting with a couple odd ideologies called transhumanism and extropy. Judging by the recent output of books and web sites it appears that these movements are growing. Transhumanism and extropianism are similar. What is a transhumanist? The transhumanist is someone actively preparing for becoming posthuman. What is a posthuman? According to their web site, a posthuman is a human descendent who has been augmented to such a degree as to be no longer human. Many transhumanists (not all) strive to become posthuman.

How does a transhuman get augmented or upgraded to posthuman status? Transhumanists believe that biotechnology will soon open to them a posthuman future. Within twenty or thirty years technology will have advanced to the point where humans will have the opportunity to get rid of their bodies and become computers or robots. The human mind will be an uploaded onto a computer. What would be the advantage of this upgrade from a human to a computerized robot? Pain could be deleted, as well as depression, sadness, and fatigue. The robot could gain super-intelligence. It could daily take advantage of virtual reality software that would allow it to travel to other planets, visit a symphony concert, go swimming in the ocean, attend a baseball game, or ride a roller coaster. Would the robot have to be present physically to enjoy all these experiences? No, the posthuman could stay in one place. Each day the posthuman could plug in euphoric fantasy, lofty intellectual stimulation, and endless rushes of adrenaline without any low after the high. Death would be avoided because the posthuman would be free of deteriorating flesh, muscles, and bones. Humanity would no longer be necessary. In fact, posthuman life is what will exist after humanity has vanished.

A lot of these ideas have appeared in science fiction books, but now the transhumanists and extropians are pushing these notions with religious fervor. What are the problems with transhumanism? It seems that the transhumanists completely underestimate the complexity of the human body. Will a robot ever be capable of replicating human nature or human essence? Hardly. It is extremely doubtful whether technology will ever be able to robotically imitate the human experiences of intuition, common sense, trial and error, learning, falling in love, courage, and risk-taking.

Furthermore, the transhumanists romanticize the abandonment of the body. The discarnate, computerized and robotic existence of transhumanism hangs on a Gnostic, low view of the body. Early on, the Church as well had to deal with deniers of the importance of the body. Plato, for instance, thought that the body was the tomb of the soul. During the 17th century, the Frenchman, Rene Descartes set forth the ideas of the Age of Reason. Descartes saw the body as a mechanism that you sort of put up with until you reach a superior disembodied state. Hence, Gnosticism is a perennial problem.

St. Paul commands us in Romans 12:1. "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." In other words, the Christian faith should take physical forms and not remain in abstraction.

To the Platonic mind, physicality, earth, and bodily functions are inferior and even antithetical to true spirituality. In contrast, Christianity speaks of the redemption of the world: heaven and earth, spirit and matter, soul and body. The doctrine of the incarnation means that God in Christ took upon Himself a physical body. The doctrine of the resurrection means that our bodies will be one day glorified. A Greek pagan would be reluctant to say, "Present your body to God." To the Greek, the essential thing was the spirit; the body was only a prison-house, something to be despised, and even to be ashamed of. But no real Christian ever believed that. The Christian holds that his body belongs to God just as much as his soul does, and that he serves the Lord with his body as well as his mind or his spirit.

How do we serve God with our bodies? The body is exercised in the many tasks; the ordinary work of the kitchen, the home, the yard, the office, the shop, the workplace; gardening, walking, running, exercise. All the daily jobs and routines we perform, we are to offer them as acts of devotion to our Lord. It is mistaken to think that devotion to God can only take place during prayer, worship, or Bible study. What we do with our bodies ought to be pleasing to God no matter where we are. The kingdom of God encompasses all departments of life. The Apostle Paul says, "Therefore whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Notice that the body we offer as a living sacrifice becomes our "reasonable service." In Greek the word for "service" is "liturgy." St. Paul thus links the body to worship. He speaks of the duty of the body in holy places and during holy times. Our bodies are offered up as a sacrifice to God during worship. This is a good word for those types who have trouble envisioning worship outside their heads. Other pietistic types have trouble envisioning worship outside their hearts and souls. To place a dichotomy between soul and body, and focus on the salvation of the soul, or emphasize the worship of the spirit, to the exclusion of the body is not Christian, it is Hellenistic. Christianity highlights the wholeness of man. God does not save souls alone, He sent His Son Jesus to save the whole man. As the soul and body make up a complete man, so the worship of both makes our liturgy complete.

The historic Church has always designed liturgical worship so that the body gets a work out. At certain points in the liturgy there is opportunity to stand, sit, kneel, bow, walk, lift hands, and other motions. The Reformed Episcopal Church keeps these practices voluntary; nevertheless, they are approved. The union of body and soul means there is true spiritual value to them. If you believe that God has saved you both soul and body, and if you desire to offer your body to Him a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable liturgy, then you will in some way desire to participate in the bodily movements and motions of God's worship.

While we must admit that too many Christians down through the ages have despised the body, the better strands of Christianity have put it in its proper rank. The Church has turned her back on the anti-body theories of Gnosticism. The Platonic preference for disembodiment is clearly contradicted by the Christian account of humans as essentially bodily creatures of God.

There is another problem for orthodox Christians: What happens to the body at death? The Bible and our Creeds teach the resurrection of the body at the last day. But what takes place between death and the final resurrection. This span of time between the death of an individual and the Final Resurrection is called the intermediate state . During the intermediate period the body disintegrates and the soul or the conscious, personal part of us continues to exist. At death the soul breaks loose from the body to dwell in Paradise. Then at the general resurrection the body is raised up out of the dust, or sea, or wherever it is, and glorified by Christ, made immortal, reunited with the soul, and begins to enjoy eternal life in the New Heavens and New Earth. This is what we believe.

There is a term used to describe the division of human nature into body and soul and the ability of the soul after death to consciously exist apart from the body. It is called anthropological dualism . Anthropological dualism has been the view of the Church from the start. However, the word "dualism" raises red flags for some people. Isn't dualism inherently Gnostic? Doesn't dualism originate in Plato and Greek paganism? The Hebrew worldview is vastly different. The Hebrews thought holistically. They never would have divided the soul from the body like this, would they? If we posit a dualism between the soul and the body doesn't that open the door to many other harmful dichotomies in life: the dualism between Satan and God, the dualism between the secularism of public life and the privatization of religion? And what about science? Hasn't science conclusively proved that conscious existence ceases when the brain dies? That means that conscious persons become unconscious at death.

These questions have become so troubling for some Christians that they have searched for options to anthropological dualism. The two major alternatives are called "Immediate Resurrection" and "Extinction-Re-creation." Let's give them a glance.

Immediate Resurrection is promoted by a few Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, conservatives and liberals. F.F. Bruce is one of them. He believes the final resurrection occurs for you and me at the instant of death. There is no intermediate state during which the soul survives independently of the body. The final resurrection occurs for each person at the instant of his death. Hence, there is no time at which persons exist without bodies. Dualism is avoided.

The other alternative to dualism is the extinction­re-creation theory. If I am not mistaken, Calvary Chapel founder Chuck Smith advocates it. According to this perspective, when the body dies the soul dies too. The human being as a whole becomes extinct. Nothing conscious survives death. No intermediate state follows. But at the future time of the general resurrection, God will re-create the same human beings. After a period of annihilation and nonexistence God will re-create you, this time glorified and immortal. You won't even remember that you had been extinct. Again, the soul's life apart from the body is evaded.

How do we respond to these challenges? First, we can point out that the consensus of the Church for two thousand years has embraced anthropological dualism. We should be very hesitant to oppose such a strong and united front. The immediate resurrection view rules out the general resurrection at the end of time, and the extinction-re-creation idea drives an ugly discontinuity between the earthly person and the recreated one. Secondly, and more importantly, is the witness of Scripture. Over and again the Bible clearly sets forth the notion that the conscious soul or spirit of men continues on after the death of the body.

For example, Hebrews 12:23 speaks of the Heavenly Zion, the City of God. Among Zion's inhabitants are angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect." The most plain, and straightforward interpretation applies the term "spirits" to human beings during the intermediate state. Then there are the verses that speak of death as "giving up the Ghost." When Jesus died St. John describes it like this: "So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And bowing His head, He gave up His Spirit" (John 19:30). Evidently, Jesus' "spirit" refers to His Person apart from His body. Furthermore, Revelation 6:9-11 describes that famous scene of the souls of the martyrs standing under the altar. They plead to the Lord for vengeance. God tells them to be patient a little longer. Who are these beings? It seems that they are disembodied souls yearning for the resurrection at the end of time. Lastly, a teaching of Jesus seems to support dualism. He warns us: "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Mt. 10:28). In other words, when murderers kill the body, the soul remains alive.

Many more Scripture passages could be marshaled. Dozens of biblical texts envision the soul as existing separate from the earthly body at one point or another. This was the Hebrew Old Testament view as well. Christianity holds to an anthropological dualism because Scripture and Tradition support it. Yet, the Church has also held that the disembodied state is unnatural and abnormal. One of the tragedies of death is the fact that the soul is wrenched loose from the body. Yes, the souls of the elect are in a state of happiness. When you die your conscious person is transported to Paradise, a place of blessedness. Nevertheless, the condition of the disembodied soul is incomplete. This unfinished state of things means that a dualistic division of body and soul is undesirable. Anthropological dualism is no excuse to multiply dualisms in other areas of life. The perfect, holistic glory of a unified body and soul awaits the Second Coming of Christ, the Final Judgment and the General Resurrection of the body. The earth will be renewed as a Garden; Heaven and Earth will be united. At the last day all these events will occur in a cluster. They will take place one right after another in succession.

Your final destiny is to serve God in the New Heavens and New Earth with an immortal, glorified body. In body and soul, you will celebrate the Marriage Banquet of the Lamb. Come now to the Feast of the Lord. Give Him thanks for this your hope and joy. Come now to the holy sacrament and "present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."

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