Immortal or indestructible?

Greg Cavin and Jeff Lowder have raised an objection to the Resurrection. I’m reposting some comments at left over at The Secular Outpost in response to their argument:

steve hays • 2 days ago

“A Jesus made of atoms would require energy (food) to survive, move, etc.; would thus realize that he’s not immortal, etc.; would be unable to disappear from the tomb and reappear outside and to disappear in Emmaus and reappear in the Upper Room.”

Cavin is assuming that the gospel accounts attribute these abilities to the glorified body of Christ. But he offers no supporting argument to justify that inference or interpretation.

i) Leaving the tomb doesn’t require Christ to dematerialize for him to pass through solid rock. To take one alternative, Jesus could dematerialize the rock. Even before the Resurrection, the Gospels certainly grant him the power to do that.

Likewise, you could postulate some “transporter” model (a la Star Trek). This is a serious scientific hypothesis:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48087875/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.URmKxHGkAbU

I’m not arguing for that myself. Just pointing out that Cavin is ignoring alternative explanations.

ii) Becoming visible or invisible (e.g. Emmaus) doesn’t require Jesus to materialize or dematerialize. Rather, this can involve psychological perception. For instance, in 2 Kgs 6, we have a divine-inspired collective hallucination, where the enemy forces misperceive reality. We have a similar incident when Peter escapes from detention (Acts 12). The guards don’t register his escape. In both cases you have a telepathic illusion. It’s possible for an observer not to perceive something that’s actually there, as well as perceiving something that’s not really there.

iii) Appearing in the Upper Room, behind locked doors, doesn’t require Jesus to dematerialize and rematerialize. Compare that to Peter escaping from detention, where locked doors miraculous open.

steve hays • 2 days ago

“First, the resurrection body, by definition (I Cor. 15), is supposed to be imperishable (immortal, unable to age, get sick, be injured, etc.). A body composed of atoms would not have these properties, and, thus, for that reason, not be a resurrection body.”

So Cavin is recycling the same discredited argument he used in The Empty Tomb.

i) 1 Cor 15 doesn’t define a glorified body in all those terms. The defining property of a glorified body is immortality. It doesn’t grow old. It may also have greater immunity to disease.

However, that doesn’t mean a glorified body is indestructible. It doesn’t mean a glorified Christian couldn’t die from accidental causes, or snakebite, or drowning. It doesn’t mean the glorified body is fireproof. It doesn’t even mean a glorified body is impervious to fatal infection.

The biblical promise of immortality doesn’t have to pack everything into the nature of a body. Immortality can also be due to divine protection. God protecting the saints from harm. The promise of immortality can involve extrinsic conditions as well as intrinsic (bodily) conditions.

In Scripture, we have examples of God shielding individuals from harm.

“A Jesus made of atoms would require energy (food) to survive, move, etc.; would thus realize that he’s not immortal, etc.; would be unable to disappear from the tomb and reappear outside and to disappear in Emmaus and reappear in the Upper Room; would quickly realize that he could be injured; and, thus, injured and killed by old his enemies if he re-entered the city to go meet his disciples there, etc.”

i) Once again, Cavin is burning the same straw man. Immortality doesn’t mean you couldn’t starve to death or die of thirst. Rather, that would be a question of God preventing a glorified saint from starving to death by providing for his nutritional needs. We have examples of that in Scripture, even before the Eschaton.

ii) Cavin is also making unargued assumptions about how Jesus had to exit the tomb, vanish at Emmaus, or appear in the Upper Room.

There’s no reason to attribute that to properties of his body. Even before the Resurrection, Jesus performs nature miracles.

    steve hays Jeffery Jay Lowder • a day ago

    Jeffery Jay Lowder:

    “Nothing Hays has written refutes the ‘Atoms or Schmatoms?’ dilemma. Just the opposite. To say, as he does, that God would have to continually intervene on an ad hoc basis is equivalent to admitting that the Resurrection theory of itself has no explanatory power.”

    Except for the awkward little fact that I didn’t say God would have to continually intervene on an ad hoc basis. You’re assuming a particular model of how God relates to the world. If you’re going to deploy that model against my position, then you need to defend your model.

    Divine protection doesn’t require God to “continually intervene on an ad hoc basis.” Consider some models in which that’s not the case:

    i) Take a possible worlds framework. On that model, there’s a possible timeline in which a glorified saint is exposed to life-threatening dangers, as well as another possible timeline in which he avoids those dangers. God protects the glorified saint by instantiating the timeline in which he is never exposed to those hazards. That doesn’t require God to “continually intervene on an ad hoc basis.” Rather, it’s a choice between God instantiating one alternate history or another, in toto.

    ii) Or take predestination, where everything that happens or doesn’t happen is prearranged according to God’s master plan for the world. Divine protection doesn’t require God to “continually intervene on an ad hoc basis.” Given predestination, everything happens according to plan. Divine protection is part of the plan, not in spite of the plan.

BTW, (i) & (ii) aren’t mutually exclusive.

    iii) You also have Christian occasionalists like Jonathan Edwards, George Berkeley, and Arnold Geulincx who subscribe to continuous divine causation. That’s not my own position, but given that position, there’s never a moment when God isn’t active in world affairs.

    steve hays Jeffery Jay Lowder • a day ago

    Jeffery Jay Lowder

    “Nothing Hays has written refutes the ‘Atoms or Schmatoms?’ dilemma. Just the opposite. To say, as he does, that God would have to continually intervene on an ad hoc basis is equivalent to admitting that the Resurrection theory of itself has no explanatory power. We have to add in auxiliary hypotheses about God doing this and that for the post-Resurrection Jesus to get explanatory consequences.”

    i) Jeff, since you’re changing the subject, there’s nothing for me to refute. To my knowledge, Licona was invoking the explanatory power of the Resurrection to account for the empty tomb and postmortem appearances of Jesus.

    He wasn’t citing the Resurrection to explain what would happen to a glorified Christian if (ex hypothesi) he was bitten by a Taipan, eaten by a crocodile, or fell into a lava flow. And, needless to say, Paul wasn’t addressing that hypothetical question in 1 Cor 15.

    ii) Finally, there are different kinds of impossibility. It is impossible for the glorified body to die of old age. That’s a property of the glorified body.

    But glorification doesn’t prevent a saint from dying by other causes. His immunity to death in other cases isn’t a property of his body, but a result of divine protection in the world to come. His body qua body is still vulnerable to harm from external factors. He can’t be killed in the sense that God won’t permit him to die again.

    Biblical eschatology isn’t deistic. The final state doesn't confer autonomy on the saints. They don’t cease to need God’s providential care.

    steve hays Jeffery Jay Lowder • a day ago

    Jeffery Jay Lowder:

    “1 Cor 15 uses the terms ‘imperishable’ (‘incorruptible’)/‘imperishability’ (‘incorruptibility’). Contrary to Hays, these are the terms it uses to define the Resurrection body. It does also use immortality, but this is in context a subpoint under ‘imperishably.’ That is Paul’s most general category. Clearly, imperishably and immortality are not the same. As the movie Death Becomes Her makes us humorously aware, one can be immortal and not imperishable…How Hays can say that ‘immortality’ is the defining category for Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 is beyond me.”

    Jeff, you need to learn how to exegete your prooftext. That means knowing something about idiomatic Greek usage, as well as the flow of argument.

    i) 1 Cor 15:42 is picking up on 15:21-22, where Paul draws a basic contrast between death and resurrection.

    ii) It also picks up on Paul’s agricultural metaphor, where a seed must “die” (v36) before it can germinate to produce new life.

    iii) “Corruption” has reference to the decomposition or putrefaction of a corpse. Cf. BDAG, 1055a. “Incorruption” is simply the antonym, formed in Greek by the alpha privative.

    iv)

 “The expression translated ‘perishable’ is literally ‘in corruption/decay,’ and the expression translated ‘imperishable’ is literally ‘in incorruptibility/immortality’…The word translated ‘imperishable’ entails the negation of corruptibility and as such was also a common word for immortality, although the more literal word for immortality will feature along with this word in the climactic vv53-54,” Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, The First Letter to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans; Nottingham: Apollos, 2010), 811-13. 

So the word in question is a period synonym for “immortality.” Ciampa and Rosner also point out Paul’s use of the cognate in Acts 13:35-37.

Back to Lowder:

    “Clearly, immortality is a curse if one will still age and can get sick and injured. How Hays can say that ‘immortality’ is the defining category for Resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 is beyond me. The text says it (the body) is sown in weakness, dishonor, corruption, but is raised in glory, power, and incorruption. The idea that a resurrected believer could die again, e.g., have a fatal accident, is laughable.”

    i) Nice bait-n-switch as you commit a modal fallacy by illicitly shifting from “will” to “could,” as if those are interchangeable concepts.

    Paul isn’t saying the glorified body is indestructible. Rather, he’s saying it is no longer an aging, dying body. He isn’t saying glorified flesh is made of stainless steel or asbestos.

    Yes, there are hypothetical situations in which the body of a glorified saint would be vulnerable to injury or death. What makes his death impossible is not a Superman body, but divine protection.

    ii) “Power” is not a property of the glorified body. “Raised in power” is a divine passive. It refers to the power of God in raising the dead to life.

    We could talk about the meaning of “honor” and “glory” in this passage, but that’s irrelevant to Cavin’s claim and yours regarding the alleged metaphysical immunity of the glorified body to all possible harm.

    “Indeed, this is the essence of the point made by Christian theologians and apologists in distinguishing mere resuscitation (e.g., what happened to Lazarus) from genuine Resurrection (what happened to Jesus and Paul says will happen to all Christians).”

    Since my exposition is completely consistent with that distinction, your citation is a red herring.

    “Nothing Hays has written refutes the ‘Atoms or Schmatoms’ dilemma. Just the opposite.”

    You and Cavin are basing your argument on your greenhorn mangling of 1 Cor 15. So, yes, that refutes a premise of your argument.

    “To say, as he does, that God would have to continually intervene on an ad hoc basis is equivalent to admitting that the Resurrection theory of itself has no explanatory power.”

    Jeff, you need to get a grip on yourself. You’re imposing a Humean grid on the discussion. But divine protection is no more a case of “ad hoc interventions” than a novelist scripting everything a character says and does. According to Biblical providence, divine agency is pervasive. God is always the main actor in human drama. Sometimes offstage, sometimes onstage.

    “We have to add in auxiliary hypotheses about God doing this and that for the post-Resurrection Jesus to get explanatory consequences.”

    Since the post-Resurrection Jesus is omnipotent in his own right (as the Incarnate Son of God), he doesn’t need the Father to protect him.

steve hays Jeffery Jay Lowder • a day ago

Jeffery Jay Lowder:

“Atoms are destructible; resurrection bodies (somata pneumatika) are not.”

Jeff, when Paul talks about a “spiritual body” in 1 Cor 15, the adjective (“spiritual”) is not a property of the glorified body, but a shorthand descriptor for the agency of the Holy Spirit in glorification–as scholars like Wright, Rosner, and Ciampa have documented. “Spiritual” doesn’t refer to the composition of the glorified body. Rather, that's an allusion to the Holy Spirit.

“If he was composed of atoms, then he was, at best, resuscitated, not resurrected.”

That’s a fallacious inference. That isn’t logical or exegetical.

“The fact is, we have no experience of those who have returned to life again after death and so we have no way of knowing what they would do.”

i) That begs the question.

ii) Moreover, we don’t have to speculate. We have NT statements about the postmortem abilities, intentions, and psychology of Jesus.

You and Cavin don’t believe those statements, but that’s beside the point inasmuch as you and Cavin appear to be attacking the position on internal grounds.