I think so, because I think it's intrinsically dangerous to leave truth behind in favor of anything else, no matter how how-minded the motive. It's bound to bite you in the ass at some point, usually all unexpectedly.
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven. At that point:
--- do you have all your memories from your life? (Or any of them?)
--- do you have the same assorted emotional relationships with others you had while alive?
--- do you have the same personality traits (some of which are called masculine and others feminine)?
--- do you still identify yourself as adhering to whatever religion you had while alive? (Or has that become irrelevant?)
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
This doesn't sound like the kind of truth that sets people free.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Here, Chastmastr and I are both referring to truth in general for the moment, not to the specific concerns of this thread, through of course they are included in truth (once y'all figure out what the truth of them actually is).
The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions. And generally it will do more damage than if you hadn't tried in the first place. This is why, for example, when I have some doubt about my faith, I go digging to find out what the truth is, as thoroughly as I can, right away. The foundation needs to be solid. If I leave cracks in it, or things that might or might not be cracks, I'm asking for future trouble in whatever I build on it.
I think you are concerned for the question of what exactly is gender in human beings, and whether it is changeable, etc. Surely the best thing to do would be to dig as deep as you can on the question and find the best, most truthful answer you can identify, and THEN make decisions based on that--right? Which is not to say that everyone is going to agree on what is truth given such a topic. There are plenty of topics like that, where decisive evidence is difficult or impossible to get. But we should at least do the work, each one of us, for our own sake, so we can be comfortable that our final choices and decisions rest on a good foundation.
Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding your concern?
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
This doesn't sound like the kind of truth that sets people free.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Here, Chastmastr and I are both referring to truth in general for the moment, not to the specific concerns of this thread, through of course they are included in truth (once y'all figure out what the truth of them actually is).
The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions. And generally it will do more damage than if you hadn't tried in the first place. This is why, for example, when I have some doubt about my faith, I go digging to find out what the truth is, as thoroughly as I can, right away. The foundation needs to be solid. If I leave cracks in it, or things that might or might not be cracks, I'm asking for future trouble in whatever I build on it.
I think you are concerned for the question of what exactly is gender in human beings, and whether it is changeable, etc. Surely the best thing to do would be to dig as deep as you can on the question and find the best, most truthful answer you can identify, and THEN make decisions based on that--right? Which is not to say that everyone is going to agree on what is truth given such a topic. There are plenty of topics like that, where decisive evidence is difficult or impossible to get. But we should at least do the work, each one of us, for our own sake, so we can be comfortable that our final choices and decisions rest on a good foundation.
Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding your concern?
I agree with much of this with one caveat—re “The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions”—I believe another extremely important reason to want truth above anything else is because it’s truth, for its own sake—intellectual honesty, not solely because of later effects it might have.
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not explicitly in any creeds I know of.
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
As far as I can see, the person is the thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions.
Can disembodied souls see or hear? If so, why can blind and deaf people not see or hear using their souls' faculties to do so? Why can brain damage fundamentally change a person's personality? It all points to "souls" being the functioning of our brains to me.
This doesn't sound like the kind of truth that sets people free.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Here, Chastmastr and I are both referring to truth in general for the moment, not to the specific concerns of this thread, through of course they are included in truth (once y'all figure out what the truth of them actually is).
The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions. And generally it will do more damage than if you hadn't tried in the first place. This is why, for example, when I have some doubt about my faith, I go digging to find out what the truth is, as thoroughly as I can, right away. The foundation needs to be solid. If I leave cracks in it, or things that might or might not be cracks, I'm asking for future trouble in whatever I build on it.
I think you are concerned for the question of what exactly is gender in human beings, and whether it is changeable, etc. Surely the best thing to do would be to dig as deep as you can on the question and find the best, most truthful answer you can identify, and THEN make decisions based on that--right? Which is not to say that everyone is going to agree on what is truth given such a topic. There are plenty of topics like that, where decisive evidence is difficult or impossible to get. But we should at least do the work, each one of us, for our own sake, so we can be comfortable that our final choices and decisions rest on a good foundation.
Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding your concern?
I agree with much of this with one caveat—re “The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions”—I believe another extremely important reason to want truth above anything else is because it’s truth, for its own sake—intellectual honesty, not solely because of later effects it might have.
Surely.
I agree with you.
But I was framing my answer for those who have pressing concerns that at the moment are leading them to think something else as of greater intrinsic value than truth itself. And so I went for the pragmatic.
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not explicitly in any creeds I know of.
And all of the references to the dead still being around in some sense in both Scripture and the oldest Christian traditions?
(Even in the Creeds we do have Jesus descending into Hell/to the dead, and that we look for the Resurrection and the life of the world to come, actually. Unless you believe he descended somewhere which was empty?)
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
As far as I can see, the person is the thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions.
Can disembodied souls see or hear? If so, why can blind and deaf people not see or hear using their souls' faculties to do so? Why can brain damage fundamentally change a person's personality? It all points to "souls" being the functioning of our brains to me.
I think that "thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions" are all attributes of our beings, though much are bodily, how much are spiritual, and how much are a combination of the two, I do not know. Apart from anything strictly stemming from free will, you could just copy those things ("thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions") but that still wouldn't be the person.
However the senses of disembodied souls work, or even what they involve, I don't know.
If you believe souls are just "the functioning of our brains," then do you believe Jesus will just reassemble them or something? (I don't actually know the details about your faith, technically--when I talk about souls, I'm mainly talking about them in a Christian, or at least supernaturalist, context, myself.)
This doesn't sound like the kind of truth that sets people free.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Here, Chastmastr and I are both referring to truth in general for the moment, not to the specific concerns of this thread, through of course they are included in truth (once y'all figure out what the truth of them actually is).
The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions. And generally it will do more damage than if you hadn't tried in the first place. This is why, for example, when I have some doubt about my faith, I go digging to find out what the truth is, as thoroughly as I can, right away. The foundation needs to be solid. If I leave cracks in it, or things that might or might not be cracks, I'm asking for future trouble in whatever I build on it.
I think you are concerned for the question of what exactly is gender in human beings, and whether it is changeable, etc. Surely the best thing to do would be to dig as deep as you can on the question and find the best, most truthful answer you can identify, and THEN make decisions based on that--right? Which is not to say that everyone is going to agree on what is truth given such a topic. There are plenty of topics like that, where decisive evidence is difficult or impossible to get. But we should at least do the work, each one of us, for our own sake, so we can be comfortable that our final choices and decisions rest on a good foundation.
Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding your concern?
I agree with much of this with one caveat—re “The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions”—I believe another extremely important reason to want truth above anything else is because it’s truth, for its own sake—intellectual honesty, not solely because of later effects it might have.
Surely.
I agree with you.
But I was framing my answer for those who have pressing concerns that at the moment are leading them to think something else as of greater intrinsic value than truth itself. And so I went for the pragmatic.
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not explicitly in any creeds I know of.
And all of the references to the dead still being around in some sense in both Scripture and the oldest Christian traditions?
(Even in the Creeds we do have Jesus descending into Hell/to the dead, and that we look for the Resurrection and the life of the world to come, actually. Unless you believe he descended somewhere which was empty?)
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
As far as I can see, the person is the thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions.
Can disembodied souls see or hear? If so, why can blind and deaf people not see or hear using their souls' faculties to do so? Why can brain damage fundamentally change a person's personality? It all points to "souls" being the functioning of our brains to me.
I think that "thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions" are all attributes of our beings, though much are bodily, how much are spiritual, and how much are a combination of the two, I do not know. Apart from anything strictly stemming from free will, you could just copy those things ("thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions") but that still wouldn't be the person.
However the senses of disembodied souls work, or even what they involve, I don't know.
If you believe souls are just "the functioning of our brains," then do you believe Jesus will just reassemble them or something? (I don't actually know the details about your faith, technically--when I talk about souls, I'm mainly talking about them in a Christian, or at least supernaturalist, context, myself.)
Wouldn't the "Resurrection of the body" entail "reassembling" our brains in some sense? Unless we will be brainless in eternity.
If the dead are still around in any sense, to my mind it's in the sense that eternity is not a thing that happens after our current spacetime ends but rather a wider reality in which our spacetime exists.
Disembodied souls that carry our personality don't work for me. I wonder why we have brains at all - we just need a meat suit for the soul to control. Any brain in that would just be a thing that converted the soul's directions into physical actions for the meatsuit but we know that different bits of the brain light up when we experience memories, thoughts, emotions, intentions - anything really, which implies to me that this is where those things are happening - especially considering that if those areas are damaged our ability to experience is impaired.
I don't really rate Plato myself, but famously he talked about the divided soul (Logos, thymos and eros) but seemed to (me, I might have misunderstood) distinguish this from the immortal psyche (essence) which lives on when a person dies. I don't think Plato's explanation involved a/the body, I'm not entirely sure.
Again, I could be wrong as I'm not really too keen to think about Plato in more depth than I have already, however it seems like he thinks that humans have something that animates the living person and something of that animation survives death.
It feels like Christians for a long time had something of a taboo about bodies, in the sense that they thought that in the afterlife the dead person's body would literally be reanimated. Hence the need to bury, being against cremation and even burning heretics. No body presumably meaning no resurrection.
On the "creeds", don't they specifically mention the resurrection of the body? Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought I'd heard people saying that.
This doesn't sound like the kind of truth that sets people free.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Here, Chastmastr and I are both referring to truth in general for the moment, not to the specific concerns of this thread, through of course they are included in truth (once y'all figure out what the truth of them actually is).
The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions. And generally it will do more damage than if you hadn't tried in the first place. This is why, for example, when I have some doubt about my faith, I go digging to find out what the truth is, as thoroughly as I can, right away. The foundation needs to be solid. If I leave cracks in it, or things that might or might not be cracks, I'm asking for future trouble in whatever I build on it.
I think you are concerned for the question of what exactly is gender in human beings, and whether it is changeable, etc. Surely the best thing to do would be to dig as deep as you can on the question and find the best, most truthful answer you can identify, and THEN make decisions based on that--right? Which is not to say that everyone is going to agree on what is truth given such a topic. There are plenty of topics like that, where decisive evidence is difficult or impossible to get. But we should at least do the work, each one of us, for our own sake, so we can be comfortable that our final choices and decisions rest on a good foundation.
Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding your concern?
In the framing of the metaphor, it sounds like you are more concerned about the foundation than the edifice that you build on it. Building a harmful and unaccepting edifice on a strong and stable foundation still results in a harmful and unaccepting edifice.
I agree with much of this with one caveat—re “The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions”—I believe another extremely important reason to want truth above anything else is because it’s truth, for its own sake—intellectual honesty, not solely because of later effects it might have.
I find the argument of intellectual honesty more personally compelling, but I am also increasingly aware of the harm done to others as a result of my desire to prioritise my intellectual honesty.
I was also thinking about this concept of a edifice built on a false idea crashing down.
Other ideas exist on this topic. In what sense have they crashed down? I don't understand what this means.
False ideas rarely crash down. From a position standing on an idea which has been built on other ideas over thousands of years (to badly mangle the metaphor) I'm not sure it makes any difference what the original foundations were.
Disembodied souls that carry our personality don't work for me.
As I understand it, that didn’t work for those who wrote the Hebrew Scriptures either, at least not before the Babylonian exile. They had a view in which body and soul (nephesh) were inseparable. As I understand it, it was Persian and Greek influence that brought in the idea of the soul that can exist without the body.
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
I think there’s more to it than just life force, though I stand to be corrected, But my understanding is that it’s the “breath” + the body that make a person—one without the other is not a person.
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not explicitly in any creeds I know of.
And all of the references to the dead still being around in some sense in both Scripture and the oldest Christian traditions?
(Even in the Creeds we do have Jesus descending into Hell/to the dead, and that we look for the Resurrection and the life of the world to come, actually. Unless you believe he descended somewhere which was empty?)
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
As far as I can see, the person is the thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions.
Can disembodied souls see or hear? If so, why can blind and deaf people not see or hear using their souls' faculties to do so? Why can brain damage fundamentally change a person's personality? It all points to "souls" being the functioning of our brains to me.
I think that "thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions" are all attributes of our beings, though much are bodily, how much are spiritual, and how much are a combination of the two, I do not know. Apart from anything strictly stemming from free will, you could just copy those things ("thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions") but that still wouldn't be the person.
However the senses of disembodied souls work, or even what they involve, I don't know.
If you believe souls are just "the functioning of our brains," then do you believe Jesus will just reassemble them or something? (I don't actually know the details about your faith, technically--when I talk about souls, I'm mainly talking about them in a Christian, or at least supernaturalist, context, myself.)
Wouldn't the "Resurrection of the body" entail "reassembling" our brains in some sense? Unless we will be brainless in eternity.
If the dead are still around in any sense, to my mind it's in the sense that eternity is not a thing that happens after our current spacetime ends but rather a wider reality in which our spacetime exists.
Disembodied souls that carry our personality don't work for me. I wonder why we have brains at all - we just need a meat suit for the soul to control. Any brain in that would just be a thing that converted the soul's directions into physical actions for the meatsuit but we know that different bits of the brain light up when we experience memories, thoughts, emotions, intentions - anything really, which implies to me that this is where those things are happening - especially considering that if those areas are damaged our ability to experience is impaired.
I presume that our brains are indeed going to be resurrected along with the rest of our bodies, yes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have souls, actual spiritual essences, separable from the body but ultimately meant to be conjoined to a body.
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
I think there’s more to it than just life force, though I stand to be corrected, But my understanding is that it’s the “breath” + the body that make a person—one without the other is not a person.
Not a whole person, anyway. I don’t think that our souls lack personhood.
Disembodied souls that carry our personality don't work for me.
As I understand it, that didn’t work for those who wrote the Hebrew Scriptures either, at least not before the Babylonian exile. They had a view in which body and soul (nephesh) were inseparable. As I understand it, it was Persian and Greek influence that brought in the idea of the soul that can exist without the body.
Well, if they got that particular truth from that source, good. (Of course there are references to the shade of Saul and the like as well…)
I don't really rate Plato myself, but famously he talked about the divided soul (Logos, thymos and eros) but seemed to (me, I might have misunderstood) distinguish this from the immortal psyche (essence) which lives on when a person dies. I don't think Plato's explanation involved a/the body, I'm not entirely sure.
Again, I could be wrong as I'm not really too keen to think about Plato in more depth than I have already, however it seems like he thinks that humans have something that animates the living person and something of that animation survives death.
It feels like Christians for a long time had something of a taboo about bodies, in the sense that they thought that in the afterlife the dead person's body would literally be reanimated. Hence the need to bury, being against cremation and even burning heretics. No body presumably meaning no resurrection.
On the "creeds", don't they specifically mention the resurrection of the body? Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought I'd heard people saying that.
Well yes they do of course mention the resurrection of the body. You’re not misremembering at all.
Re: “No body presumably meaning no resurrection.” Er, no. That’s never been a Christian doctrine that I’ve ever heard. That would mean everyone who’s ever died in a fire, or even the actual named saints who were martyred by burning, could never be resurrected. God’s able to resurrect us no matter what has happened to our bodies.
He is and he always has been. Though it wouldn’t surprise me to know that some people in ignorance might have thought otherwise, in some place or another of the many many places the Christian faith has reached.
One problem with this thread is that we don't have an agreed-upon definition of "soul".
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven.
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not explicitly in any creeds I know of.
And all of the references to the dead still being around in some sense in both Scripture and the oldest Christian traditions?
(Even in the Creeds we do have Jesus descending into Hell/to the dead, and that we look for the Resurrection and the life of the world to come, actually. Unless you believe he descended somewhere which was empty?)
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
As far as I can see, the person is the thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions.
Can disembodied souls see or hear? If so, why can blind and deaf people not see or hear using their souls' faculties to do so? Why can brain damage fundamentally change a person's personality? It all points to "souls" being the functioning of our brains to me.
I think that "thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions" are all attributes of our beings, though much are bodily, how much are spiritual, and how much are a combination of the two, I do not know. Apart from anything strictly stemming from free will, you could just copy those things ("thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions") but that still wouldn't be the person.
However the senses of disembodied souls work, or even what they involve, I don't know.
If you believe souls are just "the functioning of our brains," then do you believe Jesus will just reassemble them or something? (I don't actually know the details about your faith, technically--when I talk about souls, I'm mainly talking about them in a Christian, or at least supernaturalist, context, myself.)
Wouldn't the "Resurrection of the body" entail "reassembling" our brains in some sense? Unless we will be brainless in eternity.
If the dead are still around in any sense, to my mind it's in the sense that eternity is not a thing that happens after our current spacetime ends but rather a wider reality in which our spacetime exists.
Disembodied souls that carry our personality don't work for me. I wonder why we have brains at all - we just need a meat suit for the soul to control. Any brain in that would just be a thing that converted the soul's directions into physical actions for the meatsuit but we know that different bits of the brain light up when we experience memories, thoughts, emotions, intentions - anything really, which implies to me that this is where those things are happening - especially considering that if those areas are damaged our ability to experience is impaired.
I presume that our brains are indeed going to be resurrected along with the rest of our bodies, yes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have souls, actual spiritual essences, separable from the body but ultimately meant to be conjoined to a body.
That was Thomas Aquinas' view. According to his hylomorphism (form and matter), the soul is the form of the body and has immaterial aspects (e.g. the intellect and will) which are capable of surviving the body, but are incomplete and not capable of full personhood without it.
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
I think there’s more to it than just life force, though I stand to be corrected, But my understanding is that it’s the “breath” + the body that make a person—one without the other is not a person.
Not a whole person, anyway. I don’t think that our souls lack personhood.
Yes, but what I was trying to get at is what the ancient Hebrews thought, not what (many) Christians today think. And it’s my understanding that the ancient Hebrews thought that neither a body without nephesh nor nephesh without a body were persons. Again, if I’m wrong about that, I hope someone who knows better will say so.
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
I think there’s more to it than just life force, though I stand to be corrected, But my understanding is that it’s the “breath” + the body that make a person—one without the other is not a person.
Not a whole person, anyway. I don’t think that our souls lack personhood.
Yes, but what I was trying to get at is what the ancient Hebrews thought, not what (many) Christians today think. And it’s my understanding that the ancient Hebrews thought that neither a body without nephesh nor nephesh without a body were persons. Again, if I’m wrong about that, I hope someone who knows better will say so.
This may depend on what you mean here by "persons." Like if it were possible to annihilate (which I do not believe, but for the sake of argument) a human soul, it would be wrong to because they are a person--worse than murder. They aren't a full human being in that state, but I'd say they're still a person of a sort. (So too would be an angel (good or bad), faerie, or other non-corporeal entity--of course, despite being incorporeal to us already, some beings may have their own souls rather than being pure spirit, as angels are held to be--and of course some of us believe in animal souls and more...)
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
I think there’s more to it than just life force, though I stand to be corrected, But my understanding is that it’s the “breath” + the body that make a person—one without the other is not a person.
Not a whole person, anyway. I don’t think that our souls lack personhood.
Yes, but what I was trying to get at is what the ancient Hebrews thought, not what (many) Christians today think. And it’s my understanding that the ancient Hebrews thought that neither a body without nephesh nor nephesh without a body were persons. Again, if I’m wrong about that, I hope someone who knows better will say so.
This may depend on what you mean here by "persons."
The question for what I was trying to get at, I think, is what the ancient Hebrews meant by “person,” “soul,” nephesh and the like. That is my point—much of the Hebrew Scriptures operate from an understanding/belief that is quite different from the modern understanding of (many) Christians, and modern understandings simply don’t map neatly onto those ancient understandings.
It’s not a question of whether you or I think, say, that annihilation of a human soul is possible or wrong, or whether animals have souls. The question is what did those who wrote Genesis or Job or Ezekiel think? Not how do we interpret those writings through the lens of our understandings, but what was their understanding?
My impression is that in the Hebrew Scriptures something - the breath - is separable from the body at death but it's more the life force than anything with a personality.
I think there’s more to it than just life force, though I stand to be corrected, But my understanding is that it’s the “breath” + the body that make a person—one without the other is not a person.
Not a whole person, anyway. I don’t think that our souls lack personhood.
Yes, but what I was trying to get at is what the ancient Hebrews thought, not what (many) Christians today think. And it’s my understanding that the ancient Hebrews thought that neither a body without nephesh nor nephesh without a body were persons. Again, if I’m wrong about that, I hope someone who knows better will say so.
This may depend on what you mean here by "persons."
The question for what I was trying to get at, I think, is what the ancient Hebrews meant by “person,” “soul,” nephesh and the like. That is my point—much of the Hebrew Scriptures operate from an understanding/belief that is quite different from the modern understanding of (many) Christians, and modern understandings simply don’t map neatly onto those ancient understandings.
It’s not a question of whether you or I think, say, that annihilation of a human soul is possible or wrong, or whether animals have souls. The question is what did those who wrote Genesis or Job or Ezekiel think? Not how do we interpret those writings through the lens of our understandings, but what was their understanding?
My apologies—I’m thinking in terms of what Christians believe to be true, though how that differs from the ancient Hebrews can be interesting both in itself historically, and also in terms of God’s unfolding revelation. Lewis considers it significant that their focus was not on the afterlife as a carrot or stick, just obedience to God because He is God.
So just to clarify, @ChastMastr is expressing the general understanding, being that Christians accept that the body will biodegrade/burn/whatever into constituent parts, so then the bible, creeds etc talk about "bodily resurrection", it isn't talking about the body as we know it when alive but something else. But it must be a body and therefore it must have a gender, because a person isn't a person unless they have a body and mind and spirit.
Is that correct? Is this the general understanding?
If so, does this afterlife body have a spirit? If so, why? If not, why are we talking about the spirit?
So just to clarify, @ChastMastr is expressing the general understanding, being that Christians accept that the body will biodegrade/burn/whatever into constituent parts, so then the bible, creeds etc talk about "bodily resurrection", it isn't talking about the body as we know it when alive but something else. But it must be a body and therefore it must have a gender, because a person isn't a person unless they have a body and mind and spirit.
Is that correct? Is this the general understanding?
If so, does this afterlife body have a spirit? If so, why? If not, why are we talking about the spirit?
As I understand it, yes, after we’re resurrected, we will have our bodies and spirits together. I’m not sure what you mean by “if so, why?” As opposed to what? It’s traditionally understood by all little-o orthodox churches (Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) that the soul leaves the body at death, and that (at very least) the souls of Christians go to a blessed state with Christ (which may or may not include Purgatory as part of this) until the general resurrection, at which point all the dead are raised with new bodies.
So the soul is released and enters another body..? What do you see is the difference between soul and spirit?
Generally I use the words interchangeably, at least when referring to the incorporeal essence of a human being. Mostly I say “soul” for that, though perhaps “spirit” or “ghost” if it’s disembodied. (“Ghost” if it’s here on Earth after death. I don’t think I’d use the word “ghost” to describe those in Heaven. And that doesn’t even get into the deceased saints!)
So I’d probably say “my soul,” “the souls in Heaven,” etc.
“Bob’s ghost/spirit is haunting this house.”
“John’s soul/spirit is in Heaven.” I’d say soul more than spirit but it’s not a hard and fast thing.
Not to mention “spirit” as referring to beings that have never had a body, like angels (good and fallen) and probably other things, depending.
Can I ask if you were raised in a religious tradition? I take for granted that at least the matter of human souls, the resurrection, and such are kind of standard knowledge in most churches. (I came to my own faith kind of on my own—it’s a long story.)
The difficulty for me is that you are stating things as fact that seem to be in dispute. I'd be interested to read something about the difference between ancient beliefs and current Christian theologies and to hear other views on these topics.
The difficulty for me is that you are stating things as fact that seem to be in dispute. I'd be interested to read something about the difference between ancient beliefs and current Christian theologies and to hear other views on these topics.
I’m stating what I know of Christian theology both ancient and current. (This doesn’t itself mean my beliefs are right, of course.) If I’m mistaken on this, I welcome correction. The notion of a separable soul that is reunited with a resurrected body in the new creation, at the end of this world and the start of the new one, seems to me to go all the way back, within orthodox (little o) Christian belief—even within the New Testament. Ancient Israelites from various eras may not have believed that, but I’m specifically talking about Christianity, and orthodox Christianity specifically.
(Any other views on this, please speak up?)
I suppose I’m wondering—it sounds like you’re not familiar with these doctrines, so I’m wondering if they’re genuinely unfamiliar to you. If you don’t want to say, that’s fine.
I discover that I know less and less about Christian doctrines the more I look into them. The more I look the less sense they make.
For clarity, I'm not disputing your own beliefs, @ChastMastr. I'm really just asking "citation needed" when you state that what you believe on the topic is what all Christians have believed about it forever. Because there seems to be a fair amount of dispute.
Whether that means that you are correct that the different churches all accept the concepts you've described here, I really can't tell.
I discover that I know less and less about Christian doctrines the more I look into them. The more I look the less sense they make.
For clarity, I'm not disputing your own beliefs, @ChastMastr. I'm really just asking "citation needed" when you state that what you believe on the topic is what all Christians have believed about it forever. Because there seems to be a fair amount of dispute.
Whether that means that you are correct that the different churches all accept the concepts you've described here, I really can't tell.
As for this, as I consider this to be pretty basic common knowledge about what the (little-o orthodox) Christian Church teaches and has taught, other than Googling for reputable sources, I’m not sure what to tell you. I’m not aware of any orthodox (general Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox) church that teaches otherwise, nor has ever done so. Some believe in Purgatory (or the rapture or pre/ post/ amillennialism, etc.), some don’t, but if you ask any of these what their church teaches, what Christianity has traditionally taught, I’m confident that they will at least be in agreement on these matters of a separable soul that leaves the body at death, does not cease to exist at death, goes on to some sort of afterlife (and to be with Christ, for those who are Christians at very least), and will be raised on “The Last Day” with new incorruptible bodies. I think if you ask traditional Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, RCs, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, and many, many others—the mainstream churches, not Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian Scientists or Mormons or the like—you will get a triumphant monotony of the same basic concepts in at least this matter, over and over again. They may disagree about faith and works, or about Purgatory, or about devotions to saints, but not about this. You may get churchgoers who don’t adhere to these things, but if you ask what the traditional doctrines of their church are on them, and they go look them up or ask their clergy, then I believe they will, despite other issues, have the same basic doctrines of a soul that “keeps going” after our bodies die, goes off to be with Jesus if we have faith in Him, and will be raised again when He comes back. Even clergy who don’t believe anymore in these things (Bishop Spong (RIP) from my own Episcopal church, for example), they’ll still know what their church traditionally taught.
PS One source (a Wikipedia article) suggests that Martin Luther considered the immortality of the soul to be just an RC belief, but currently, according to Wikipedia,
Lutherans teach that, at death, the souls of Christians are immediately taken into the presence of Jesus,[161] where they await the second coming of Jesus on the last day.[162] On the last day,[163] all the bodies of the dead will be resurrected.[164]
Their souls will then be reunited with the same bodies they had before dying.[165] The bodies will then be changed, those of the wicked to a state of everlasting shame and torment,[166] those of the righteous to an everlasting state of celestial glory.[167]
I think there's a difference there then. There's a difference between receiving the existing body (somehow reanimated from the grave, presumably the gender of birth) and some kind of shiny new ideal body. The latter makes some sense, the former makes no sense.
I don't really understand why one would need the body in the afterlife, but that's probably just me.
The Bible (in both Old and New Testaments) seems to envisage the human person as body, soul, and spirit.
The Hebrew word (nephesh) translated as soul is also used of animals tending towards the ‘life’ part of its semantic field. The Greek word (psyche) translated as soul is also, like the Hebrew word, used where it is rendered into English as ‘life’.
This isn’t exactly answering the question in the OP, but I love this passage from a wedding sermon (!) preached by John Donne
Where be all the splinters of that bone, which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the air? Where be all the atoms of that flesh, which a corrosive hath eat away, or a consumption hath breathed, and exhaled away from our arms, and other limbs? In what wrinkle, in what furrow, in what bowel of the earth, lie all the grains of the ashes of a body burnt a thousand years since? In what corner, in what ventricle of the sea, lies all the jelly of a body drowned in the general flood? what coherence, what sympathy, what dependence maintains any relation, any correspondence, between that arm which was lost in Europe, and that leg, that was lost in Africa or Asia, scores of years between? One humour of our dead body produces worms, and those worms suck and exhaust all other humour, and then all dies, and all dries, and moulders into dust, and that dust is blown into the river, and that puddled water tumbled into the sea, and that ebbs and flows in infinite revolutions, and still, still God knows in what cabinet every seed-pearl lies, in what part of the world every grain of every man's dust lies; and sibilat populum suum, (as his prophet speaks in another case4) he whispers, he hisses, he beckons for the bodies of his saints, and in the twinkling of an eye, that body that was scattered over all the elements, is sat down at[ the right hand of God, in a glorious resurrection.
I think there's a difference there then. There's a difference between receiving the existing body (somehow reanimated from the grave, presumably the gender of birth) and some kind of shiny new ideal body. The latter makes some sense, the former makes no sense.
I don't really understand why one would need the body in the afterlife, but that's probably just me.
I think it's because we're looking forward (Christians, I mean) to a new heaven and new earth--basically a new cosmos--and bodies are totally sensible if the new cosmos is partly matter.
AS for the two options you mention (existing body vs. shiny new one), I think the Biblical view lies sort of in-between. Not that we get back every single atom that was once ours, but also not that there is a disconnect between my body now and my body then.
and this isn't completely unreasonable, since there are probably few atoms in common between my three-year-old body back then and my 58-year-old body now. And yet it's still me...
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says that the body is sown a physical body and raised a spiritual body. Now there's some wriggle room there about the degree of continuity between the corpse and the body post-resurrection, but subsequent Christian theologians have found playing down the continuity much more problematic than overstating the continuity.
What the soul is doing in between death and resurrection - whether it is conscious or not - has been much more open to debate.
I think there's a difference there then. There's a difference between receiving the existing body (somehow reanimated from the grave, presumably the gender of birth) and some kind of shiny new ideal body. The latter makes some sense, the former makes no sense.
I don't really understand why one would need the body in the afterlife, but that's probably just me.
I think it's because we're looking forward (Christians, I mean) to a new heaven and new earth--basically a new cosmos--and bodies are totally sensible if the new cosmos is partly matter.
AS for the two options you mention (existing body vs. shiny new one), I think the Biblical view lies sort of in-between. Not that we get back every single atom that was once ours, but also not that there is a disconnect between my body now and my body then.
and this isn't completely unreasonable, since there are probably few atoms in common between my three-year-old body back then and my 58-year-old body now. And yet it's still me...
This.
As far as “needing” the body in the afterlife, bodies and matter are good things.
The Bible (in both Old and New Testaments) seems to envisage the human person as body, soul, and spirit.
The Bible uses words that are variously translated as 'soul' or 'spirit' but doesn't clearly distinguish between the two, and afaict both Catholicism and much of Protestantism follow this in either holding to a bipartite view or not having a fully orbed tripartite view.
I think the distinction is clearer than you suggest. Hebrew uses nephesh, translated as ‘soul’ or ‘life’, and ruach translated as ‘spirit’ or ‘breath’. Greek uses psyche translated as ‘soul’ or ‘life’ and ‘pneuma’ translated as ‘spirit’ or ‘breath’. I don’t think in either language there is a confusion between the two, nor any wide use of other terms.
The difficulty for me is that you are stating things as fact that seem to be in dispute. I'd be interested to read something about the difference between ancient beliefs and current Christian theologies and to hear other views on these topics.
Ancient beliefs around the soul were quite nebulous and not frequently developed in a systematic fashion. Ancient Christian thinkers that I'm aware of, off the top of my head, that addressed the soul include Augustine in On the Trinity and the Enchiridion; Irenaeus in On the Apostolic Preaching; Origen in First Principles; and the Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa especially On the Human Image of God, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzus). None of these are systematic, though.
Part of the problem is that Neoplatonism was assumed by many early Christian thinkers, and so they evidently didn't feel the need to explain it all. There are several quite good books on the development of Neoplatonism and its influence on Christian thinking. Maruo Bonazzi's Neoplatonism is recent and quite good for an overview. The theologian Hans Boersma is pretty good at elucidating the idea of the soul in his recent work, see in particular his Heavenly Participation.
Comments
As Christians, we may agree that when you die, your soul will (we hope) ascend to heaven. At that point:
--- do you have all your memories from your life? (Or any of them?)
--- do you have the same assorted emotional relationships with others you had while alive?
--- do you have the same personality traits (some of which are called masculine and others feminine)?
--- do you still identify yourself as adhering to whatever religion you had while alive? (Or has that become irrelevant?)
I think you're already assuming too much.
"Soul" just seems like another word for "mind" to me - thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain. Not a thing that can exist on its own, any more than a computer program can run with no hardware to run on.
This is, I think, why Christianity talks about resurrection, not survival of death as some kind of ghost.
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Here, Chastmastr and I are both referring to truth in general for the moment, not to the specific concerns of this thread, through of course they are included in truth (once y'all figure out what the truth of them actually is).
The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions. And generally it will do more damage than if you hadn't tried in the first place. This is why, for example, when I have some doubt about my faith, I go digging to find out what the truth is, as thoroughly as I can, right away. The foundation needs to be solid. If I leave cracks in it, or things that might or might not be cracks, I'm asking for future trouble in whatever I build on it.
I think you are concerned for the question of what exactly is gender in human beings, and whether it is changeable, etc. Surely the best thing to do would be to dig as deep as you can on the question and find the best, most truthful answer you can identify, and THEN make decisions based on that--right? Which is not to say that everyone is going to agree on what is truth given such a topic. There are plenty of topics like that, where decisive evidence is difficult or impossible to get. But we should at least do the work, each one of us, for our own sake, so we can be comfortable that our final choices and decisions rest on a good foundation.
Does that make sense? Or am I misunderstanding your concern?
But in Christian theology, it does survive the body even though it is ultimately meant to be reunited with the resurrected body.
Not all of us agree either about “thoughts, intentions, desires, emotions - and they arise as far as we know as emergent properties of a complex brain.” Not if there is no person to experience them, certainly.
I agree with much of this with one caveat—re “The reason we want truth above anything else is because if you build on a false foundation, the whole thing will eventually come crashing down, no matter how good your intentions”—I believe another extremely important reason to want truth above anything else is because it’s truth, for its own sake—intellectual honesty, not solely because of later effects it might have.
Not explicitly in any creeds I know of.
As far as I can see, the person is the thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions.
Can disembodied souls see or hear? If so, why can blind and deaf people not see or hear using their souls' faculties to do so? Why can brain damage fundamentally change a person's personality? It all points to "souls" being the functioning of our brains to me.
Surely.
I agree with you.
But I was framing my answer for those who have pressing concerns that at the moment are leading them to think something else as of greater intrinsic value than truth itself. And so I went for the pragmatic.
And all of the references to the dead still being around in some sense in both Scripture and the oldest Christian traditions?
(Even in the Creeds we do have Jesus descending into Hell/to the dead, and that we look for the Resurrection and the life of the world to come, actually. Unless you believe he descended somewhere which was empty?)
I think that "thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions" are all attributes of our beings, though much are bodily, how much are spiritual, and how much are a combination of the two, I do not know. Apart from anything strictly stemming from free will, you could just copy those things ("thoughts, intentions, desires and emotions") but that still wouldn't be the person.
However the senses of disembodied souls work, or even what they involve, I don't know.
If you believe souls are just "the functioning of our brains," then do you believe Jesus will just reassemble them or something? (I don't actually know the details about your faith, technically--when I talk about souls, I'm mainly talking about them in a Christian, or at least supernaturalist, context, myself.)
Ah, that makes sense.
Wouldn't the "Resurrection of the body" entail "reassembling" our brains in some sense? Unless we will be brainless in eternity.
If the dead are still around in any sense, to my mind it's in the sense that eternity is not a thing that happens after our current spacetime ends but rather a wider reality in which our spacetime exists.
Disembodied souls that carry our personality don't work for me. I wonder why we have brains at all - we just need a meat suit for the soul to control. Any brain in that would just be a thing that converted the soul's directions into physical actions for the meatsuit but we know that different bits of the brain light up when we experience memories, thoughts, emotions, intentions - anything really, which implies to me that this is where those things are happening - especially considering that if those areas are damaged our ability to experience is impaired.
Again, I could be wrong as I'm not really too keen to think about Plato in more depth than I have already, however it seems like he thinks that humans have something that animates the living person and something of that animation survives death.
It feels like Christians for a long time had something of a taboo about bodies, in the sense that they thought that in the afterlife the dead person's body would literally be reanimated. Hence the need to bury, being against cremation and even burning heretics. No body presumably meaning no resurrection.
On the "creeds", don't they specifically mention the resurrection of the body? Maybe I'm misremembering but I thought I'd heard people saying that.
Other ideas exist on this topic. In what sense have they crashed down? I don't understand what this means.
False ideas rarely crash down. From a position standing on an idea which has been built on other ideas over thousands of years (to badly mangle the metaphor) I'm not sure it makes any difference what the original foundations were.
I presume that our brains are indeed going to be resurrected along with the rest of our bodies, yes, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have souls, actual spiritual essences, separable from the body but ultimately meant to be conjoined to a body.
Not a whole person, anyway. I don’t think that our souls lack personhood.
Well, if they got that particular truth from that source, good. (Of course there are references to the shade of Saul and the like as well…)
Well yes they do of course mention the resurrection of the body. You’re not misremembering at all.
Re: “No body presumably meaning no resurrection.” Er, no. That’s never been a Christian doctrine that I’ve ever heard. That would mean everyone who’s ever died in a fire, or even the actual named saints who were martyred by burning, could never be resurrected. God’s able to resurrect us no matter what has happened to our bodies.
That was Thomas Aquinas' view. According to his hylomorphism (form and matter), the soul is the form of the body and has immaterial aspects (e.g. the intellect and will) which are capable of surviving the body, but are incomplete and not capable of full personhood without it.
This may depend on what you mean here by "persons." Like if it were possible to annihilate (which I do not believe, but for the sake of argument) a human soul, it would be wrong to because they are a person--worse than murder. They aren't a full human being in that state, but I'd say they're still a person of a sort. (So too would be an angel (good or bad), faerie, or other non-corporeal entity--of course, despite being incorporeal to us already, some beings may have their own souls rather than being pure spirit, as angels are held to be--and of course some of us believe in animal souls and more...)
It’s not a question of whether you or I think, say, that annihilation of a human soul is possible or wrong, or whether animals have souls. The question is what did those who wrote Genesis or Job or Ezekiel think? Not how do we interpret those writings through the lens of our understandings, but what was their understanding?
My apologies—I’m thinking in terms of what Christians believe to be true, though how that differs from the ancient Hebrews can be interesting both in itself historically, and also in terms of God’s unfolding revelation. Lewis considers it significant that their focus was not on the afterlife as a carrot or stick, just obedience to God because He is God.
Is that correct? Is this the general understanding?
If so, does this afterlife body have a spirit? If so, why? If not, why are we talking about the spirit?
As I understand it, yes, after we’re resurrected, we will have our bodies and spirits together. I’m not sure what you mean by “if so, why?” As opposed to what? It’s traditionally understood by all little-o orthodox churches (Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, etc.) that the soul leaves the body at death, and that (at very least) the souls of Christians go to a blessed state with Christ (which may or may not include Purgatory as part of this) until the general resurrection, at which point all the dead are raised with new bodies.
Generally I use the words interchangeably, at least when referring to the incorporeal essence of a human being. Mostly I say “soul” for that, though perhaps “spirit” or “ghost” if it’s disembodied. (“Ghost” if it’s here on Earth after death. I don’t think I’d use the word “ghost” to describe those in Heaven. And that doesn’t even get into the deceased saints!)
So I’d probably say “my soul,” “the souls in Heaven,” etc.
“Bob’s ghost/spirit is haunting this house.”
“John’s soul/spirit is in Heaven.” I’d say soul more than spirit but it’s not a hard and fast thing.
Not to mention “spirit” as referring to beings that have never had a body, like angels (good and fallen) and probably other things, depending.
Can I ask if you were raised in a religious tradition? I take for granted that at least the matter of human souls, the resurrection, and such are kind of standard knowledge in most churches. (I came to my own faith kind of on my own—it’s a long story.)
I’m stating what I know of Christian theology both ancient and current. (This doesn’t itself mean my beliefs are right, of course.) If I’m mistaken on this, I welcome correction. The notion of a separable soul that is reunited with a resurrected body in the new creation, at the end of this world and the start of the new one, seems to me to go all the way back, within orthodox (little o) Christian belief—even within the New Testament. Ancient Israelites from various eras may not have believed that, but I’m specifically talking about Christianity, and orthodox Christianity specifically.
(Any other views on this, please speak up?)
I suppose I’m wondering—it sounds like you’re not familiar with these doctrines, so I’m wondering if they’re genuinely unfamiliar to you. If you don’t want to say, that’s fine.
For clarity, I'm not disputing your own beliefs, @ChastMastr. I'm really just asking "citation needed" when you state that what you believe on the topic is what all Christians have believed about it forever. Because there seems to be a fair amount of dispute.
Whether that means that you are correct that the different churches all accept the concepts you've described here, I really can't tell.
That’s why I said, “If you don’t want to say, that’s fine.” Thus, well, I won’t ask, then.
As for this, as I consider this to be pretty basic common knowledge about what the (little-o orthodox) Christian Church teaches and has taught, other than Googling for reputable sources, I’m not sure what to tell you. I’m not aware of any orthodox (general Protestant, Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox) church that teaches otherwise, nor has ever done so. Some believe in Purgatory (or the rapture or pre/ post/ amillennialism, etc.), some don’t, but if you ask any of these what their church teaches, what Christianity has traditionally taught, I’m confident that they will at least be in agreement on these matters of a separable soul that leaves the body at death, does not cease to exist at death, goes on to some sort of afterlife (and to be with Christ, for those who are Christians at very least), and will be raised on “The Last Day” with new incorruptible bodies. I think if you ask traditional Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, RCs, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, and many, many others—the mainstream churches, not Jehovah’s Witnesses or Christian Scientists or Mormons or the like—you will get a triumphant monotony of the same basic concepts in at least this matter, over and over again. They may disagree about faith and works, or about Purgatory, or about devotions to saints, but not about this. You may get churchgoers who don’t adhere to these things, but if you ask what the traditional doctrines of their church are on them, and they go look them up or ask their clergy, then I believe they will, despite other issues, have the same basic doctrines of a soul that “keeps going” after our bodies die, goes off to be with Jesus if we have faith in Him, and will be raised again when He comes back. Even clergy who don’t believe anymore in these things (Bishop Spong (RIP) from my own Episcopal church, for example), they’ll still know what their church traditionally taught.
I don’t know what else to add here, really.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutheranism#:~:text=Lutherans teach that, at death,bodies they had before dying.
And this source seems to say that Luther didn’t believe the soul evaporated but possibly slept till Judgement Day.
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1118&context=jats#:~:text=In one of his last,though the body be entirely
Speaking of sleep, as it’s 5:43 AM, and I’ve been so focused on all of these Ship discussions, I’ve really got to get some sleep now… Good night.
I don't really understand why one would need the body in the afterlife, but that's probably just me.
The Hebrew word (nephesh) translated as soul is also used of animals tending towards the ‘life’ part of its semantic field. The Greek word (psyche) translated as soul is also, like the Hebrew word, used where it is rendered into English as ‘life’.
This isn’t exactly answering the question in the OP, but I love this passage from a wedding sermon (!) preached by John Donne
I think it's because we're looking forward (Christians, I mean) to a new heaven and new earth--basically a new cosmos--and bodies are totally sensible if the new cosmos is partly matter.
AS for the two options you mention (existing body vs. shiny new one), I think the Biblical view lies sort of in-between. Not that we get back every single atom that was once ours, but also not that there is a disconnect between my body now and my body then.
and this isn't completely unreasonable, since there are probably few atoms in common between my three-year-old body back then and my 58-year-old body now. And yet it's still me...
What the soul is doing in between death and resurrection - whether it is conscious or not - has been much more open to debate.
This.
As far as “needing” the body in the afterlife, bodies and matter are good things.
The Bible uses words that are variously translated as 'soul' or 'spirit' but doesn't clearly distinguish between the two, and afaict both Catholicism and much of Protestantism follow this in either holding to a bipartite view or not having a fully orbed tripartite view.
Ancient beliefs around the soul were quite nebulous and not frequently developed in a systematic fashion. Ancient Christian thinkers that I'm aware of, off the top of my head, that addressed the soul include Augustine in On the Trinity and the Enchiridion; Irenaeus in On the Apostolic Preaching; Origen in First Principles; and the Cappadocian Fathers (Gregory of Nyssa especially On the Human Image of God, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzus). None of these are systematic, though.
Part of the problem is that Neoplatonism was assumed by many early Christian thinkers, and so they evidently didn't feel the need to explain it all. There are several quite good books on the development of Neoplatonism and its influence on Christian thinking. Maruo Bonazzi's Neoplatonism is recent and quite good for an overview. The theologian Hans Boersma is pretty good at elucidating the idea of the soul in his recent work, see in particular his Heavenly Participation.