The mortality rate has been holding steady at 100% since the dawn of human history. And yet most of us walk around assuming that an endless flow of tomorrows is owed to us.
That’s a lie.
Another lie is that after we die, our “souls go to heaven” and live a kind of sweet angelic life on clouds, strumming harps forevermore. The Creed affirms something quite different: “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”
Our bodies are indispensable to us as humans. At the Last Day, we get glorified, spiritual bodies. For the baptized, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and deserves great respect after death. My long time friend (30 years this summer) Dr. Scott Hahn, has written an incredible new book, Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body, with Emily Stimpson Chapman.
Talk about much needed!
In this episode, you will learn
- How the over spiritualized version of the afterlife crept into Christian consciousness
- The history of cremation, why it has been traditionally condemned by the Church, and what has happened since 1963 when it was suddenly permitted
- How Jesus bodily—which is to say real—death on the cross frees us from the bondage of the fear of death.
- The two kinds of death.
- Why “souls in heaven” before the Last Day are missing something essential until the resurrection of their bodies.
- How the witness of the early Christians caring for, and burying, their beloved dead help convert a heartless Roman empire.
- How Hollywood’s new obsession with zombie shows reflects, despite obvious errors, a basic dimension of what God reveals about the afterlife.
Resources mentioned in this episode
- Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body by Scott Hahn
- The Lamb’s Supper: The Mass As Heaven On Earth, By Scott Hahn
- Dr. Scott Hahn’s website
The Patrick Coffin Show podcast features weekly interviews with A-list influencers and outliers in the effort to recover the Judeo-Christian roots of the culture. Patrick is the Canadian-born former host of Catholic Answers Live, and he has raving fans around the world. He injects these fascinating interviews with his own distinctive blend of depth and levity.
4 thoughts on “Death and the Resurrection of the Body?—Dr. Scott Hahn”
I only wish to add that yes, we do believe that on the Last Day our souls will be united to our transformed human bodies, but meanwhile, if a soul is in Heaven and has beatific vision, that person is completely happy and does not “miss” his/her body. Also, Jesus had His earthly body transformed right at the moment of resurrection, but I believe that everybody else whose body has turned to dust, will have to have his/her body somehow recreated in its original likeness before uniting it with his/her immortal soul. The artists’ depiction of dead people with complete bodies rising from their graves is chiefly symbolic.
If the “souls” of the apostles are already in heaven, why did Jesus say what he said in John 14?
As a Catholic, what am I to do when church doctrine or the words of the pope or a priest contradict sacred scriptures?
Life is a wonderful gift by God. With man —and with man only in the entire Universe—there are two types of Life: the Life of Realization (LoR) and Divine Life (DL). LoR ends in the world like the booster rocket left by the spacecraft while DL—the Life of God—departs, after man’s death, to Heaven —the abode of God—for eternal existence with God. Both lives are spirit based…one terrestrial while the other Heavenly. The technology with Heavenly Spirit is absolutely unknown to Man till the day. For example, Jesus appeared to His disciples in the closed room after His resurrection; how He got in without opening the door…and similarly disappeared?
Jesus tells us in John 3:
“No one has gone up to heaven except the One who came down from there – the Son of Man….”.
In John 14, “In my Father’s House there are many dwelling places; otherwise, how could I have told you that I was going to prepare a place for you? I am indeed going to prepare a place for you, and then I shall come back to take you with me, …….”