1. Prior to Christ’s ascension, all who died descended to Sheol/Hades, which was divided into two parts, one for the wicked and one for the righteous.
2. At Christ’s ascension, he went into heaven and took with him all of the saints in the paradisal part of Sheol/Hades, while the wicked remain in Sheol/Hades, waiting for judgment.
3. Upon death new covenant believers go to be with Christ in heaven ahead of the general resurrection, while the wicked descend to Sheol/Hades waiting for judgment.
4. Eventually Sheol/Hades will be thrown into hell and all believers will share in the new heavens and new earth.
See Evangelical Theology p. 323.
I’ve featured some debates with Michael Bird before, he is a famous evangelical historian.
It’s important to understand that the Christian view of humans is that we have a material part and a non-material part. When you die, the material part goes into a tomb. The non-material part goes on to be with God, until the day when you get a new resurrection body.
Here’s a helpful post from Eric Chabot talks about this and other interesting topics related to the resurrection.
Excerpt:
Where do we see resurrection in the Hebrew Bible?
As just stated, belief in a resurrection of persons from the dead are seen in eight passages: (Job 19:26; Ps. 17:15; 49:15; 73:24; Is. 26:19; 53:10; Dn. 12:2;12:13). The resurrection terminology is seen in two places (Ezek. 37:1-14; Hos. 6:2) to show a national and spiritual restoration brought about by the return from the exile. As far as the nature of the future bodily resurrection, it may involve a corpse or the receipt of a material body comparable to the present physical body (Job 19:26; Is. 26:19), or it may be a matter of transformation (Dn. 12:2-3 and perhaps 12:13); or glorification after reanimation, in the case of the righteous.
As far as the function of the resurrection, it may be personal vindication (Is. 26:16; 53:10-12). Resurrection may also have a function in relation to reward or punishment (Dn. 12:2; 12:13), an assumption to heaven and enriched fellowship with God (Ps. 49:15; 73:24,26), or preface to the beatific vision of God (Ps. 17:15 and possibly Job 19:26). (1)
The Greek word for resurrection is “anatasis” which means “a raising up” or “rising.” There are resuscitations in the Tanakh such as the example of Elijah and Elisha raising a person from death (1 Kings 17-23; 2 Kings 4:34-35). While these figures may have been raised in a resurrection sense, they were not raised immortal in the same way Jesus was.
Extra-Biblical Passages on Resurrection
There are also extra-biblical passages that speak about the resurrection (Enoch 92:2; 4 Ezra 7:32; Enoch 91:10; 2 Maccabees 7:9; 14; 28-29). Even the The Messiah Apocalypse, which is dated between 100 and 80 B.C.E mentions resurrection: “He [God] frees the captives, makes the blind see, and makes the bent over stand straight…for he will heal the sick, revive the dead, and give good news to the humble and the poor he will satisfy, the abandoned he will lead, and the hungry he will make rich.” (2)
In the Rabbinical literature there are explicit teachings on the resurrection. It says in the Mishnah 10.1, it says, “All Israelites have a share in the world to come; … and these are they that have no share in the world to come: he that says that there is no resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Law.” Moses Maimonides, a Jewish rabbi and a medieval Jewish philosopher who has forever influenced the Jewish and non-Jewish world said:
” The resurrection of the dead is one of the cardinal principles established by Moses our teacher. A person who does not believe this principle has no real religion, certainly not Judaism. However, resurrection is for the righteous. This is the earning of the statement in Breshit Rabbah, which declares: “the creative power of rain is both for the righteous and the wicked, but the resurrection of the dead is only for the righteous.” Our sages taught the wicked are called dead even when they are still alive; the righteous are alive even when they are dead” (Bab. Talmud Brakhot 18 b).
3 points are made here: 1. Resurrection is a cardinal principle taught in the Torah which all Jews must believe 2. It is for the righteous alone 3. All men must die and their bodies decompose. (3)
It’s important to understand that the concept of resurrection had a meaning before Christianity ever started. And it’s interesting to ask why the early Christians applied the notion of resurrection to Jesus. What is the best explanation for their decision to do such a strange thing? Why not just give up on him and deny that he was the Messiah when he was killed by the Romans?
This podcast is a must-listen. Please take the time to download this podcast and listen to it. I guarantee that you will love this podcast. I even recommended it to my Dad and I almost never do that.
Details:
In this podcast, J. Warner examines the evidence for the existence of the mind (and inferentially, the soul) as he looks at six classic philosophical arguments. Jim also briefly discusses Thomas Nagel’s book, Mind and Cosmos and discusses the limitations of physicalism.
Atheist Thomas Nagel’s latest book “Mind and Cosmos” makes the case that materialism cannot account for the evidence of mental phenomena
Nagel writes in this recent New York Times article that materialism cannot account for the reality of consciousness, meaning, intention and purpose
Quote from the Nagel article:
Even though the theistic outlook, in some versions, is consistent with the available scientific evidence, I don’t believe it, and am drawn instead to a naturalistic, though non-materialist, alternative. Mind, I suspect, is not an inexplicable accident or a divine and anomalous gift but a basic aspect of nature that we will not understand until we transcend the built-in limits of contemporary scientific orthodoxy.
When looking at this question, it’s important to not have our conclusions pre-determined by presupposing materialism or atheism
If your mind/soul doesn’t exist and you are a purely physical being then that is a defeater for Christianity, so we need to respond
Traditionally, Christians have been committed to a view of human nature called “dualism” – human beings are souls who have bodies
The best way* to argue for the existence of the soul is using philosophical arguments
The case:
The law of identity says that if A = B’ if A and B have the exact same properties
If A = the mind and B = the brain, then is A identical to B?
Wallace will present 6 arguments to show that A is not identical to B because they have different properties
Not everyone of the arguments below might make sense to you, but you will probably find one or two that strike you as correct. Some of the points are more illustrative than persuasive, like #2. However, I do find #3, #5 and #6 persuasive.
1) First-person access to mental properties
Thought experiment: Imagine your dream car, and picture it clearly in your mind
If we invited an artist to come and sketch out your dream car, then we could see your dream car’s shape on paper
This concept of your dream car is not something that people can see by looking at your brain structure
Physical properties can be physically accessed, but the properties of your dream care and privately accessed
2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies
Common sense notion of personhood is that we own our bodies, but we are not our bodies
3) Persistent self-identity through time
Thought experiment: replacing a new car with an old car one piece at a time
When you change even the smallest part of a physical object, it changes the identity of that object
Similarly, your body is undergoing changes constantly over time
Every cell in your body is different from the body you had 10 years ago
Even your brain cells undergo changes (see this from New Scientist – WK)
If you are the same person you were 10 years ago, then you are not your physical body
4) Mental properties cannot be measured like physical objects
Physical objects can be measured (e.g. – use physical measurements to measure weight, size, etc.)
Mental properties cannot be measured
5) Intentionality or About-ness
Mental entities can refer to realities that are physical, something outside of themselves
A tree is not about anything, it just is a physical object
But you can have thoughts about the tree out there in the garden that needs water
6) Free will and personal responsibility
If humans are purely physical, then all our actions are determined by sensory inputs and genetic programming
Biological determinism is not compatible with free will, and free will is required for personal responsibility
Our experience of moral choices and moral responsibility requires free will, and free will requires minds/souls
He spends the last 10 minutes of the podcast responding to naturalistic objections to the mind/soul hypothesis.
*Now in the podcast, Wallace does say that scientific evidence is not the best kind of evidence to use when discussing this issue of body/soul and mind/brain. But I did blog yesterday about two pieces of evidence that I think are relevant to this discussion: corroborated near-death experiences and mental effort.
You might remember that Dr. Craig brought up the issue of substance dualism, and the argument from intentionality (“aboutness”), in his debate with the naturalist philosopher Alex Rosenberg, so this argument about dualism is battle-ready. You can add it to your list of arguments for Christian theism along with all the other arguments like the Big Bang, the fine-tuning, the origin of life, stellar habitability, galactic habitability, irreducible complexity, molecular machines, the Cambrian explosion, the moral argument, the resurrection, biological convergence, and so on.
WINTERY KNIGHT 