I wondered what your views on ghosts, séances and so on are – is it possible to reconcile such ideas with Christian faith (and scientific understanding)?
It seems very unlikely that ghosts exist in the sense supposed by popular imagination. We believe in resurrection, God giving “resurrection bodies” to those whose innermost being is remembered by Him in His love – a bit like playing a beloved tune on a wonderful Steinway that you once heard on a honky-tonk – so we don’t think that human spirits persist “naturally”.
Nevertheless people do remember the departed and there are certainly circumstances in which such memories could cause people to feel that they had seen them. And there is much we don’t understand about the depths of the human psyche – especially when several people are linking their sensitivities in the way that apparently happens at séances.
It is also impossible to ignore the strong biblical references to spiritual beings, both angelic and demonic. Although we cannot take all of it literally and must make allowances for the language of the time it was written in (it would have been hopeless for Jesus to say: “this was not demons, it was chemical imbalances in the brain” there was literally no language to say this in) there are enough reasons to think that there are trans/sub personal evil influences, which may well be involved in at least some of the more disturbing manifestations. I know people who have experienced and grappled with such things. But no demon can withstand the power of Christ.
John adds: “I am more reserved and uncertain than Nicholas about what to believe about subordinate spiritual powers, whether good or bad. For example, both in Hebrew and Greek the word conventionally translated angel is simply the ordinary word for messenger of whatever kind.”
Further comment from Nicholas if I were discussing this with John I’d have suggested he said “I am even more reserved and uncertain than Nicholas” because I’m not trying to be at all dogmatic about this. However there’s no room in Luke 1 or 2 to suggest that these were ordinary messengers, and both Jesus and Paul are very clear that we are not just fighting flesh and blood. But equally this does not mean that the popular images of angels and demons are necessarily valid: the truth in these matters is almost certainly more complex and strange than we are able to understand. The Bible very deliberately does not go into such details and nor should we.
All we know is that, if we walk with Christ, we will be given the strength we need because nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Showing posts with label Spirits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spirits. Show all posts
Sunday, 27 February 2011
Continuity after death (and Angels/Spirits)
I very much enjoy your work and also your "come-think-with-me" style. My question concerns the continuity of person on a monist understanding of human nature. If I recall you hold the view that we are dual (or more)-aspect beings made of one stuff and you further hold that our continuity at death is possibly vouchsafed by God's remembering of us and ability to reconstitute us (albeit in a "spiritual body") in the new creation. That seems probably the best monist answer I've heard and an elegant one I'd be happy to embrace but how would it be me that was resurrected and not a clone of me God has made? If I destroyed a painting I'd made but then re-made it from memory would it be accurate to say the painting goes on or a duplictate goes on? Since I don't think personhood is simply constituted by the data/ memories I have or about me...how can the "I" survive death on such a view?
Finally---do you think angels / spirits exist?
NB Response Clearly we can’t know the details of this. But I think that humans are more like musical compositions than paintings (apart from anything else we are dynamic and we are not constituted by material identity since the atoms in our bodies change all the time). If the MS of a composition is lost and the composer writes it down from memory it is the same piece.
Of course a “clone” is not the same person because even if they are identical genetically there is a lot more to personhood.
Surely Angels/Spirits exist. In what form exactly is much harder to say. We discuss this a bit in Questions of Truth.
Finally---do you think angels / spirits exist?
NB Response Clearly we can’t know the details of this. But I think that humans are more like musical compositions than paintings (apart from anything else we are dynamic and we are not constituted by material identity since the atoms in our bodies change all the time). If the MS of a composition is lost and the composer writes it down from memory it is the same piece.
Of course a “clone” is not the same person because even if they are identical genetically there is a lot more to personhood.
Surely Angels/Spirits exist. In what form exactly is much harder to say. We discuss this a bit in Questions of Truth.
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