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The crux of my theology
The Christian tradition has long struggled with keeping body and soul together and naming both good. The Church has long fought, not always successfully, against gnostic ideas that the body is false or bad, something to be spurned and separated from in the quest for the ultimate good in spirit. Many Christians even go down the path to keeping the flesh violently in check, an extreme form of discipline. But Genesis 1 repeatedly affirms two truths: that creation - physical and material, including human bodies - is good and that human beings are have the Divine breath of life within them. Whatever our faults, flaws or failures, these two truths remain constant. These two facts alone, if taken to heart, are radical, transformational and foundational underpinnings, profoundly effecting not just how we treat one another, but how we treat our environment and ourselves.
The Christian Church has long held that after death our bodies and souls will be reunited. While it is unclear (especially to me) exactly how this happens given the scientific reality that our bodies decompose and become part of the earth, therefore becoming part of the planet and future generations, this point of theology indicates a holistic view to the human person. We are not only our souls, neither are we only our bodies. Rather we are both, united in a complete complexity.
The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions also speak of a concept called deification, a process in which we grow ever closer to, and more and more like, God. This process is begun at baptism, but does not end when we die. This is part of what is possible thanks to the Divine spark, the breath of life within us. Because at our core, our nature and purpose is union with the Divine.
Jumping forward to Jesus as God incarnate, he is the ultimate example of complete union between creation and divinity. While we may never be able to reach this perfection, his example and especially the example of his mother, Mary (Theotokos, the God-bearer), who in her own flesh bore the union of creation and divinity, reveals to us the dignity and possibility of our humanity. As Sarah Boss says, it reveals to us "creation's capacity for glorification."
We do not miraculously attain perfection but we can confidently claim our dignity and divinity and move toward this union with God. We are all gods. This theology that divinity and creation, body and soul, spirit and matter, are not separated is a powerful corrective to damaging modern ideas that we completely control matter and/or that we are slaves to the tyranny and totality of our flesh, and to weak theologies that ask us to renounce this creation in favor of the "spiritual" and to hope only in the life to come.
The more I study theologies of the Virgin Mary, the more I realize what the crux of my theology rests on.
no subject
I like to use the analogy of the baby in the womb. Right now you are carrying a little baby in your womb. The baby is developing eyes, ears, arms, legs, etc. These are all components that the baby NEEDS to survive when it is born. It has also developed inside of amniotic fluid, with a placenta to nourish it, and a cord to deliver those nutrients. When the baby is in the womb, its life is based on the womb, the placenta, and the umbilical cord. These are what the baby's existence relies on.
But when the baby is born, those things are no longer needed. In fact, the baby needs its eyes, ears, mouth, legs, etc. now that it has come into this world. These are all things the baby did not need to have to survive in the womb.
So now the baby is surviving using its physical self. But it is also developing in other ways it does not yet need. It develops a sense of love, a personality, emotions, and other things that it does not yet need to survive in its basic means. What we don't often realize is that love, friendship, personalities... these are our eyes and ears for when we are born into the next world. Since we will not have our bodies, the development of our soul in this world is extremely important for our survival in the next.
sorry for ranting and hijacking your post :/
no subject
I don't think this analogy works very well. In fact, I think your analogy helps prove my point of the process of deification. Even in the womb the baby is a whole creature, body and soul. Certain parts are growing and developing, preparing it for things to come. But once it is born it continues to be a whole person, body and soul, the body is stronger and helps it through this life and the soul continues to develop. Who's to say that when we die and pass into what is to come that don't continue to be a whole person, body and soul, only our soul is the strongest part helping us through?
Just as a fetus has no idea what is coming, neither can we prepare completely for what is to come. This is why I don't like to speculate too much on the afterlife. Basically, the best preparation a fetus can do is get strong and be a fetus. In this life, the best preparation we can do is live in the here and now (I could go into how Jesus talks about the kingdom being at hand and being now). If we live fully embodied in the now, with integrity and a full spirit, then that's the best way to prepare ourselves for what is to come. We begin to touch God in this life, but I can barely imagine union with God, so my plan is to let that mystery unfold when and if it does.