'Look for the resurrection of the dead'

[Olympiada]

After reading a message from a secular humanist in a biblical studies group I belong to I realize I have a problem. I am not sure about the resurrection of the dead. I know we recite this in the creed every morning. Well I need help with this belief. I need a very basic patristic reference. Something digestable by a post modern former secular humanist neo pagan with a strong interest in South Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Those are the filters it will have to pass through.

Thanks
Olympiada Kane

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Dear Olympiada,

There is a very good book by Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos called Life After Death which has been translated into English. This book is filled with many Patristic references.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Olympiada]

Thank you. I am actually reading Ages of the Spiritual Life by Paul Evodokimov. Perhaps this will help my atheism. Olympiada Kane

[Alec Lowly]

Olympiada writes:


"After reading a message from a secular humanist in a biblical studies group I belong to I realize I have a problem. I am not sure about the resurrection of the dead. I know we recite this in the creed every morning. Well I need help with this belief. I need a very basic patristic reference. Something digestable by a post modern former secular humanist neo pagan with a strong interest in South Asian religions like Hinduism and Buddhism. Those are the filters it will have to pass through."

Then I'm not sure that any patristic quote will suffice. Here's what it's basically about. Unlike Hindus and Buddhists, who think that the body is little more than a house for the soul, Jews and Christians believe that man is a compound creature by union of the body and the soul. Man is where spirit and matter meet and commingle. The body alone is not man. The soul alone is not man. Only body ~and~ soul are man.

Christians believe that God wishes to save man as a whole being and to restore him to his original perfection, to the state before sin and death. So souls will be reunited with bodies in eternity, just as spirit and body were raised up in and with the Risen Lord.

Check out the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37, verses 1-28.

In XC,
Alec, sinner

[Fr Seraphim (Black)]

Dear Olymiada,

I can only imagine your state from a place far off, as I have never since earliest childhood experienced it.

As Fr. Raphael and Alec so well point out, but perhaps not so quickly discerned, and as I have personally known Met. Hierotheos since 1975, so again perhaps not so easily discerned, (yet there in his writing nevertheless), this I humbly ask of you, as difficult as it may be.

If you want, if your heart/soul/being yearns in the smallest way to be with Christ...if you feel beckoned to that Light, you must forsake and crucify your mind by asking Christ, His Most Pure Mother and All His Saints, to show you why His Light, His Life, His Love, His Being, His Everything can not be contained, and can not be found in Buddhism, whether it be Hinayana or Theravadan; or any of the manifestations of Hinduism.

There only one Shepherd, only one Way. That Way is a Person whose Love, in the deep darkness you will not find in the non-Being of Buddhism and Hinduism.

Do not, please, misunderstand me, or take me as a religious fanatic.

There are great ascetics living and reposed in both Buddhism and Hinduism. But the metaphysics of this asceticism, though it appears similar, is deeply different.

But as St. John Chrysostom prays in the Anaphora Prayers of the Liturgy:

"It is meet and right to sing praises unto thee, to bless thee, to magnify thee, to give thanks unto thee, to worship thee in all places of thy dominion. For thou art God ineffable, unknowable, invisible, incomprehensible, the same THOU ART (Ex. 3:14) from everlasting to everlasting; Thou, and Thine only-begotten Son, and Thy Holy Spirit. Thou didst bring us from non-being into being; and didst raise us up that were fallen away..."

Hinduism and Buddhism are a return to non-Being. Christ alone, calls us to Being.

[Olympiada]

Alex wrote:


So souls will be reunited with bodies in eternity, just as spirit and body were raised up in and with the Risen Lord.

Check out the Book of Ezekiel, Chapter 37, verses 1-28.

That is more like it. Give me Scripture! Ok so my question is, in the Resurrection of the Dead, are we going to have things like houses, material possessions, bills to pay, schedules to keep? I think not. But if life is just going to be more of the same, than I don't want it, see? I would rather go into the void at the center of the Buddhist religion. Once I ran from it, but now I run to it, just like that song "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell, "Once I ran to you, now I run from you, I give you all a boy can give, you take it all and you want more, Tainted Love". Well is this the song of Jesus love for us? I wonder sometimes. Although I try to affirm "I am enough" I feel like I am never enough, or there is neve r enough. So if life is painful, why would I want pain for eternity? I wouldn't and I don't. So can I really be a Christian?

Now I know we sing "Give rest to the souls of thy servants who have fallen asleep". So what is rest? Eh?

Olympiada

[Olympiada]

Oh one other thing Alex wrote:


Unlike Hindus and Buddhists, who think that the body is little more than a house for the soul, Jews and Christians believe that ma n is a compound creature by union of the body and the soul. Man is where spirit and matter meet and commingle. The body alone is not man. The soul alone is no t man. Only body ~and~ soul are man.

See I told you I think like a Buddhist. I used to go to Ta Kioh Buddhist Temple in San Francisco. I wish I had kept the written material they gave me. Like I said, I ran away from the love they gave me. But now I want to run back to it. I do think the body is little more than a house for the soul. Christ the Savior Brotherhood reinforced my Gnostic tendencies. While I do have On The Scandal of the Incarnation by Iraneus, I have not read it. Buddhist thought is far more 'comfortable' than Christian thought. I can't believe I have made it thus far in the Christian life thinking like a Buddhist. See the body gives one trouble. The Buddhist way is far better to me than the Christian way. That way, when I dies, there goes the body. If I am Christian, I have to take it with me. I don't like this.
Olympiada

[Juliana Lerman]

Dear Olympiada, Maybe one of the reasons that you are uncomfortable with the idea of your body being resurrected together with your soul is that in this life on earth your body is subject to pain, temptations, etc. But if we are blessed enough to be raised up to be with God for eternity, it will be with a pure perfect unfallen body. Just my 2 cents. God bless you in your struggle, Juliana

[Alec Lowly]

"If you want, if your heart/soul/being yearns in the smallest way to be with Christ...if you feel beckoned to that Light, you must forsake and crucify your mind by asking Christ, His Most Pure Mother and All His Saints, to show you why His Light, His Life, His Love, His Being, His Everything can not be contained, and can not be found in Buddhism, whether it be Hinayana or Theravadan; or any of the manifestations of Hinduism."

Father Seraphim, what an awesome post. Glory be to God!

Alec, sinner

[Alec Lowly]

Olympiada writes:


"Ok so my question is, in the Resurrection of the Dead, are we going to have things like houses, material possessions, bills to pay, schedules to keep? I think not. But if life is just going to be more of the same, than I don't want it, see?"

Wherever did you get the idea that life eternal "is just going to be more of the same"? Certainly not from holy scripture. Certainly not from the fathers and the saints.

"Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him ..."

In XC,
Alec