DUALISM VERSUS INTEGRATION: THE BODILY RESURRECTION
In this continuing series on the Integrated One World concept of the East, versus the Dualism that has been the standard basic paradigm in the West, at least from the time of the Great Schism in 1054, but probably even earlier, we are trying to place a new idea of Father Stephen De Young on the bodily resurrection. The following excerpts from the previous post on that issue (link) threw a shocking light on the deep seated question:
"In the world view of Plato (...) the universe is divided into two separate dimensions: the perfect, but immaterial world of concepts or ideas, which is 'out there', versus the imperfect, but visible reality up here. These two dimensions are separated by a invisible curtain (watch the video on Plato' Cave). (..) The other philosophy of Plato's follower Aristotle, has remained the standard of reality in the Greek enculturated world for over 2,200 years. It sees the world, the unseen, immaterial dimension and the seen material world of atoms and molecules are one and the same, an inseparable, integrated whole."
If you are not familiar with the paradigm, would suggest you peruse the previous posts on Plato vs Aristotle.
Nov. 6, 2024 Friedrich Nietzsche’s Guide to the Bodily Resurrection - Fr. Stephen De Young (The Symbolic World Summit 2024).
In the video Father Stephen held a lecture during The Symbolic World Summit 2024 on the issue of bodily resurrection, which is part and parcel of Eastern Orthodox eschatology.
For those worried that Friedrich Nietzsche might come into this issue, don't worry. Father Stephen just uses him as a peg to hang some clothes on.
For those worried that Friedrich Nietzsche might come into this issue, don't worry. Father Stephen just uses him as a peg to hang some clothes on.
For Western secularists the idea of the Integrated One World concept as a religious corollary of the bodily resurrection, may come as a shock. Let me therefore start with Jordan Peterson's conclusion at the end of the lecture.
"Bodily resurrection (during the Last Day or Christ's Second Coming (link)) maintains the particularities of time and space. If you abandon the body (as Dualism does), the 'real you' (and many other things besides) becomes an abstraction leading to Nihilism and giving rise to the idea that it is possible to be born in the wrong body, and so to transhumanism and transgenderism".
Let us now turn to Father Stephen's musings on the after-life and the bodily resurrection. Since no one, short of the God-man himself, ever came back from the dead, we shall have to piece our eschatology together as Father Stephen does.
In the lecture he is going through the problems the bodily resurrection entails. Still, his idea does work within the frame work of Eastern Orthodoxy. Let us remind ourselves how salvation works.
After Adam and Eve's Fall from Paradise, God mercifully gives them death as a way out of a life of sin. After Christ's crucifixion and resurrection He 'harrows Hades' in order to free man from this eternal death.
This is the moment that Creation changes metaphysically. Of course the West knows nothing about this very foundation, without which Christianity makes no sense at all.
Father Stephen's idea is that hell may be an eternal string of our less fortunate moments in life, analogous with the unpleasant Russian peasant woman in his story, and that heaven is the opposite, as a result of Christ's salvation.
At the 44:00 mark Canadian clinical psychiatrist Jordan Peterson steps into the fray, approaching the matter from his point of view. His conclusion is that the bodily resurrection lets us re-inhabit our bodies, purified from pain and suffering.
Asked if the fate of the grumpy Russian peasant women may be what the Eastern Orthodox call, spiritual death, Father Stephen affirms this may well be the case.
This answers a personal query of mine. Some Orthodox believe in the notion that in the end, everyone will be saved (universalism) (link). Though very few, like Judas, die a spiritual death, this is very exceptional. A question mark would always have to exist in order for us to be able to repent.
00:57 - Intro music
01:23 - Introduction
03:22 - What happens when you die?
07:34 - The body
12:42 - How identity works
16:25 - Find our identity
17:41 - The bodily resurrection
19:00 - Relating to time
31:53 - The triumph of joy
35:00 - In Scripture
41:29 - One life
44:13 - What about the dead
48:48 - Fr. Stephen's answer
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