Body and Soul

I will begin this article by stating firmly that I am by no means an expert in theology. If you would like definitive answers to the questions I am exploring, I would suggest consulting the Bible, the Catechism, or the Doctors of the Church. That being said, God has never required us to ask permission to ask questions. As every great saint has done before becoming an expert, or even simply before becoming recognized, we are encouraged to explore the metaphysical and philosophical world, insofar as our exploration is grounded in a foundation of faith. I am by no means a great saint or even a smart Catholic; however, there have been thoughts playing around in my head and I would like to take a page from the books of the great thinkers and saints and explore these thoughts. These thoughts surround the incarnation, and, more specifically, the relationship between the body and the spirit. 

Catholicism, to my knowledge, is the only religion on Earth that deems that the body and spirit are co-equals. Ever since the times of the ancient Greeks, the idea of "the bird in the cage," has existed, i.e., that the trueness of personhood is kept within the soul and that the ultimate end of the soul is to escape the body. The liberation of the soul paints the body as the prison, and true freedom is only found when the physical husk is shed, and the spirit is released. Some may argue that the religions that believe in reincarnation, such as Hinduism, may counter that ideology as the spirit finds other physical bodies after death to reinhabit, almost as if it didn't want to be freed; however, while I know very little of the theology behind reincarnation, to me, this still falls into the trap of inequality. In this theology, the bodies are just vessels for the singular soul and have no real attachment to it other than differing in quality if the soul was good or bad in the previous life. Further, personhood is not carried over in the soul as individuals have the capability of being reincarnated into an animal, something that lacks personhood. As far as I can tell, neither the Greeks nor the Hindus value the body and soul as equals, but rather value one as the superior and the other to be eventually discarded.

However, in the Christian religion, we believe in the resurrection and glorification of the body. While the souls and bodies of the holy are temporarily separated by death, they are destined to be rejoined together in paradise, the soul purified and the body glorified. However, in my previous paragraph, I was intentional in saying that Catholicism, and not merely all other Christian denominations, is the only belief system that truly believes in the equality of the body and the spirit. The proof lies in the Eucharist. 

As Catholics, we believe that God is truly present in the Eucharist: body, blood, soul, and divinity. All other Christian denominations, to my knowledge, believe it is merely a symbol, or, at most, a vague spiritual presence. I am not bringing this up to sow divisions between Catholicism and the other Christian denominations, but rather to expose an interesting point about the Eucharist. The Eucharist is both the body and soul of Christ necessarily. It can't possibly be any other way because God Himself has deemed that the fullness of being is in the perfect completion and union between the body and soul, and the proof of this is in the Incarnation.

Why did God become man? Many times, I think we take this question for granted. A generally accepted answer is it was so that He could redeem us by dying for our sins. But how does being a man and dying for our sins redeem us? What about becoming a man is necessary for that? Couldn't God have simply snapped His fingers and erased our sin without all the trouble of coming down into the suffering of humanity, growing a following, being betrayed, and then murdered? One of the reasons (and this is crossing over squarely into personal opinion derived from my reasonings and musings) is because the Incarnation is a necessary reflection of God's perfection and completion. God is perfect and God, in Jesus, is both spirit and man. Therefore, it stands to reason that being spirit and man is a prerequisite of perfection and is necessarily better than being just one or the other. If being both spirit and flesh were less perfect than being simply spiritual, then God's Incarnation would've marked a period of His existence in which He was less than perfect, which is impossible. However, if we follow this logic and hold that the supremacy of spiritual/bodily union is true, then it also means that God would've necessarily been imperfect in the period before His incarnation, which is also impossible. It seems we've come to a logical impasse. However, there is an answer to this conundrum: Christ has always existed in body and spirit. 

God sits outside of time. We do not. To us, there was a period before Jesus and after Jesus. To God, all time is now. He is, at this moment, experiencing every moment, sustaining every moment. His perception of reality, which is the truth of reality, is that Jesus has always been. We can prove this in two ways: logically, by what we know to be true theologically, and biblically.

If we know that Jesus is one hundred percent God and one hundred percent man, we know that he carries all the characteristics of God, being God, and all the characteristics of physical personhood, being man. One of the characteristics of God is that He is unchanging. Therefore, there could never have been a time in which the Father could've changed from being without the Son to with the Son. 

Biblically, we see this in the creation story. In Genesis, the introduction of light comes before the introduction of the sun. In the transfiguration story, Jesus' face shines bright as the sun. Therefore, it is believed that Jesus was the light that came before the sun and filled the world at its creation. Jesus pre-existed His birth. This is possible due to the power God has over the temporal nature of the physical world. Again, He exists outside of it. Jesus wasn't then and isn't going to be. To God, and truly in reality but simply outside of our capability of understanding, He is now.

Jesus is Now. Jesus in His body and soul have always been Now. The body and soul are meant to be unified. This is why the angels serve us; we have this amazing union between the physical and spiritual worlds that they do not have. This is why Lucifer rebelled; he couldn't stand being inferior to us as merely a spirit. Further, this is why he created special attacks against the physical world. This is why sins of lust and murder are so pleasing to him. He is tricking us into destroying or disrespecting the element of ourselves that he so jealously hates and pridefully disdains because he will never experience it. Thank God for your bodies. Take care of them. A sin against the body is just as evil as a sin against the soul. This is why Jesus relates sinning in the heart to the physical act. The separation between the two is not as far as we think. And thank God for that. We are meant to be whole as Jesus is whole, divine as He is divine.

Finally, this is why the Eucharist must be truly God’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. God is superabundant. This means that he has not only the perfect power to give us the best of reality but also the perfect will to give us the best of reality. When He gives us a gift, He doesn’t think what’s the least I can do for my children? Rather, He thinks what’s the MOST I can do for my children? The Eucharist is a gift. Why would he merely toss us a symbol of Himself when he could give us Himself fully every Sunday? Which is the greater gift? Which is more substantial? Further, which makes more sense when reading the Bible? Jesus insisted that the Eucharist was his body, not a symbol, and not just merely His spirit. In fact, He insisted so much that He willingly let go of the majority of his disciples aside from the apostles when they could not accept His teaching and left Him (John 6:66-67). He was willing to sacrifice their support only due to the severity of what He was saying. God cannot be split! The Eucharist was truly and is truly His body and His Soul. Finally, if God cannot, in His perfection, be separated in body and spirit, does it make any sense at all that He would only interact with us spiritually? This is what our Protestant brothers and sisters don’t understand. This is why we must speak to a flesh and blood priest in the person of Christ in Confession! This is why the waters and oils of baptism matter! This is why a marriage is not fully completed until it is consummated! God finds equality in body and soul, in the physical and spiritual. This is why you need a Church: a community of other physical persons to interact with and co-worship with! God values the body just as highly as the spirit! Why would He shun His physical reality and choose only to commune with us spiritually? If He is to give the one it is impossible for Him not to give the other. All that remains is our willingness to accept Him as He is: whole and present for us.