The Philosophical Basics of the Resurrection

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Probably of all my classes at Our Lady’s University, none had me more attentive than my course on St. Thomas Aquinas’ account of human nature, taught by Dr. John O’Callaghan. Unfortunately, this was my first formal exposure to the philosophy of St. Thomas, and as a 4000 level course, I do not think I got the most out of it. I had taken a course on Aristotle’s ethical theory the semester before, but though these two great minds were similar in worldview, Aristotle’s pagan terminology and approach was nowhere near a proper introduction to Thomas’ intellectually mammoth rational constructions.

Despite this, I did benefit from this study, and as I have only and always been interested in acquiring the truth and never in spouting off any philosopher’s theories word-for-word, this was not an insignificant benefit. One thing that really fascinated me during my study of Aquinas’ philosophy of human nature was in terms of the resurrection.

As is the relationship between theology and philosophy, divine revelation can invariably be confirmed by human reason. The saying, “philosophy is the handmaiden of theology” springs to mind. Basically, if our understanding were to be laid out on a line spectrum with things we know from human reason and things we know from divine revelation, each would generally lie on either side of the spectrum and there would be a gap in between. This gap represents our lack of full understanding of the higher bits of knowledge, specifically those things divinely revealed to us, creating what we call “mysteries”. Divine revelation gives us those truths that would otherwise be impossible to reach solely with our own reason, though these truths are coherent with our own human reason. Everything divinely revealed can be confirmed with the same human reason that we use to work a math problem or organize a closet or make a gourmet meal.

The resurrection of the body promised by Christ at his Second Coming is just one of those things that, with a little Thomistic ontology, is completely reasonable to believe, though the particulars certainly remain a mystery. First, it is important to remember that we are human beings (don’t forget that definition), and “human being” is defined as a living body animated by a rational, immortal soul. Therefore, it is accurate to say that when John dies, John (the unified human being) ceases to exist because his soul is separated from his body. However, John’s essence, his soul, is immortal and survives the body.

So our soul lives on, separated from our body which decays and fades away with time. At this point, do our souls just remain in Heaven? It is eternal beatitude, after all, so what more could we want or need? Why does Christ promise that our souls will be reunited with our bodies in the Resurrection? Is that really necessary after achieving eternal beatitude?

I certainly cannot say what is divinely necessary, but I can definitely say that it’s perfectly reasonable that I should be reunited with my body after I die. In the state after death, our human nature is divided: our soul is in Heaven and our decomposing body remains on earth. But since we were created as human beings (body and soul) and not as angels who are purely spiritual and incorporeal beings, it would seem a little odd that we should spend eternity in such a divided state, especially when our bodies are an intrinsic part of our own creation and being. (if they were not, why should we bother caring for them in this life?)

As an analogy to illustrate this, a free-floating balloon is caught by a child and tied down. The balloon’s natural destiny is to float away into the sky, but here, it is separated from that destination and tied to the ground. If the balloon was meant to remain close to earth, why was it filled with a lighter-than-air gas to begin with? Similarly, it is our natural destiny to be unified, soul and body. When we die, our soul is separated from our body and allowed to take root in Heaven. If this were the end of the story, then why did God create us with bodies in the first place? It seems perfectly natural to believe, then, that the destiny of our human nature is to be unified, body and soul, in eternal beatitude with God after the Resurrection.

So our use of human reason confirms the revelation of the Resurrection. I am not suggesting that while in Heaven after death, we will in some way miss our physical bodies or feel uncomfortable without them. This would suggest that eternal beatitude is deficient in some way. But as it has been revealed to the human race, Divine Justice promises to return us to our bodies at the end of time, and this is at the very least is something we can partially understand.

The Science of Santa Claus

As a high school junior in physics class, we were released from classes for Christmas break with a short scientific analysis of the plausibility of Santa Claus. I admit, slightly shamefully, I wish I had the personality to be able to come up with these because I really quite enjoy these sorts of reality checks. Alas, I did not come up with this one, but I repost it for your reading pleasure from another website, credited below:

No known species of reindeer can fly. BUT there are 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified, and while most of these are insects and germs, this does not COMPLETELY rule out flying reindeer which only Santa has ever seen.

There are 2 billion children (persons under 18) in the world. BUT since Santa doesn’t (appear) to handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children, that reduces the workload to 15% of the total — 378 million according to Population Reference Bureau. At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that is 91.9 million homes. One presumes there’s at least one good child in each.

Santa has 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 822.6 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with good children has 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left, get back up the chimney, get back into the sleigh and move on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 91.8 million stops are evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false but for the purposes of our calculations we will accept), we are now talking about .78 miles per household, a total trip of 75½ million miles, not counting stops to do what most of us must do at least once every 31 hours, plus feeding and etc.

This means that Santa’s sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second, 3000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest manmade vehicle on earth, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second — a conventional reindeer can run, tops, 15 miles per hour.

The payload on the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium-sized Lego set (2 pounds), the sleigh is carrying 321,300 tons, not counting Santa, who is invariably described as overweight. On land, conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that "flying reindeer" (see point #1) could pull TEN times their normal amount, we cannot do the job with eight, or even nine. We need 214,200 reindeer. This increases the payload — not even counting the weight of the sleigh — to 353,430 tons. Again, for comparison — this is four times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth.

353,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance — this will heat the reindeer up in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth’s atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer with absorb 14.3 QUINTILLION joules of energy. Per second. Each. In short, they will burst into flame almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them, and create deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team will be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, will be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500.06 times greater than gravity. A 250-pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of his sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force.

 From http://www.chainreactionbicycles.com/santaclaus.htm 

My conclusion to all this: it's more plausible that God became man, remaining both fully God and fully man, and that a virgin conceived this child and gave birth to him, all throughout this process remaining a virgin, than Santa Claus existing.

The Going-Away Party

Maxwell had killed his sister. It was a pretty efficient murder at that; and Sir Maxwell Stewart prided himself on efficiency, whether it was with closing a business deal or doing away with nosy siblings. Although, the business deals were a significantly more common occurrence than the occasions that required the snuffing of relatives.

It had been efficient because she had consumed enough wine at his going away party that she did not feel the slight pin-prick of a syringe as it injected its lethal payload of insulin. Maxwell was a diabetic and his sister was not. The overdose had quietly put her to sleep on the sofa of the mansion's parlor. It did not take much.

The silent killing was also an excellent method of murder because it left no crime scene clues, should the body ever be found. There were no lacerations, no stab wounds, no bullet holes, no broken bones, or anything else of the gory and ghastly sort typically associated with the dark deed. She was indeed very old and by all appearances, it would seem that her poor, ailing heart had simply given out and her soul had flown to the heights of that holy Paradise.

Maxwell knew that it was her blood sugar, not her heart, that gave out, and that her soul was actually rotting in the circle of Hell reserved exclusively for prying, gossipy nannies. She had invented this grand conspiracy theory that his business empire was somehow built on lies and cheating, all claims were woefully unsubstantiated, of course. Doubtless she had concocted this inconceivable foolishness to tarnish his sterling reputation and ruin his going-away party. Maxwell had tolerated his sister's ignorance on a variety of other subjects, but it seemed to him hardly fair that he should suffer her vague fantasies of corruption and sleight-of-hand dealings when his good name was at stake.

However, his reputation was the furthest thing from his mind when this cake knife in his chest was the closest thing to his heart. James Ironsides, his American business rival, had put it there. Just like his business manners, Ironsides had no tact: no silent poisons or macabre premeditation. He just walks right up to you and plunges the cake knife unpretentiously into your chest. He did not even have the decency to wipe the icing from the blade.

Anyhow, things were beginning to feel very cold for Sir Maxwell. He could not tell if it was the two feet of snow in which he was lying or the icy caress of death stealing over him. Whichever the case, he was alone. Ironsides had not even had the decorum to gloat over his dying form. He could have at least thanked him for inviting him to the party, yes, thank you it truly is marvelous, is this wine a special vintage? of course, most excellent, are you finished with that cake knife? here Maxwell, let me pin this thank you note to your blazer with this cake knife, comfortable? well, I must be going, lovely party, let's do this again sometime.

But it was not so, and Maxwell felt the chill of his fate long before he arrived at that frozen circle of Hell reserved exclusively for dishonest, sibling-murdering businessmen.