Aquinas on the Resurrection of the Body

AQUINAS ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY MONTAGUE BROWN Saint Anselm College Manchester, New Hampshire THERE HAS BEEN much discussion in recent years bout whether or not the Christian doctrine of the resurection of the body can be rationally defended. The question "What happens after we die?" seems to have been raised by philosophers in every tradition. Materialists have answered that the corruption of the body is the annihilation of the individual. Idealists or spiritualists have answered that the soul lives on without the body. Christians have traditionally held that the body is to be resurrected. Do Christians have any evidence, outside of the faith, for holding that there will be a resurrection? If the answer is no, then the doctrine of the resurrection of the body might rightly be ignored by anyone who is not a Christian. If the answer is yes, what is the evidence? There seem to be three basic ways of applying reason to questions about life after death and hence to the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. One way is parapsychology. Through recording information from mediums and from those who have had experiences of being dead and reviving, statistical evidence is gathered to support the theory that there is life after death, and a description of what that life might be like is drawn up. Here the attempt is made to apply the scientific method of hypothesis and verification to the issue. A second way of applying reason to the issue is to assume through faith that the resurrection of the body is true and then try to show that such a position is not incoherent. 165 166 MONTAGUE BROWN This position attempts to show that it is not impossible to conceive of God resurrecting the body, that is, the concept does not involve a contradiction. A third way is to try to show, not only that the resurrection of the body is a coherent concept, but that it is true, that there is evidence upon which to base an argument which leads to the conclusion that the resurrection of the body is the best answer to what happens to us after death. This third position is that of St. Thomas Aquinas and will be the position defended in this paper. Let me just briefly sketch Thomas's position at this point. Thomas arrives at his position on the resurrection of the body by considering evidences which are discovered in reflecting on what it is to be human. On the one hand, we exercise an immaterial activity, thinking, which means that we have a faculty whose operation transcends the body and therefore is not corrupted when the body is. Thus, the rational soul is an incorruptible substance. On the other hand, this incorruptible substance is the form of the body, naturally requiring the body for its perfection. It is I who thinks and senses, not my soul in one case and my body in the other. Instead of reading this pair of evidences as mutually exclusive options requiring a choice (which choice would entail absurdly denying one or the other of these fundamental aspects of human nature), Aquinas acknowledges both evidences and finds in them reason to affirm the resurrection of the body. The structure of the paper will be as follows. In the first section of this essay I shall examine the current literature on the reasonableness of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. In the second part I shall look at the philosophical arguments which establish the apparently contrary evidences indicating that the human being has an incorruptible soul and yet is a unity of body and soul. Part three will involve an examination of Aquinas's reasons for affirming the resurrection of the body. And in the fourth and final section, some fundamental objections will be entertained concerning difficulties in holding that the body is AQUINAS ON THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY 167 to be resurrected, particularly the problems of the continuity of the individual and the possible encroachment of philosophy into the realms of theology and grace. I As has been said, there appear to be three ways to apply reason to what happens after we die...