"The body full of power which man will inherit from the second Adam, Christ, in virtue of the future resurrection, will be a spiritual body…" 

During the general audience of Wednesday, 10 February, John Paul II continued his catechesis on the resurrection of the body.

1. From Christ's words on the future resurrection of the body, recorded by all three synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), our reflections have brought us to what St Paul wrote on the subject in the First Letter to the Corinthians (ch. 15). Our analysis is centred above all on what might be called the "anthropology of the resurrection" according to St Paul. The author of the letter contrasts the state of the "earthly" man (i.e. historical) with the state of the risen man, characterizing in a lapidary and at the same time a penetrating manner, the interior "system of forces" specific to each of these states.

Radical transformation

2. That this interior system of forces should undergo a radical transformation would seem to be indicated, first of all, by the contrast between the "weak" body and the body "full of power". Paul writes: "What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power" (1 Cor 15:42-43). "Weak", therefore, is the description of the body which—in metaphysical terms—rises from the temporal soil of humanity. The Pauline metaphor corresponds likewise to the scientific terminology, which defines man's beginning as a body by the use of the same term (semen, seed).

If, in the Apostle's view, the human body which arises from earthly seed is "weak", this means not only that it is "perishable", subject to death, and to all that leads to it, but also that it is an "animal body" (1). The body "full of power", however, which man will inherit from the second Adam, Christ, in virtue of the future resurrection, will be a "spiritual" body. It will be imperishable, no longer subject to the threat of death. Thus the antinomy, "weak—full of power", refers explicitly not only to the body considered separately, but also to the whole constitution of man considered in his corporeal nature. Only within the framework of such a constitution can the body become "spiritual"; and this spiritualization of the body will be the source of its power and incorruptibility (or immortality). 

3. This theme has its origin already in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. It can be said that St Paul sees the reality of the future resurrection as a certain restitutio in integrum, that is, as the reintegration and at the same time as the attaining of the fullness of humanity. It is not truly a restitution, because in that case the resurrection would be, in a certain sense, a return to the state which the soul enjoyed before sin, apart from the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Gen 1-2). But such a return does not correspond to the internal logic of the whole economy of salvation, to the most profound meaning of the mystery of the redemption. Restitutio in integrum, linked with the resurrection and the reality of the "other world", can only be an introduction to a new fullness. This will be a fullness that presupposes the whole of human history, formed by the drama of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. Gen 3) and at the same time permeated by the text of the First Letter to the Corinthians.

Perfect harmonization

4. According to the text of the First Letter to the Corinthians, man in whom concupiscence prevails over the spiritual, that is, the ''animal body" (1 Cor 15:44), is condemned to death. He should rise, however, as a "spiritual body", man in whom the Spirit will achieve a just supremacy over the body, spirituality over sensuality. It is easy to understand that Paul is here thinking of sensuality as the sum total of the factors limiting human spirituality, that is, as a force that "ties down" the spirit (not necessarily in the Platonic sense) by restricting its own faculty of knowing (seeing) the truth and also the faculty to will freely and to love in truth. Here, however, it cannot be a question of that fundamental function of the senses which serves to liberate spirituality, that is to say, of the simple faculty of knowing and willing proper to the psychosomatic compositum of the human subject.

Just as one speaks of the resurrection of the body, that is, of man in his true corporeal nature, consequently the "spiritual body" should mean precisely the perfect sensitivity of the senses, their perfect harmonization with the activity of the human spirit in truth and liberty. The "animal body" which is the earthly antithesis of the "spiritual body", indicates sensuality as a force prejudicial to man, precisely because—while living "in the knowledge of good and evil"—he is often attracted and, as it were, impelled towards evil.

Influence of the Holy Spirit on man

5. It cannot be forgotten that here it is not so much a question of anthropological dualism, but of a basic antimony. Constituting it is not only the body (as the Aristotelian hyle), but also the soul: or man as a "living being" (cf. Gen 2:7). Its constituents are:—on the one hand, the whole man, the sum total of his psychosomatic subjectivity, inasmuch as he remains under the influence of the vivifying Spirit of Christ,—on the other hand, the same man inasmuch as he resists and opposes this Spirit. In the second case man is an "animal body" (and his works are "works of the flesh"). If, however, he remains under the influence of the Holy Spirit, man is "spiritual" (and produces the "fruit of the Spirit" (Gal 5:22).

6. Consequently, it can be said that not only in 1 Cor 15 are we dealing with the anthropology of the resurrection, but that the whole of St Paul's anthropology (and ethics) are permeated with the mystery of the resurrection through which we have definitively received the Holy Spirit. Chapter fifteen of the First Letter to the Corinthians constitutes the Pauline interpretation of the "other world" and of man's state in that world, in which each one, together with the resurrection of the body, will fully participate in the gift of the vivifying Spirit, that is, in the fruit of Christ's resurrection.

Christ's reply

7. Concluding the analysis of the "anthropology of the resurrection" according to Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, it is fitting to turn our minds again to Christ's words on the resurrection and on the "other world" which are quoted by the evangelists Matthew, Mark and Luke. We recall that Christ, in his reply to the Sadducees, linked faith in the resurrection with the entire revelation of the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob and of Moses (Mt 22:32). At the same time, while rejecting the objection proposed by those who questioned him, he uttered these significant words: "When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Mk 12:25). To these very words, in their immediate context, we devoted our previous reflections, passing on then to the analysis of St Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15).

These reflections have a fundamental significance for the whole theology of the body: for an understanding both of marriage and of celibacy "for the kingdom of heaven". Our further analyses will be devoted to this latter subject.

NOTE

1) The original Greek uses the term psychikon. In St Paul it is found only in the First Letter to the Corinthians (2:14; 15:44; 15:46) and not elsewhere, probably because of the pregnostic tendencies of the Corinthians, and it has a prejorative connotation. As regards its meaning, it corresponds to the term "carnal" (cf. 2 Cor 1:12; 10:4).

However, in the other Pauline letters, "psyche" and its derivatives signify man in his manifestations, the individual's way of living, and even the human person in a positive sense (e.g., to indicate the ideal of life of the ecclesial community: mi­?i psychÃ?i = "in one spirit: Phil 1:27; sympsychoi = "by being of the same mind": Phil 2:2; isÙpsychon = "like him": Phil 2:20; cf. R. Jewett, Paul's Anthropological Terms. A Study of their Use in Conflict Settings, Leiden 1971, Brill, pp. 2, 448-449).