Reincarnation_Res

RESURRECTION AND REINCARNATION
M.M.NINAN
3. Impassibility in the risen bodies of the just does not mean numbness or insensibility. It
means immunity to what is contrary to human nature and painful to it. The risen body will
have sensation (that is, its senses will operate and bring in sense-findings or sense-knowledge),
and it will have movement; these things belong to the perfection of the body.
4. The senses of the risen bodies of the just will find in the overflow of glory, which comes
upon them from the soul, their complete and enduring perfection. The senses will be perfectly
and satisfyingly in operation, and they will possess their objects, and not merely tend to these
objects, or be in a state of readiness to perceive them.
83. The Subtlety of Risen Bodies
1. The risen body will be, in all organic action, perfectly subject to the soul, and instantly
responsive to the will, needing withal no material sustenance. This spirit-like quality of the
risen body is called subtlety or subtility.
2. The subtlety of a glorified body will not enable it to occupy the same place with another
body, unless this be done by a miracle.
3. Now, there is no contradiction in the thought of two bodies being in the same place
simultaneously, even though there is nothing in the nature of a body capable of producing this
effect. What keeps bodies from compenetration is their external extension, and this is not of
the essence or nature of bodies, but is an effect of quantity, which, in turn, is only a proper
accidental of bodies and not their essence. Hence, there is no conflict or contradiction in the
notion of compenetration of bodies; therefore, since the thing is conceivable, it might be done
by a miracle.
4. However, the subtlety of the glorified body does not make this compenetration possible
without a miracle. Besides, in heaven, distinctness of bodily being will be a perfection; if
several bodies were to occupy the same place, this distinctness of being would be obscured.
5. The glorified body, just as the natural body on earth, will occupy space, and will be in a
place according to its dimensions.
6. There will be nothing ghostlike in the risen body. It will be a true body. But it will have
spiritual or spirit-like qualities. It will be something that can be touched and felt. When our
Lord in his risen and glorified body came in, through closed doors, to his disciples, he told
them he was not a spirit or ghost, and said (Luke 24:39): "Handle and see: for a spirit hath not
flesh and bones, as you see me to have."
84. The Agility of Risen Bodies
1. The glorified body will be able to move with the quickness of thought from place to place
under the direction of the soul and the command of the free will. This quality of the risen
body is called agility.
2. The risen body in heaven will move about. Scripture says (Isa. 40:31): "They shall run and
not be weary"; and (Wisd. 3:7), "[The just] shall run to and fro like sparks among the reeds."
But this swift and untiring movement will not deprive the just of the beatific vision or diminish
their happiness.
3. The movement of the glorified body will not be strictly instantaneous; it will take a moment
of time, yet this moment will be so short as to be imperceptible.
85. The Clarity of Risen Bodies
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