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“…a veteran Bible student asked if I really believed we would eat and drink in the afterlife. I told him yes, since Jesus said so. Visibly shaken, he replied, ‘Engaging in physical activities in heaven sounds terribly unspiritual.’” - Alcorn

Discussion

Tue, 10/26/21

I coined the term “Christoplatonism” to capture how Plato’s notion of a good spirit realm and an evil material world hijacked the church’s understanding of heaven. From a Christoplatonic perspective, our souls occupy our bodies like a hermit crab inhabits a seashell.

Plato’s statement Soma sema, “a body, a tomb,” reflected his belief that the spirit’s ideal state is freedom from the body. The first-century Jewish philosopher Philo tried to integrate Plato’s view with Judaism. In the second and third centuries, some church fathers—including Clement and Origen—followed Philo and reinterpreted Scripture. (Alcorn)

He’s not wrong that this thinking owes to Plato, but it was also a central tenet of Gnositcism, which, by Clement and Origin’s time would have been a major influence on churches, if I’m remembering the period accurately.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.