Sorry Usagi, got a little busy so my replies may be a little sporadic…
Usagi:
If there are physical and sensory pleasures in Heaven that call for lungs (perhaps sweet smells or conversation), He might choose to employ His body to sample those.
When Noah burned an offering after the flood, the Bible said Yahweh was pleased with the smell. I don’t see how a god who invented smell would need to give himself some skin in the form of nostrils and a human brain to smell with.
Usagi:
He does have friends and family who knew Him as a man and might want to interact with Him on that basis sometimes. I’m sure Mary is perfectly blissful just being in the Presence, but if other saintly mothers in heaven get to physically interact with their kids, she might also want to from time to time.
That’s interesting. It’s come up before and the problem is, if it’s just the feeling of touch that’s at issue, lungs, and a liver are not required for that so they’re still of no use.
Usagi:
You consider it nothing short of comical that a being might not need to breathe but might still enjoy the secondary uses of that faculty, like smelling and speaking.
Again, Yahweh spoke to mortals long before Jesus was born. You’d have to explain how he managed it without a human body then, but needs one now.
And you’d also have to explain how a god that invented the universe, including the human body and it’s vocal cords, would be unable to create human audio waves any time he wanted to despite not having a mouth.
Usagi:
I’m taking a risk by bringing in fiction here, but have you never seen, say, a vampire movie with characters who don’t need to breathe but still do so to talk? This is not a combination that no mind has ever conceived.
Yeah, I think that’s a bit of a risk. I’ve never seen one but don’t really know what it has to do with reality.
Usagi:
Okay, the “throat disappearing” thing is weird, which is why I’m inclined to think that the organs or some analogue are present even if not always in use
Not always? You mean the liver just sits there and once in a while Jesus turns it on for some purpose? Not sure that makes any sense.
Usagi:
,but even if it’s true that glorified bodies are just shells without innards, so what?
Well then it’s a shell, and if you can see veins and there’s no blood running through them then it’s a facade, an illusion if you prefer.
Usagi:
As long as my resurrected body feels like mine, can outwardly function as a body, and is the same sort as His, why should I care if it has actual lungs and other biological systems?
You might not but Jesus as a shell is not Catholic theology, so it may be of concern.
Usagi:
It is a real human body in that it has continuity with the original body (especially for Jesus, who was dead briefly enough that there was no issue of His particles being scattered about or incorporated into other organisms) and in that it is the sort of body God intends humans to have for all eternity.
If continuity is a real issue what about someone who’s body disintegrated thousands of years ago or someone who was evaporated at Hiroshima?
And, to be honest, I don’t know why “continuity” even matters.
And third, I don’t think “continuity” really answers the question I posed. I’m going to ask it again to see if you have a better answer:
me:
But if, and I said if, there are no internal organs, it doesn’t eat, drink liquids, or even breath, then how is it a “real human body” other than appearance?
See, the only living human body that makes any sense is one that performs functions to keep itself alive. Lungs take in oxygen for a very specific purpose. They put the oxygen into the bloodstream and the heart pumping allows the bloodstream it to the cells so that the cells can combine it with food particles to create a furnace effect creating energy. That’s what it means to be alive.
Usagi:
I can more easily imagine a person who functions despite not needing to eat or breathe than one who functions despite not having any analogue of the brain. Still, I should have said IF there is an analogue to the brain, I imagine it operates in brain-analogous ways. If I don’t need to breathe, I might only call upon my lungs when I want to speak, but my brain will still be running all the time.
So are you saying Jesus would definitely have a functioning physical brain with synapses and dendrites?