Yes, we are still human.
Take this analogy, Servant.
In order to be human, we need to be breathing. Yes?
Unborn babies do not breathe. Yes?
So unborn babies are not human? No.
How then do we understand this?
We say: unborn babies are in preparation for breathing. They are still human.
Similarly, our souls in heaven are preparing for the resurrection of our bodies. They are still human however.
PR,
. For me, I think that the caterpillar to the butterfly imagery works very well. That in our present physical stage, we are essentially bound by physical laws and necessary constraints. Maybe you could say that we are born with training wheels. At some point, the training wheels come off, and we have no further need of them, but at the moment, we do.
. When the soul emerges from the body, which is then cast off, it is free of the pain and suffering of illness, etc. I do not see us requiring the training wheels of the mortal body anymore. I can’t say what spirit is, or the soul, except to say what it is not, i.e., the body itself. Even as the chick is not the egg from which it hatches - that sort of thing.
. In the fetal stage, the body has an umbilical cord and a placenta, from which it separates. Do you think that the soul retains these organs? No… Why would one have to think that the soul must retain the collection of organs contained in the post-fetal body?
. I know all these Adventist friends who think that death is a sort of suspended animation in which they all seem to think that until the physical body is raised (a literal interpretation from the Bible), they are “sleeping”, in a sense. It seems to me that they have no concept otherwise.
. While it is hard for us to imagine life without the body with which we naturally associate with ourselves, think of it in a gradual sense. If you lose a leg, does that mean your soul can’t walk? No, the leg is part of the body, not the soul.
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