Why the need to believe in bodily resurrection of the dead?

[sanchoquijote]

Hello.

What is the source for what I understand the Catholic Church’s view to be, that our physical bodies will be resurrected? Is it strictly from the account of Jesus after his resurrection?

If the body is essential, what about those who die in horrible accidents, leaving little to no physical remains (e.g. 9/11 victims, Nagasaki, etc.)? Would a just God allow them to be deprived of the resurrection simply because of their manner of death? If not, then might we all simply be “divine sparks” in Heaven, with no particular need for a physical body at death (e.g. cremation and scattering of ashes is fine)?

Mike

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

Christ is the “first fruit” of all who will rise from the dead. The whole of Scripture speaks to the resurrection of the dead:

Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.

• Daniel 12:2

But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise! Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust! For your dew is a dew of light, and you cause the land of shades to give birth.

• Isaiah 26:19

But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.

• 1 Cor. 15:13–18

For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

• 1 Cor 15:52

As for those whose bodies have been decimated, St. Augustine says:

Perish the thought that the omnipotence of the Creator is unable, for the raising of our bodies and for the restoring of them to life, to recall all [their] parts, which were consumed by beasts or by fire, or which disintegrated into dust or ashes, or were melted away into a fluid, or were evaporated away in vapors.

(The City of God 22:20:1 [A.D. 419])