LessonsResurrection Is True: Bodily Restoration, Original Parts, and the Problem of Re-CreationQuiz

Not everything that enters a body through food is essential to the individual's identity. Matter can become part of a body and later leave or change without immediately destroying the person's identity.

The phrase restoration of original components protects the claim that the same person is raised without requiring every temporary condition of the former body to reappear.

Accordingly, the second person who consumed matter from the first does not necessarily depend for personal identity on that consumed matter. The resurrection of both is not thereby shown to be contradictory. The soul's relation to the person also remains relevant in the classical account.

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Why acquired matter is not essential

Resurrection Is True: Bodily Restoration, Original Parts, and the Problem of Re-Creation

Not everything that enters a body through food is essential to the individual's identity. Matter can become part of a body and later leave or change without immediately destroying the person's identity.

The phrase restoration of original components protects the claim that the same person is raised without requiring every temporary condition of the former body to reappear.

Accordingly, the second person who consumed matter from the first does not necessarily depend for personal identity on that consumed matter. The resurrection of both is not thereby shown to be contradictory. The soul's relation to the person also remains relevant in the classical account.