"Sin disrupted the original harmony of body and spirit. St. Paul expresses this memorably in … Romans:
When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Rom 7:[22]-24)But in the resurrection, the body will be free from this 'law of sin.' Body and spirit will be in perfect harmony.
"Paul … speaks of man as a composite of body, spirit, and soul, with no distinct boundaries among the three. According to Paul, both body and soul are capable of being 'spiritual.' … [I]n the age to come, the body will be filled with light, entirely permeated by the spirit.
"Can the body be illumined even while we are here on earth? Yes, to the extent that we mature spiritually. But in this life there will always be … an opposition between body and spirit that we must overcome. In the age to come, this opposition will be … eliminated. The law of sin will be vanquished from the body, and our spiritualization will be perfected.
"This spiritualization is not dehumanizing. It is the opposition between body and spirit that limits our human potential. The resurrected body will not be less human, but more.
"Since God created the human being as a unity of body and spirit, human perfection could never involve an opposition between them. [It] means a deep harmony between [them.] And we must not conceive of this harmony as a victory of spirit over body, but as a perfect participation of the body in the mystery of the spirit."
Next: divinization.
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