Church Tradition Dilemma on the Worth of the Human Body: St Paul or Plato?

Abstract

The problem of the relationship of body and soul had been largely analyzed and discussed in the Greek philosophy. The Christian
tradition fell heir to both the tools and the difficulties which philosophers had been dealing with for centuries. As a matter of fact, the Greek thought saw in every reality two opposed dimensions: the matter and the form. A body is the concrete result of a certain form imposed upon and giving definition to a certain stuff – e.g. wood, or flesh etc. While in union with each other, the spirit and the matter partake of one common life, and are cemented together by ties which are permanent and unknown. The experience of death shows unquestionably that once separated from the soul the body ceases to act. The spirit seems to retire into another region, while the body is consigned over, and apparently for ever, to darkness and corruption. Since the particles of matter of which it was composed
decompose and cease to adhere to each other, it becomes a question of the most serious importance, whether this body can take part to God’s salvific project.