Incarnation and…Doctor Who?
September 22nd, 2012 by Marc A. Pitman
The other day, my seven year-old daughter was asking me about death. She talked about the idea of our body decaying but our soul living on.
In an effort to stave off Gnosticism, I told her that though popular Biblically, we don’t believe in a soul/body split. I told her I didn’t know exactly what happened at death but I do know that we are not “spirit beings having a human experience.”
I told her about Genesis. That the way the ancient Hebrews tried to explain this mystery was God forming clay and then breathing His breath into it. The material without the spirit isn’t a living person. Neither is the spirit without the material.
We are both spirit and body. Inseparable.
She looked at me as though asome of this was making sense. To show she was getting it, she asked:
I get it. It’s like Doctor Who’s two hearts, right?
Um. Yeah. Something like that. 
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 22nd, 2012 at 12:14 pm and is filed under family life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 25th, 2012 at 10:36 pm
Marc, this is really intriguing to me. I’ve never thought about it that way. Do you have any additional reading on this thinking?
October 25th, 2012 at 11:00 pm
Unfortunately, my daughter isn’t yet published.
But on the body/spirit unity…I think “Our Father Abraham” is a great place to start. At least as an easy introduction to thinking Hebraically. It’s on Amazon at: http://amzn.to/SBVyCk. [affiliate link]
October 28th, 2012 at 12:18 pm
Love the Doctor Who comparison! Such wisdom…
October 29th, 2012 at 11:05 am
Sorta blew me away!