On the Resurrection of the Dead

Contents

1. 1The introduction: the resurrection must first be defended against objections before its positive grounds are set out.
2. 2Those who deny the resurrection must show that God cannot or will not raise the dead; but God, who knew every element of our bodies before they existed, cannot be ignorant of where they go after death.
3. 3The God who made human bodies from nothing has the power to raise them, even if they have been devoured by animals.
4. 4The objection: human bodies eaten by animals, and those animals eaten by other humans, cannot be restored to their owners at the resurrection.
5. 5The answer begins: God has given each creature its proper food, and much of what is eaten is never absorbed into the body at all.
6. 6Only food natural to a creature becomes part of its body; unnatural food is expelled or does harm.
7. 7Even if some unnatural food were absorbed, it would not become a true part of the body, and so would not rise with it.
8. 8Human flesh is not natural food for humans and so is never truly absorbed; God will gather every part of each body, however it perished.
9. 9Comparing God with human craftsmen, who cannot restore broken works, is an insult to God; what is impossible for humans is possible for God.
10. 10Raising the dead wrongs no one, neither other creatures nor the soul or body of the one raised, and it is not unworthy of God.
11. 11Summary of the first part and plan of the second: the resurrection will be proved from the purpose of human creation, from human nature, and from God's judgment.
12. 12God made human beings neither in vain nor for his own need, but for their own sake, to live forever; so the whole human being, soul and body, must endure, and the resurrection is the last of the body's changes.
13. 13God's purpose in creating human beings, to contemplate him forever, guarantees their continuance and therefore the resurrection.
14. 14The proper order of proof: first God's purpose in creation and human nature, then the judgment; the resurrection is not only for judgment, since infants too will rise.
15. 15A human being is a unity of soul and body with one common end; since the rational human being must endure, the body must rise to rejoin the soul.
16. 16Human continuance is uneven, interrupted by sleep and by death; as waking life after sleep is the same life, so is the life after death and resurrection.
17. 17No one would believe, without experience, that a whole human body grows from a seed; so reason can be trusted when it shows that the resurrection follows in the natural sequence of human life.
18. 18The argument from judgment: since the whole person, soul and body, acted, the whole person must be judged, which does not happen in this life or in death; so the body must rise.
19. 19If there were no judgment, the virtuous would be worse off than beasts; but just judgment does not happen in this life, where the wicked prosper and one death cannot repay great crimes.
20. 20If death ends everything, there is no judgment; if only the soul survives, a judgment of the soul alone would not be just, since it was the whole person who acted.
21. 21Rewarding or punishing the soul alone would be unjust: the body shared in the labors of virtue, and most sins arise from the body's needs and passions.
22. 22The virtues themselves (courage, self-control, prudence, justice) belong to the whole person, body and soul, and cannot be exercised by a soul alone.
23. 23God's commandments (honor parents, do not commit adultery, do not steal) were given to embodied human beings, not to souls, so the whole person must be judged.
24. 24The argument from the end: every being has its proper end, and the end of rational human beings cannot be mere freedom from pain or bodily pleasure.
25. 25The end of human life, which belongs to the whole person, is eternal contemplation of God; it requires the resurrection, by which the same souls receive the same bodies.