When someone's body can no longer perform its functions in the natural world in response to the thoughts and affections of its spirit (which it derives from the spiritual world), then we say that the individual has died. This happens when the lungs' breathing and the heart's systolic motion have ceased. The person, though, has not died at all. We are only separated from the physical nature that was useful to us in the world. The essential person is actually still alive. I say that the essential person is still alive because we are not people because of our bodies but because of our spirits. After all, it is the spirit within us that thinks, and thought and affection together make us the people we are. We can see, then, that when we die we simply move from one world into another. This is why in the inner meaning of the Bible, 'death' means resurrection and a continuation of life.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Death is the separation of spirit from body, not the end of the person.
- In plain terms
- Dying is just leaving the body; the person keeps living.
- What can you take from it?
- View death as a transition to continue life.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What happens after death?
- How do you define a person?
Another view
Physical cessation of life functions is the only evidence for most people.
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