Resurrection

Resurrection, a word generally used with reference to the Christian theological belief of a "reunion of the body and soul in a future state of existence. The many physical difficulties as to the reuniting of the material particles of our present bodies are to some extent obviated by the explanation given by St. Paul, and by his theory of a spiritual body, which he compares to the analogy of a sown grain of corn and that which grows from it. The resurrection of Christ is one of the main grounds upon which a belief in the resurrection of the body is based. A belief in the immortality of the soul, with or without the belief in a continued identity of body, is widely spread through all times and among most races, from the belief of the Australian native that he will come back to earth a white man, or the Oriental doctrine of transmigration and progress of the soul, to the belief of spiritualised materialism that the principle of life is indestructible, though personal identity will be lost.