The Ching Ming Festival (1)

(The following is an edited email correspondence.)

What is the Bible’s stance on "respecting the dead"? In particular, I am considering how a Christian should behave toward the Ching Ming Festival.

For those readers who are unfamiliar with the Ching Ming Festival, a search on the Internet will provide many short articles explaining its background and significance.

On the day of this annual festival, multitudes of people visit the grave sites of their deceased relatives to perform acts of cleaning and worship.

The worship performed might include bowing at the tomb stones and prayers to the deceased, including updates on the conditions of the family members, and requests for special blessings and protection. There are also various offerings, including food and incense, burning a special type of "money" for the dead, or even small paper models of various objects such as houses and cars. It is believed that by burning these objects, they are transferred to the afterlife where the deceased can make use of them.

When considering how a Christian ought to behave toward the Ching Ming Festival, it would be helpful to first summarize the biblical teachings relevant to the subject.

The Bible teaches that the human person consists of the soul, which is the "inward" incorporeal part, and the body, which is the "outward" corporeal part.

A number of Christian scholars, including some prominent Reformed theologians, insist that the Bible consistently refers to the human person is a unity, that is, as one, so that we should not make a sharp distinction between the soul and the body, or to identify the "person" with the soul.

For example, in one of his lectures, Greg Bahnsen opposes making a sharp distinction between the soul and the body, or to identify the "person" with the soul, by saying that the human person is not "a ghost in a machine." When he brings up the obvious question of how a person’s identity is then maintained between death and resurrection (since the soul is separated from the body, but a "person" is supposed to consist of both), he shrugs it off as a "mystery."

This evasion is popular with many Christians, and a favorite of Reformed believers, used as a license to affirm just about every false belief that they cannot defend. It is not a mystery if it has been clearly revealed in Scripture (see my Commentary on Ephesians), but anything will appear perplexing when it is obscured by false assumptions and the stubborn resistance of human traditions.

(I am using Bahnsen only as a memorable and surprising example. The reader should note that there are different versions of this error, affirmed by different theologians, some more unbiblical than others. Consider, for example, the view of Berkhouwer in his Studies in Dogmatics.)

To make a sharp distinction between the soul and the body, to identify the "person" with the soul, and to consider the soul as superior or more important than the body, is sometimes considered the gnostic or the "greek" view. But as Gordon Clark points out, it is often unhelpful to just label a position as "greek," since the greeks held all sorts of positions on various matters that contradict one another. So, although one may call a position Plato’s view, Aristotle’s view, and so forth, it is often too broad and inaccurate to just call something "greek."

In any case, the view opposed, which we will here call the "gnostic" position, regards matter as evil, or at least affirms that evil comes from matter and not spirit. Therefore, when the soul leaves the body at death, it is in a real sense the liberation of the soul or the person from the prison of flesh. Of course this view is unbiblical, but it is not the necessary result of making a sharp distinction between the soul and the body. In fact, one can even affirm that the soul is superior to the body, and still not end up with the gnostic view, since a good thing can be superior to another good thing.

It is true that many biblical passages address the human person as a single unit, just as we all do in ordinary conversation; however, in none of these instances is the Bible discussing the constitution of the human person. On the other hand, when the Bible addresses the constitution of the human person, or when it refers to the constitution of the human person in order to make some other point, it always speaks of the human person as consisting of two parts — the incorporeal (mind, spirit, heart, etc.) and the corporeal (body, flesh, etc.).

Although the expression is a bit crude and loaded, the Bible indeed teaches that the human person is as "a ghost in a machine," that the person’s identity is in his incorporeal soul, and even that the soul is superior to the body.

For example, Samuel appeared as Samuel to Saul after death but before the resurrection, and Moses likewise appeared as Moses to Christ, implying that personal identity is associated with the incorporeal soul without a necessary connection to the body. Then, Jesus said that we should not be afraid of those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul, as if the two are different and separate, and that the soul is more important. (See Matthew 10:28; Luke 12:4–5; 1 Corinthians 5:3, 7:34; James 2:26.)

There are too many clear biblical passages supporting these points for them to be denied, and to say that the Bible always refers to the person as one, without a sharp distinction between the soul and the body, and without speaking of the soul as the superior part, can only be the conclusion from a selective and illegitimate use of Scripture.

That said, it remains that the body is important. For the Christian, it is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), and it is the same body that will be resurrected and transformed (1 Corinthians 15:35–58). "Therefore," Paul writes, "honor God with your body" (1 Corinthians 6:20). We can readily affirm all of this without also affirming the unbiblical view denied above. That is, with full biblical support and without slipping into the gnostic position, we can affirm that there is a sharp distinction between the soul and the body, that personal identity is associated with the soul (even if there is some relation to the body), and that the soul is superior (or more important) than the body.

(to be continued)

Recommended:

Vincent Cheung, Systematic Theology

Vincent Cheung, Godliness with Contentment

Gordon Clark, The Biblical Doctrine of Man