I have been thinking a lot about the difference between our bodies and our souls recently. Partially because of a friend's exploration of theological views of hell, with the resulting conversations, and partially due to the will and trust process, which involves indicating plans for what should be done with my body after I die. In one sense, it doesn't matter what happens to my body after I die, as I will be gone, or no longer using it. But it is also an important part of me in the present, and so it feels like it should be in the future, or it is in some way intrinsically tied to our identity.
In reality I believe that our soul (and spirit) are the more significant parts of our identity once we die (our physical bodies die). But intuitively it is hard to disconnect our identity from our body. I know little about the details of exactly what happens to our souls or spirits when we die, but I have a reasonable understanding of the options for our body. The two most common options are burial or cremation. Burial used to be far more common in western culture, which is why there are large cemeteries found in any area that has been inhabited for a long period of time. That has become more expensive in recent times, leading to increased popularity of cremation. Burning the body decreases its mass, for cheaper long term storage and memorialize, or the ashes can be spread, removing all identifiable traces of the body, but making it one with the area it is spread in.
My grandfather is my only recent ancestor to be buried, with the rest of my grandparents, and my mother, opting to be cremated, and in most cases have their remains stored in a niche in a wall at the cemetery. It is much closer than my grandfather's veteran's cemetery, but I have still only visited once since they were interred there.
I didn't really have a strong preference on the matter, as neither seemed appealing: rotting in a box, or being consumed by flames. But I read an article by John Piper that was fairly opposed to cremation for Christians based on the idea that burning bodies is too similar to hell from the flames and death sense, and that it showed less respect for the hope of resurrection at the end of the age. Now no one is claiming that God is not powerful enough to re-constitute a cremated body, and we might be getting brand new bodies anyway, but it is still a powerful metaphor for the living who are seeing the results of the practice.
That article is enough to swing me in favor, at least for the moment, of being buried. But beyond that, I have few specific wishes for what should happen in the event of my unexpected passing, besides that I want my family taken care of, and preparations have been made for that. I believe I should be much more concerned about what happens to my soul when I die, than I am of my body, and I am. But it is less clear precisely who one influences that outcome, compared to how we navigate the body issue. I have trouble wrapping my mind around the difference between our soul and our spirit in most cases.
One recent explanation I have heard is that our spirit doesn't even exist until we are "born again," just like our body doesn't really exist as a freestanding entity until we are born of our mothers. So people who have not been born again have a soul, but not a spirit. And that soul can be utterly destroyed in the fires of hell, but a spirit can not. If this is actually the case, I am not sure the functional difference between the soul and the spirit if we do have both after being born again. And are there people who do have both that don't make it into heaven? Jesus has some harsh words for Judas's situation, and Paul talks a lot about persisting in faith until the end. I being born again the ticket into heaven, or is that just the initial qualification? An important question to be more fully explored later.
