I call the theory temporary disembodiment because it envisions the following scenario: We human beings are born, live for a time as psycho-physical beings, and then die; after death we exist in an incomplete state as immaterial souls; and some time later in the eschaton God miraculously raises our bodies from the ground, transforms them into "glorified bodies," and reunites them with our souls, thus making us complete and whole again
Now temporary disembodiment has several theological and philosophical assets. For one thing, many Christian thinkers have seen a equitable fit between it and the view of human nature expressed in the Bible and in the Pauline writings particularly. The Apostle seems to hold that human beings consist both of material bodies and immaterial souls, that the body is not merely an adornment or drape for the soul, and is indeed good, since it can be the temple of the Holy Sp irit (I Cor. 3, 16 17; 6, 19-20), and that the soul is in some sense separable from the body (II Cor. 5, 6 8; 12, 2-3). What the body does is provide the soul with a vehicle for action in the world and expression of intentions and desires; and the soul pr ovides the body with animation and direction 5For another thing, the theory seems a neat way of reconciling the traditional view that the general resurrection does not occur until the eschaton with Jesus' statement to the good thief on the cross, " Today you wil l be with me in paradise " (L&. 23, 43). The explanation (which naturally goes far beyond Jesus' simple statement) is as follows: The thief would be with Jesus in paradise that very day in the form of a disembodied soul, only to be bodily raised much late r. The theory may also help resolve a similar tension that is sometimes said to exist in Pauline thought, with texts like I Corinthians 15 and I Thessalonians 4 pointing toward the idea of a future, eschatological, resurrection (with those who die beforeh and existing till then in a kind of bodiless sleep) and texts like 2 Corinthians 5,10 and Phillipians 1, 23 suggesting the idea that death for the Christian is an immediate gain!.
