since one is immediately at home with the Lord. (How one can simultaneously b e both « at home with the Lord " and "in an incomplete state" is a tension that perhaps remains in the theory.)Finally, the problem of personal identity after death seems in one regard more manageable on this theory than on at least some others, for there is in this theory no temporal gap in the existence of persons (although there is a gap in their existence as complete, unified persons). There is no moment subsequent to our births in which you and I simply do not exist-we exist either as soulbodies or as mere souls at every moment till eternity. There are three main aspects of temporary disembodiment that require discussion both from a philosophical and a theological perspective. Let me now consider them in turn. The first is the notion that after death the soul exists for a time, i.e., until the resurrection, in an intermediate state without the body. The second is the notion that at the time of the parousia the body will be raised from the ground and reunited with the soul. And the third is the notion that the body will then be transformed into what is called a "glorified body."The first main claim of temporary disembodiment, then, is that after death the soul temporarily exists without the body. This differs from physicalist concepts of resurrection in which the person does not exist at al l in the period between death and resurrection. Temporary disembodiment need not be based on classical dualism as defined earlier, but is based on one tenet of classical dualism, viz., the claim that human beings consist (or in this case at least normally consist) of both material bodies and immaterial souls. (The soul is not said to be the essence of the person, however, and is said to survive death not because immortality is one of its natural properties but because God causes it to survive death.) 6Now almost all Christians believe that there is some kind of interim state of the person between death and resurrection.
