How Are the Dead Raised?

…restoring to him authority over all things on earth. When death and Satan, who had tyrannized over them, have been destroyed, the Son will again have, in the age to come as well, supremacy of authority over all things.

Tome Seven.

“But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’” and so on (1 Corinthians 15:35). The prophet Isaiah cried out long beforehand the mystery of the resurrection from the dead, that it will take place in due time, as God grants it and by his unspeakable power refashions into life what death held fast. He said, “The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised, and those in the earth shall rejoice; for the dew that comes from you is healing to them” (Isaiah 26:19). By dew, I think, he means figuratively the life-giving working of God, by which he gives being to things that are not, and grants well-being to things already brought into existence. For all things hold together in him (Colossians 1:17), just as they were also brought into being through him (compare John 1:3).

And somewhere the inspired David sings of the creatures on earth to God, the Savior of all: “When you open your hand, all things will be filled with goodness; when you turn away your face, they will be troubled; you will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust; you will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:28–30). For in Adam, because of the transgression, human nature suffered the turning away of the divine face; and so it was all but thrown into confusion and troubled, went back to its own dust, and was brought down into death and corruption. But since the Only-begotten Word of God has become like us, and we have been enriched with a share in the Holy Spirit, we are being reshaped to what we were in the beginning and, as it were, created anew. For we have been called to newness of life (Romans 6:4), escaping the power of death.

The most wise Paul will bear witness, saying, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you” (Romans 8:11). Since, then, Christ came to life again, trampling down the power of death, and became the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, who will surely follow in his footsteps, how is it not utter madness still to doubt the mystery of the resurrection in any way at all?

If anyone chose to turn the eye of his mind too curiously on the works of the Godhead, and tried to look closely into the manner in which each thing was brought forth and the beginning of its coming to be, he would never stop uttering that senseless “How?” For how did the heaven come to be, from what matter, or from where? What foundation does it have? And the earth, how or from where did it come, and on what does it rest firm? How were the orb of the sun, the moon, the stars, and the other created things brought forth? How did the Maker of all take dust from the earth and form man (Genesis 2:7)? How was earth refashioned into bones and sinews and flesh? If, because we shall not be able to give an account of each thing that has been made, we shall for that reason deny that they came to be at all, where would these notions, or rather these perverse arguments, finally end?

After Christ’s resurrection, to doubt the resurrection, to say “How?” of the works of God, is a mark of bad judgment, ignorance, and arrogance. And indeed to ask, “With what body are the dead raised?” is also foolish; for it is quite plain that it is with the same body. For the Lord too raised his own flesh just as it was. But as for those who say that the soul existed beforehand and is bound to the body as a punishment, they set aside not only the account of creation, according to which…