"...my flesh, too, will dwell in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption." You can also find "decay", and sometimes "ruin", as it is translated in the New American Bible. Or rather, I should qualify that: when this passage appears the first time in the NAB (Psalm 16:10), it translates to "ruin", but the second time it appears (Acts 2:27), we find "corruption". The septuagint gives us διαφθοράν, which term Jerome consistently translates corruptionem, both in this Psalm and in its six appearances in the Acts of the Apostles. Luther, we might note, gives us verwese, which pretty directly corresponds to "corruption". I'm going with "corruption".
Regardless, corruption calls to mind these strange cases of saints whose bodies never underwent, or only partially underwent, the natural process of decay. A satisfying naturalistic account for this has yet to be given. Above we see St. Bernadette of Lourdes, who appears today not much different than she did at her death in 1879 - no bloating, no stench, no rigor mortis. Breathlessly asleep.
Suppose that such cases are genuine, and refer back Psalmist's words, or in general to the promise of bodily resurrection, and that the Divine Hand does not restrict its action to the soul alone. Why just these saints and not others? And how do we square this with the words many of us will hear or have already heard today: "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return". It appears there are exceptions. O magnum mysterium! Here's one I just don't get...
Addendum: Incorruptibility and Falsifiability
A natural reaction to such phenomena as incorrupt bodies is to assert that, though we haven’t found a scientific explanation for it yet, we ultimately will, or even if we don’t, we could in principle. Miracles, on this view, are the foundation of the “God of the Gaps”, whom we shall eventually smoke out and expose as a chimera. I believe it was Trent Horn who noted that this attitude, so common among scientist, is non-falsifiable: there is no miracle that could finally and conclusively resist this sort of attack: with every failure to naturalize the miracle, the scientist can always still say, “oh, we just need a little more time, and some nicer gadgets”.
Again: if we find a naturalistic explanation for your miracle, we vindicate the scientistic worldview; if not, just wait and see. Heads we win, tails you don't win: for any given miracle, the God of the Gaps argument can't possibly lose.
The irony here is that the same scientists, with Popper, regard falsifiability as the mark of a genuinely scientific statement. But here they lapse back to the discredited verificationism of yesteryear. And so, on their own convictions, the inevitable demise of the God of the Gaps is an unscientific attitude, an ideological commitment - perhaps, a religion?
That said, miracles by themselves could never suffice to warrant any particular religious belief. They are underdetermined. All you know is that “some supernatural things occurred”, and you could go on weaving any number of supernaturalistic theories to fit the data points. Nor do miracles have the power to compel the will, which would amount to a deprivation of our freedom. And, indeed, this is even written into scripture. Judas after all was front and center for so many of Jesus’ miracles, wasn't he?
Which remarks prompt me - flip, flip,flip - to revisit Aquinas on the matter, and then Augustine. Or maybe not just now. There's also a nice entry on miracles at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. And C.S. Lewis wrote a book on the subject, too.
Regardless, corruption calls to mind these strange cases of saints whose bodies never underwent, or only partially underwent, the natural process of decay. A satisfying naturalistic account for this has yet to be given. Above we see St. Bernadette of Lourdes, who appears today not much different than she did at her death in 1879 - no bloating, no stench, no rigor mortis. Breathlessly asleep.
Suppose that such cases are genuine, and refer back Psalmist's words, or in general to the promise of bodily resurrection, and that the Divine Hand does not restrict its action to the soul alone. Why just these saints and not others? And how do we square this with the words many of us will hear or have already heard today: "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you shall return". It appears there are exceptions. O magnum mysterium! Here's one I just don't get...
Addendum: Incorruptibility and Falsifiability
A natural reaction to such phenomena as incorrupt bodies is to assert that, though we haven’t found a scientific explanation for it yet, we ultimately will, or even if we don’t, we could in principle. Miracles, on this view, are the foundation of the “God of the Gaps”, whom we shall eventually smoke out and expose as a chimera. I believe it was Trent Horn who noted that this attitude, so common among scientist, is non-falsifiable: there is no miracle that could finally and conclusively resist this sort of attack: with every failure to naturalize the miracle, the scientist can always still say, “oh, we just need a little more time, and some nicer gadgets”.
Again: if we find a naturalistic explanation for your miracle, we vindicate the scientistic worldview; if not, just wait and see. Heads we win, tails you don't win: for any given miracle, the God of the Gaps argument can't possibly lose.
The irony here is that the same scientists, with Popper, regard falsifiability as the mark of a genuinely scientific statement. But here they lapse back to the discredited verificationism of yesteryear. And so, on their own convictions, the inevitable demise of the God of the Gaps is an unscientific attitude, an ideological commitment - perhaps, a religion?
That said, miracles by themselves could never suffice to warrant any particular religious belief. They are underdetermined. All you know is that “some supernatural things occurred”, and you could go on weaving any number of supernaturalistic theories to fit the data points. Nor do miracles have the power to compel the will, which would amount to a deprivation of our freedom. And, indeed, this is even written into scripture. Judas after all was front and center for so many of Jesus’ miracles, wasn't he?
Which remarks prompt me - flip, flip,flip - to revisit Aquinas on the matter, and then Augustine. Or maybe not just now. There's also a nice entry on miracles at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. And C.S. Lewis wrote a book on the subject, too.