| Show F THE unknowable 1 I TAKE it alao that st paul would have attributed to christ a spiritual body but what precisely that may mean I 1 do not know and I 1 know that thai no one knows or can know that is a sentence from an article by dr edwin A abbott in defense of the position taken by a number of learned divines who repudiate the doctrine of the literal resurrection of the body and desire to hold fellowship with the churches which make that doctrine part of their creed the dogmatism contained in thab sentence is ie equal at least to that which the writer of it strongly deprecates in others it is of the same sort an the agnostic ag assumption which designates the deity not net only as the unknown but as the unknowable it virtually says what I 1 dont know nobody else knows or ever can know it is more arbitrary and arrogant than anything in the creeds by which these liberal religionists and freethinkers free thinkers refuse to be bound any man may reasonably knowl ac edge his own ignorance he may reasonably confess his inability ina bilty tome to see an object or perceive a principle or understand a proposition but he has ba no right to deny abhat hat power in others it is as irrational to say it is impossible for another to comprehend something that one cannot grasp as to deny the existence of an object which a strong eyed man describes but which a nearsighted near sighted man cannot behold As are in the scope of natural vision among different indi vi duals so BO there are in the capability to compie comprehend hend a truth or to perceive things that are spiritual the person who has no spiritual per Ic Ct eption la Is in an abnormal state the rule all over the world among all races race and in all ages agee is that the spiritual faculty by which faith to i exercised exists in greater or less lees degree this is the normal condition of mankind as natural vision to is normal A few unfortunates are am born blind and it may be that a few still greater unfortunates are am born spiritually blind however it is our opinion that spiritual dimness of vision can be cured by the effort of the individual and the power of deity which responds to it while physical blindness is in some oases beyond remedy in the present state of human skill be that as it may the dogmatism which denies to others the power to behold physically mentally or spiritually what one or i a few may be able to perceive is unreasonable assumptive and impertinent yet it to is common among avowed atheists and is not infrequent among professing profaning so bo called christ lans lane 31 it Is ig quite likely that dr bottand Ab others othere of his bie school may be entirely ignorant of what paul spoke of an aa a spiritual body but how does he be know that nobody else elm knows known what whal it is and if it be conceded that no one now BOW knows known wt what a spiritual body is how does he know that nobody ever can know it Is it not that paul know knew what he was talking about when he said there to is a natural body and there is a spiritual body and speaking of the resurrection cat it is sown flown a natural body it is raised a spiritual body bodaj andia and if one man can know what that is what is in there them to hinder any number of men from knowing the same thing if ifor dr abbott believes the now new tea te lament or the christian religion at all he must acknowledge that jesus of nazareth knows what a spiritual body is if he was not raised from the dead with a spiritual body then the whole testimony of his apostles is false and a vital and turn ing point of the christian religion to is a deception and a snare esnare that jesus christ to Is the resurrection aud and the life that he will change our vile bodies and fashion them like unto his glorious gl urious body are essential elements of the christian creed and whatever may bdour be our lack of understanding now as to the nature of a spiritual body when that change shall come to us we as understands der stands it for we shall see as an we are am seen men and know as aa we are known 1916 paul learned and ami saw many things thing which were not commonly understood tood in his hie day others may have had bad similar manifestations that which understood was then may also be un no dera der tood stood now the same power and light that revealed those things to paul can reveal them to persons prepared to receive them just as an well today as aa in the remote post this thia it appears to us requires require a no argument meaL it Is ie very nearly belt evident if paul knew what a spiritual Bpi ritual body 1 to then others othan may know it now and when any man however learned and important says ay he knows that no one knows known or can know 1491 14 it 91 he announces himself an egotist and places himself in the rank of dogmatic atheists athe tote A spiritual Bpi ritual body 11 1 1 as aa the old scriptures describe deo cribe it and as explained in modern holy writ to is a body quickened by spirit instead of blood and though composed of the same or similar elementary particles that make up the natural body to Is so eo changed in their arrangement that it io ie capable of things that the natural body could not achieved achieve and to in freed from the limitations and bonds of the lawn law that govern this lower sphere an illustration of this change though not complete is found in the difference between the charcoal and the diamond both pure carbon but one almost infinitely above the other in value and beauty the chief difficulty in the way of understanding anything about spiritual bodies bodiee and beings in ie that thai spirit is ig supposed to be immaterial and therefore incomprehensible an A n immaterial substance a virtual contradiction of terms having no properties in common with matter and yet having substance and entity cannot be likened to anything we know therefore it way may be class alamed clamed by persons who take this view as unknowable as well as unknown but the supposition that spirit lit is in no sense material will be found to be a fallacy though differing in important particulars from what is commonly called matter it Is a tangible substantial extended and limited reality existing in space which cannot be occupied by another body at the same instant and possessing other characteristics of those grosser substances we call natural things A spiritual body is comprehensible measurably it can be understood in this life certainly it will be fully comprehended in the life to come and while the natural man may not understand the things of god because they are spiritually discerned he should hesitate to deny the power of perception in others which may not have been developed in himself surely it is not wise or modest or christian for one who claims to be a teacher in israel to declare that v v something he does not know is not known and never can be known and he should ponder on the words of the great teacher what thou not now thou know hereafter 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