Gary Pollard
(Continuing modernizing translation of this work by one of the early church fathers)
On this subject, some people wonder if, just like the Father generates an uncreated Son and sends out a Holy Spirit—not like they once didn’t exist, but because the Father is their source with no “before” or “after” between them—maybe there’s a similar relationship between consciousness and matter.
To explore this more, the discussion usually begins by asking if these material bodies are just as eternal as consciousnesses, or whether the material bodies will one day be destroyed for good. To settle this more precisely, we must first determine if it’s possible for a conscious being to exist apart from the body that contains it—which seems to me very difficult, if not impossible—or if consciousness must always be united to some kind of body.
If anyone could prove that it’s possible for a mind to exist without a body, then it would follow that bodily nature, which was created out of nothing and generated after intervals of time, could also cease to exist once it served its purpose. A completely incorporeal life should be understood as being God’s privilege alone.
So, as we said before, the matter of this world — which allows for every kind of transformation — is denser in low-order beings. This density produces the visible, changing forms of this world. But matter’s interaction with celestial bodies, angels, or the spiritual bodies of the resurrected is different. For those higher order beings, it has the brightness of celestial bodies and is less dense.
From all these together the varied and diverse condition of the one world is completed. If anyone wishes to explore these things more deeply, it must be done with reverence and the fear of God, by examining the sacred scriptures extremely carefully. Perhaps their hidden meaning, revealed by the Spirit to those who are worthy, will uncover something more about these mysteries after gathering many attestations on the subject.
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