Jason, like you I feel a tremendous debt to NT Wright for opening scripture to me, and a genuine affection for the remarkable ways in which he speaks and writes about what scripture has to say. And like you, I find the argument that main thrust of Christianity is not “We go to heaven when we die” but more like “God comes to us; Heaven comes to Earth” (Just as a side note, The Rev Samuel Well really expands on this deeply with the idea that God only wants to “be with” God’s creation).
And, I also feel like he is missing something crucial about the life between incarnation and resurrection. I also have the sense that God’s revelation to humans is not limited to Biblical times or even to just the Hebrews/Jews, but rather to the entire planet. I understand that Wright is focused on what scripture says in its 2nd Temple context, and that it says precious little about that in-between time.
As a hospital chaplain, I marvel at the stories of Near Death Experiences (NDT) and post-death appearances. These are not unusual stories; they are common. In fact, tens of thousands have had NDEs since the 1970s as medicine turned a corner and made NDEs far more prevalent than they had been. And the remarkable thing about NDEs is the consistency of the stories across a vast number of occurrences. Even though each one is unique and language struggles to describe NDEs, their elements are not widely divergent. I feel like the church needs to pay attention to this. People are experiencing no boundary between life in the body and life without it… the transition is seamless (except in the other direction, where people report a “heaviness” when they re-enter their bodies). And many report a profound sense of “coming home” to a place they have known before. There are new capacities it seems (some of which seem remarkably like those Jesus had in his resurrected body, like just thinking about a place to suddenly go to it).
I understand that scripture did not have the wealth of experiences or language to describe this state. But I’m wondering if we are not in a time of fresh revelation about life after death. I find these stories incredibly comforting… there is still a me… there is a vast pool of love… there is no judgement, but learnings to process.
None of that discounts the idea of resurrecting in a new body on a new Earth. That is the big hope for me. But people coming back from Near-deaths have some pretty remarkable and consistent stories to offer. We should pay attention. Ron
I think you’re right to notice that Wright’s project is deliberately constrained. He is trying to discipline us back into the world of Second Temple Judaism and the scriptural narrative, and in doing so, he is wary of importing later metaphysics or experiential claims too quickly. That’s a good instinct at one level—it protects the central Christian hope that resurrection is not escape from the world but the renewal of it.
But as you’ve experienced pastorally, that narrowing can leave a gap. The Church has never asked only, “What happens at the end?” but also, “What happens between death and resurrection?” And historically, it has answered that not just with biblical exegesis, but with a wider synthesis—scripture, philosophical clarity, liturgical practice, and yes, human experience.
Near-death experiences are so pastorally significant. They often carry a striking consistency of peace, continuity of self, relational awareness, and a sense of “home.” That resonates, interestingly, with the Church’s long-standing conviction that personal identity is not extinguished at death, and that our being remains held in God in a real, not merely notional, way. As science advances, we may well learn more about these experiences in support of our theology and hopes.
You have seen and know there is no break, no “sleep,” no mere memory—but a real me/you/us who persists, encounters, learns, and is held in God's love. That instinct is deeply consonant with the classical Christian view of the person.
And as a chaplain, I imagine you see the importance of that not as theory, but as something people are trying to live—and die—within.
Thanks for reading and your careful thoughts and reflections.
It’s Holy Saturday and I’m thinking about where Jesus spent the day between His death and resurrection. He told the thief, now His brother, that he would be with Jesus in Paradise on Good Friday.
It’s interesting to think about the Transfiguration which occurred before Jesus’ death and resurrection and how Moses and Elijah show up, “appeared in glory.” The disciples with Jesus seemed to recognize Moses and Elijah, which is so interesting, unless, of course, introductions were first made by Jesus. “Peter, James, and John, I’d like you to meet Moses and Elijah.” (It makes me think that we will be recognizable and known, at some level, to each other when we enter eternity.)
And Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” So Moses and Elijah apparently were well aware of events happening on earth and interacting with Jesus about them.
Thank you for these thoughts. Prompting me to reflect some more.
When Jesus Christ tells the thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” that’s not a memory or a delay, but actual presence. Whatever Holy Saturday is, it isn’t absence. What continues beyond death isn’t just something of us, but fully us, in our real identity, held in God, still capable of knowing and being known.
On holy Saturday, Christ goes to the place of the dead, to those who had died before him, and proclaims his victory. The tradition often calls this the Harrowing of Hell: Christ entering death itself, not as a victim now, but as Lord, breaking its hold from the inside.
So where is Jesus on Holy Saturday?
• His body is in the tomb
• His human soul is in the realm of the dead (and not backed up in God's memory, a la N T Wright)
• His divine life is fully active, filling even death with his presence
Thanks for this. I too have been greatly blessed by Wright’s books and lectures but as I’ve been working through God’s Homecoming I have been struggling and troubled. You have helped name what has been troubling. Thank you. I too help Wright reads this and dialogues with you. It could prove to be very redemptive.
Thank you for this careful analysis of NTW's work, both the "standard" and the "challenging." I have read a number of his books - and his works have richly blessed me - but have only had time to dip into "Surprised by Hope." When I read it - it's on my list for the next few months - I will be aware of some of these questions and qualifications.
Jason, do you have any other books to recommend that are on the same topics of resurrection and heaven, similar to "Surprised by Hope"?
Also, thank you for sharing the information about creeds. I grew up in churches that always included a creed at least once a month in worship. My most recent church intentionally doesn't use creeds because that's telling people what to believe. And this church is more of a "you do you and I'll do me; glad we're here together!" kind of church.
I also hear from people, "Why do creeds just talk about belief? Where is the emphasis on Jesus' actions and our actions?" Reading this, I think I have a better understanding about why, though I would welcome a succinct version, for further clarity, if you have the time.
Hi Debbie, NTW has nourished many of us — me included. My ongoing concern is the need to read him carefully where his metaphors press beyond the Church’s historic understanding of soul, continuity, and resurrection.
Having spent time reviewing his work — and recognising how markedly it diverges from the Church’s consistent teaching on death across history — I’ve become more convinced that he has, in this area, missed something vital.
On resurrection and heaven, I’d suggest:
Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation
John Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting
Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life
Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation
All, in different ways, retrieve a thicker, more classical account of participation and embodied hope.
On creeds — we don’t recite them to control people; we confess them to be controlled by the truth. The creed protects us from quietly remaking God in our own image. It stabilises worship across generations. Orthodoxy (right belief) isn’t opposed to action; it grounds it. The creed is compressed gospel — incarnation, cross, resurrection, return — so that our lives can be shaped by what God has objectively done.
If you want good works on why creeds matter:
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed
Scott Hahn, The Creed
Alister McGrath, I Believe: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed
Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo
They each show, in different ways, that creeds are not restrictive formulas but faithful summaries of the saving drama of God.
Thank you Jason. I came across this literally a day after I was researching this exact issue: what is it that sustains us post-mortem in our identity and personhood. In the 14th chapter of God’s Homecoming - NTW’s new book…he says, ‘“Then, after psychosomatic death has brought to an end all personal sin, from heart to will to action, the already indwelling spirit lives on, within the mystery of the creative outflowing love of the Trinity. We are thereby not simply “remembered” by God, as some have suggested. We are sustained in living being “with the Messiah” in—dare we say—the ever-expanding mystery of the Trinity.” He is stressing throughout that chapter the ‘in Christness’ of an individual - held by the Spirit. He also speaks of the spirit influencing and being influenced by the inhabited person - a dynamic relationship - such that the spirit postmortem holds, and in some measure, is that individual. In all of this I think we are dealing with eh challenging issue of seeking to plumb the depths of Paul’s imagination, as he continues to interpret the transformative encounter with the risen Christ,
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. Thank you for taking the time to write this so carefully.
Wright's insistence on in-Christness, on being held “with the Messiah,” on the sustaining love of the Trinity — these are vital claims. And pastorally important. The language of being “sustained in living being” rather than merely “remembered” moves in the right direction. It is clearly trying to avoid the cold idea that we are divine data stored somewhere in heaven. But that is a metaphor he uses repeatedly about our state after death.
But here is where my question gets no satisfactory answer from Wright.
When he says the already indwelling Spirit “lives on,” and that the spirit “postmortem holds, and in some measure, is that individual,” I find myself asking: what exactly is doing the holding? What is the ontological subject that persists?
If the Spirit sustains me, that is wonderful. But what is the ME that is sustained?
To say we are “in Christ” is so gloriously true. Yet participation requires something that participates. An active subject. If the individual self is reduced to narrative, memory, or just relational dynamic, then we have not actually secured any personal continuity — we have relocated it and made a copy, metaphors Wright uses.
And that is the philosophical, theological, and pastoral pressure point.
You are right: we are plumbing Paul’s imagination. But Paul’s imagination is not merely poetic. When he says “with Christ,” “in Christ,” or “depart and be with Christ,” he is not describing a metaphorical absorption into divine love as Wright does. He is speaking of a real subject who remains a subject.
My concern is not that Wright denies survival. It is that he refuses to name the metaphysical grammar that explicates the bible and Christianity as teaching that I am 'copied' into eternity.
If the Spirit “holds” me, then something of me must be holdable — not as a memory, not as a divine impression, but as the enduring form of a person. That is where the classical language of the soul — understood not as a ghost in a machine, but as the substantial form of the body — still seems very necessary.
Without that, “sustained in living being” risks becoming beautiful but unstable prose.
And I say that with respect. Wright is trying to protect resurrection and resist dualism. I share that aim. I simply think we need a thicker ontology to do it, and have one already made and given to us by the church.
Otherwise, we are very close to saying: what persists is Christ’s remembering, not my being. And that, pastorally and philosophically, is not enough for me and many.
Yes, NTW stresses the ‘in Christness’ of the believer by the Holy Spirit. He says, ‘the spirit who dwells within us in the present will continue to sustain us between death and resurrection.’ And, ‘Paul is thus visualizing our individual human spirit as being fused together with the divine spirit, so that they form a unity.’ And, ‘The spirit, having shaped and sanctified the life of the believer, carries the believer’s personal continuity through bodily death, which completes purification, and on toward resurrection.’
I suppose one might quote, Galatians 2:20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’
NTW comments, ‘“Bodily death finishes off the old psychosomatic “you. “To cling to it, or to imagine a soul that is a personal possession, something other than the indwelling spirit, is to sidestep the co-crucifixion of which Paul speaks in Galatians 2:19–21. Perhaps it is even to cherish a little pride after all.’
I understand what he is saying, but it is for me somewhat lacking…although I’m not sure that I could come up with anything better! He seems to be suggesting that ‘personhood’ and ‘identity’ - that which make me me ceases to exist outside of a pneumatic existence…which may in fact be what Paul himself is imagining.
At one point I’m thinking it’s so simple, and at another, it is too simple.
For me, for resurrection to be meaningful, it must be ‘me’ that is raised and I’m not convinced that NTW’s (Paul’s) suggestions are adequate…….
I do see what Wright is trying to protect: our in-Christness, the Spirit’s indwelling, the co-crucifixion of Galatians 2. I affirm all of that without hesitation.
But where I remain deeply uneasy is here: if bodily death “finishes off” the old psychosomatic you, and what continues is only a kind of pneumatic fusion with the divine Spirit, then what exactly carries my concrete identity?
The early Church never spoke this way. From Irenaeus to Athanasius, from Gregory of Nyssa to Augustine, the fathers insisted on real personal continuity. They rejected Platonic escapism, yes — but they did not collapse the person into Spirit alone. They held that something of the self endures in Christ between death and resurrection. Not pride. Not a detachable ghost. But the substantial reality of the person God created and redeemed.
Union with Christ was never erasure. Participation was never dissolution. And I continue to wonder why NTW bypasses this extant understanding of the soul that attends to his fears of Platonic Dualism.
For resurrection to be meaningful, it must be me who is raised — the same subject who loved, sinned, repented, prayed. Not a memory sustained by God. Not simply a life absorbed into Spirit. The same person, transformed.
That is why, at one level, Wright’s account sounds simple and attractive. But at another, it is terrifying because Christian hope has always insisted that death interrupts embodiment, not being.
I agree with what you have written - I have not read any of NT Wrights books- for me it is exactly as you say from a pastoral and hopeful perspective. Nothing made me so sure about the fact we have souls as when my dad died and the realisation that what made my dad my dad was no longer in his physical body- I have said to others who have not seen death close at hand that if anything was going to help convince about there being more than the millions of chemicals making up a body to being that person, it was witnessing the death of a loved one and seeing that what made that person that person had left them. Not sure this makes sense- I agree and am comforted by what you have written
Thanks, Penny. Anyone who has stood beside the body of someone they love knows exactly what you’re describing. The body is still there — the face, the hands — and yet the person is not. We instinctively say, “They are gone.” Who they were, the essence of them has departed.
It’s very hard to stand in that moment and believe we are only chemistry/biology. There is a real absence — the “someone-ness” that made your dad your dad. That experience pushes the question of the soul more powerfully than any argument.
And this is why it matters pastorally. Christian hope is not that God keeps a perfect memory of us. It is that the person we love is not reduced to memory at all, but is held in Christ their soul and identity.
Thank you for sharing this — and I’m glad the piece brought you comfort.
As far as I understand you, I'm sure you're right. I've read "Surprised by Hope" and found a lot of it good and helpful, but us being software downloaded onto His hardware is very impersonal and I'm sure can't be right.
That idea — of “being software downloaded onto His hardware” — feels deeply impersonal. It is not simply an unfortunate metaphor; it exposes something of the theological logic beneath it. And if we find ourselves recoiling, that reaction is well worth attending to! Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.
Hi…just to note the downloaded onto his hardware is a quote from the theoretical physicist and Anglican vicar John Polkinghorne. As NTW mentions him in God’s Homecoming, ‘The mode of existence that may be predicated for believers between bodily death and bodily resurrection may then, I suggest, be seen in terms of sharing the inner life of the triune God—specifically, the life of the spirit. This, I think, is a better and more biblical and theological way of saying what John Polkinghorne memorably said, that at death God will download our software onto his hardware until he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves.’
Thanks Jason for this. I don’t have the intellectual or theological horsepower to follow it all, but I appreciate the depth of your scholarly work here. My observation is that the Holy Spirit tends to work in unexpected ways that are uniquely suited to his purposes. With imagination we can indeed expect the revelation that is the church will continue to expand and grow through the ages as the Spirit leads. The challenge, of course, is to keep it from being polluted and corrupted by things of the world which seems to be mankind’s relentless bent.
Jesus’s bodily resurrection is ample evidence (at least to me) that we are not reconstructed from God’s memory when our earthly bodies die. If we become disembodied memories, what’s to distinguish us from what artificial intelligence is becoming? Yikes!
Hi Ed, thank you for reading and for taking the time to write this — and please don’t underestimate your intellectual instincts. The questions you’re asking are not lightweight. They go straight to the heart of things.
I’m grateful you raised the Holy Spirit. I share that conviction deeply. The Church is not trapped in the first century. The Spirit leads us — sometimes slowly, sometimes through crisis — into deeper clarity. Doctrine grows not because truth changes, but because it must be preserved, articulated, and protected across time. The danger, as you rightly say, is not growth itself but distortion — when imagination drifts from the givenness of what has been revealed in Christ.
Your instinct about the resurrection is spot on. Jesus was not restored from a divine backup file. The resurrection narratives are stubbornly physical for a reason. The tomb is empty. His wounds remain. The same Jesus who was crucified stands before them — transformed, yes — but in continuity. And that continuity is the heart of Christian hope.
And your “Yikes!” made me smile, because it names something very 'real'. If we are reduced to memory, information, or narrative pattern, then, in principle, we are not that different from what artificial intelligence is attempting to simulate. That’s precisely why this matters. Christianity has never promised that God is a perfect archivist. It has promised that the subject, what makes you you, persists — that the one who loved and suffered and trusted is not downgraded into mere data.
Wow. Thank you for this careful work!. You managed to critique Wright without comparing your best with his worst. Im neither intellectually nor theologically qualified to thoughtfully engage with this work but one thing I do know is that if Wright reaches out to have a conversation with you (which he should) - Id like to be in that meeting :-)
Jason, like you I feel a tremendous debt to NT Wright for opening scripture to me, and a genuine affection for the remarkable ways in which he speaks and writes about what scripture has to say. And like you, I find the argument that main thrust of Christianity is not “We go to heaven when we die” but more like “God comes to us; Heaven comes to Earth” (Just as a side note, The Rev Samuel Well really expands on this deeply with the idea that God only wants to “be with” God’s creation).
And, I also feel like he is missing something crucial about the life between incarnation and resurrection. I also have the sense that God’s revelation to humans is not limited to Biblical times or even to just the Hebrews/Jews, but rather to the entire planet. I understand that Wright is focused on what scripture says in its 2nd Temple context, and that it says precious little about that in-between time.
As a hospital chaplain, I marvel at the stories of Near Death Experiences (NDT) and post-death appearances. These are not unusual stories; they are common. In fact, tens of thousands have had NDEs since the 1970s as medicine turned a corner and made NDEs far more prevalent than they had been. And the remarkable thing about NDEs is the consistency of the stories across a vast number of occurrences. Even though each one is unique and language struggles to describe NDEs, their elements are not widely divergent. I feel like the church needs to pay attention to this. People are experiencing no boundary between life in the body and life without it… the transition is seamless (except in the other direction, where people report a “heaviness” when they re-enter their bodies). And many report a profound sense of “coming home” to a place they have known before. There are new capacities it seems (some of which seem remarkably like those Jesus had in his resurrected body, like just thinking about a place to suddenly go to it).
I understand that scripture did not have the wealth of experiences or language to describe this state. But I’m wondering if we are not in a time of fresh revelation about life after death. I find these stories incredibly comforting… there is still a me… there is a vast pool of love… there is no judgement, but learnings to process.
None of that discounts the idea of resurrecting in a new body on a new Earth. That is the big hope for me. But people coming back from Near-deaths have some pretty remarkable and consistent stories to offer. We should pay attention. Ron
Hi Ron,
I think you’re right to notice that Wright’s project is deliberately constrained. He is trying to discipline us back into the world of Second Temple Judaism and the scriptural narrative, and in doing so, he is wary of importing later metaphysics or experiential claims too quickly. That’s a good instinct at one level—it protects the central Christian hope that resurrection is not escape from the world but the renewal of it.
But as you’ve experienced pastorally, that narrowing can leave a gap. The Church has never asked only, “What happens at the end?” but also, “What happens between death and resurrection?” And historically, it has answered that not just with biblical exegesis, but with a wider synthesis—scripture, philosophical clarity, liturgical practice, and yes, human experience.
Near-death experiences are so pastorally significant. They often carry a striking consistency of peace, continuity of self, relational awareness, and a sense of “home.” That resonates, interestingly, with the Church’s long-standing conviction that personal identity is not extinguished at death, and that our being remains held in God in a real, not merely notional, way. As science advances, we may well learn more about these experiences in support of our theology and hopes.
You have seen and know there is no break, no “sleep,” no mere memory—but a real me/you/us who persists, encounters, learns, and is held in God's love. That instinct is deeply consonant with the classical Christian view of the person.
And as a chaplain, I imagine you see the importance of that not as theory, but as something people are trying to live—and die—within.
Thanks for reading and your careful thoughts and reflections.
It’s Holy Saturday and I’m thinking about where Jesus spent the day between His death and resurrection. He told the thief, now His brother, that he would be with Jesus in Paradise on Good Friday.
It’s interesting to think about the Transfiguration which occurred before Jesus’ death and resurrection and how Moses and Elijah show up, “appeared in glory.” The disciples with Jesus seemed to recognize Moses and Elijah, which is so interesting, unless, of course, introductions were first made by Jesus. “Peter, James, and John, I’d like you to meet Moses and Elijah.” (It makes me think that we will be recognizable and known, at some level, to each other when we enter eternity.)
And Moses and Elijah were talking with Jesus about “his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” So Moses and Elijah apparently were well aware of events happening on earth and interacting with Jesus about them.
Thank you for these thoughts. Prompting me to reflect some more.
When Jesus Christ tells the thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” that’s not a memory or a delay, but actual presence. Whatever Holy Saturday is, it isn’t absence. What continues beyond death isn’t just something of us, but fully us, in our real identity, held in God, still capable of knowing and being known.
On holy Saturday, Christ goes to the place of the dead, to those who had died before him, and proclaims his victory. The tradition often calls this the Harrowing of Hell: Christ entering death itself, not as a victim now, but as Lord, breaking its hold from the inside.
So where is Jesus on Holy Saturday?
• His body is in the tomb
• His human soul is in the realm of the dead (and not backed up in God's memory, a la N T Wright)
• His divine life is fully active, filling even death with his presence
Thanks for this. I too have been greatly blessed by Wright’s books and lectures but as I’ve been working through God’s Homecoming I have been struggling and troubled. You have helped name what has been troubling. Thank you. I too help Wright reads this and dialogues with you. It could prove to be very redemptive.
Thanks for reading and taking the time to feedback.
Thank you for this careful analysis of NTW's work, both the "standard" and the "challenging." I have read a number of his books - and his works have richly blessed me - but have only had time to dip into "Surprised by Hope." When I read it - it's on my list for the next few months - I will be aware of some of these questions and qualifications.
Jason, do you have any other books to recommend that are on the same topics of resurrection and heaven, similar to "Surprised by Hope"?
Also, thank you for sharing the information about creeds. I grew up in churches that always included a creed at least once a month in worship. My most recent church intentionally doesn't use creeds because that's telling people what to believe. And this church is more of a "you do you and I'll do me; glad we're here together!" kind of church.
I also hear from people, "Why do creeds just talk about belief? Where is the emphasis on Jesus' actions and our actions?" Reading this, I think I have a better understanding about why, though I would welcome a succinct version, for further clarity, if you have the time.
Thanks again!
Hi Debbie, NTW has nourished many of us — me included. My ongoing concern is the need to read him carefully where his metaphors press beyond the Church’s historic understanding of soul, continuity, and resurrection.
Having spent time reviewing his work — and recognising how markedly it diverges from the Church’s consistent teaching on death across history — I’ve become more convinced that he has, in this area, missed something vital.
On resurrection and heaven, I’d suggest:
Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation
John Cooper, Body, Soul & Life Everlasting
Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life
Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation
All, in different ways, retrieve a thicker, more classical account of participation and embodied hope.
On creeds — we don’t recite them to control people; we confess them to be controlled by the truth. The creed protects us from quietly remaking God in our own image. It stabilises worship across generations. Orthodoxy (right belief) isn’t opposed to action; it grounds it. The creed is compressed gospel — incarnation, cross, resurrection, return — so that our lives can be shaped by what God has objectively done.
If you want good works on why creeds matter:
Luke Timothy Johnson, The Creed
Scott Hahn, The Creed
Alister McGrath, I Believe: Exploring the Apostles’ Creed
Jaroslav Pelikan, Credo
They each show, in different ways, that creeds are not restrictive formulas but faithful summaries of the saving drama of God.
Thanks again for reading!
Brilliant! Thank you. Lots more reading ahead of me. :-)
On a more personal note…My own view is: When I die I will be dead. But I will not be lost. More than that I cannot say.
Thank you Jason. I came across this literally a day after I was researching this exact issue: what is it that sustains us post-mortem in our identity and personhood. In the 14th chapter of God’s Homecoming - NTW’s new book…he says, ‘“Then, after psychosomatic death has brought to an end all personal sin, from heart to will to action, the already indwelling spirit lives on, within the mystery of the creative outflowing love of the Trinity. We are thereby not simply “remembered” by God, as some have suggested. We are sustained in living being “with the Messiah” in—dare we say—the ever-expanding mystery of the Trinity.” He is stressing throughout that chapter the ‘in Christness’ of an individual - held by the Spirit. He also speaks of the spirit influencing and being influenced by the inhabited person - a dynamic relationship - such that the spirit postmortem holds, and in some measure, is that individual. In all of this I think we are dealing with eh challenging issue of seeking to plumb the depths of Paul’s imagination, as he continues to interpret the transformative encounter with the risen Christ,
Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. Thank you for taking the time to write this so carefully.
Wright's insistence on in-Christness, on being held “with the Messiah,” on the sustaining love of the Trinity — these are vital claims. And pastorally important. The language of being “sustained in living being” rather than merely “remembered” moves in the right direction. It is clearly trying to avoid the cold idea that we are divine data stored somewhere in heaven. But that is a metaphor he uses repeatedly about our state after death.
But here is where my question gets no satisfactory answer from Wright.
When he says the already indwelling Spirit “lives on,” and that the spirit “postmortem holds, and in some measure, is that individual,” I find myself asking: what exactly is doing the holding? What is the ontological subject that persists?
If the Spirit sustains me, that is wonderful. But what is the ME that is sustained?
To say we are “in Christ” is so gloriously true. Yet participation requires something that participates. An active subject. If the individual self is reduced to narrative, memory, or just relational dynamic, then we have not actually secured any personal continuity — we have relocated it and made a copy, metaphors Wright uses.
And that is the philosophical, theological, and pastoral pressure point.
You are right: we are plumbing Paul’s imagination. But Paul’s imagination is not merely poetic. When he says “with Christ,” “in Christ,” or “depart and be with Christ,” he is not describing a metaphorical absorption into divine love as Wright does. He is speaking of a real subject who remains a subject.
My concern is not that Wright denies survival. It is that he refuses to name the metaphysical grammar that explicates the bible and Christianity as teaching that I am 'copied' into eternity.
If the Spirit “holds” me, then something of me must be holdable — not as a memory, not as a divine impression, but as the enduring form of a person. That is where the classical language of the soul — understood not as a ghost in a machine, but as the substantial form of the body — still seems very necessary.
Without that, “sustained in living being” risks becoming beautiful but unstable prose.
And I say that with respect. Wright is trying to protect resurrection and resist dualism. I share that aim. I simply think we need a thicker ontology to do it, and have one already made and given to us by the church.
Otherwise, we are very close to saying: what persists is Christ’s remembering, not my being. And that, pastorally and philosophically, is not enough for me and many.
Thanks again!
Yes, NTW stresses the ‘in Christness’ of the believer by the Holy Spirit. He says, ‘the spirit who dwells within us in the present will continue to sustain us between death and resurrection.’ And, ‘Paul is thus visualizing our individual human spirit as being fused together with the divine spirit, so that they form a unity.’ And, ‘The spirit, having shaped and sanctified the life of the believer, carries the believer’s personal continuity through bodily death, which completes purification, and on toward resurrection.’
I suppose one might quote, Galatians 2:20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.’
NTW comments, ‘“Bodily death finishes off the old psychosomatic “you. “To cling to it, or to imagine a soul that is a personal possession, something other than the indwelling spirit, is to sidestep the co-crucifixion of which Paul speaks in Galatians 2:19–21. Perhaps it is even to cherish a little pride after all.’
I understand what he is saying, but it is for me somewhat lacking…although I’m not sure that I could come up with anything better! He seems to be suggesting that ‘personhood’ and ‘identity’ - that which make me me ceases to exist outside of a pneumatic existence…which may in fact be what Paul himself is imagining.
At one point I’m thinking it’s so simple, and at another, it is too simple.
For me, for resurrection to be meaningful, it must be ‘me’ that is raised and I’m not convinced that NTW’s (Paul’s) suggestions are adequate…….
Yes, it is lacking :-)
I do see what Wright is trying to protect: our in-Christness, the Spirit’s indwelling, the co-crucifixion of Galatians 2. I affirm all of that without hesitation.
But where I remain deeply uneasy is here: if bodily death “finishes off” the old psychosomatic you, and what continues is only a kind of pneumatic fusion with the divine Spirit, then what exactly carries my concrete identity?
The early Church never spoke this way. From Irenaeus to Athanasius, from Gregory of Nyssa to Augustine, the fathers insisted on real personal continuity. They rejected Platonic escapism, yes — but they did not collapse the person into Spirit alone. They held that something of the self endures in Christ between death and resurrection. Not pride. Not a detachable ghost. But the substantial reality of the person God created and redeemed.
Union with Christ was never erasure. Participation was never dissolution. And I continue to wonder why NTW bypasses this extant understanding of the soul that attends to his fears of Platonic Dualism.
For resurrection to be meaningful, it must be me who is raised — the same subject who loved, sinned, repented, prayed. Not a memory sustained by God. Not simply a life absorbed into Spirit. The same person, transformed.
That is why, at one level, Wright’s account sounds simple and attractive. But at another, it is terrifying because Christian hope has always insisted that death interrupts embodiment, not being.
I agree with what you have written - I have not read any of NT Wrights books- for me it is exactly as you say from a pastoral and hopeful perspective. Nothing made me so sure about the fact we have souls as when my dad died and the realisation that what made my dad my dad was no longer in his physical body- I have said to others who have not seen death close at hand that if anything was going to help convince about there being more than the millions of chemicals making up a body to being that person, it was witnessing the death of a loved one and seeing that what made that person that person had left them. Not sure this makes sense- I agree and am comforted by what you have written
Thanks, Penny. Anyone who has stood beside the body of someone they love knows exactly what you’re describing. The body is still there — the face, the hands — and yet the person is not. We instinctively say, “They are gone.” Who they were, the essence of them has departed.
It’s very hard to stand in that moment and believe we are only chemistry/biology. There is a real absence — the “someone-ness” that made your dad your dad. That experience pushes the question of the soul more powerfully than any argument.
And this is why it matters pastorally. Christian hope is not that God keeps a perfect memory of us. It is that the person we love is not reduced to memory at all, but is held in Christ their soul and identity.
Thank you for sharing this — and I’m glad the piece brought you comfort.
Great work Jason. 👏🏼👏🏼
Thanks, Len. I am enjoying your current series!
As far as I understand you, I'm sure you're right. I've read "Surprised by Hope" and found a lot of it good and helpful, but us being software downloaded onto His hardware is very impersonal and I'm sure can't be right.
That idea — of “being software downloaded onto His hardware” — feels deeply impersonal. It is not simply an unfortunate metaphor; it exposes something of the theological logic beneath it. And if we find ourselves recoiling, that reaction is well worth attending to! Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.
Hi…just to note the downloaded onto his hardware is a quote from the theoretical physicist and Anglican vicar John Polkinghorne. As NTW mentions him in God’s Homecoming, ‘The mode of existence that may be predicated for believers between bodily death and bodily resurrection may then, I suggest, be seen in terms of sharing the inner life of the triune God—specifically, the life of the spirit. This, I think, is a better and more biblical and theological way of saying what John Polkinghorne memorably said, that at death God will download our software onto his hardware until he gives us new hardware to run the software again for ourselves.’
Thanks Jason for this. I don’t have the intellectual or theological horsepower to follow it all, but I appreciate the depth of your scholarly work here. My observation is that the Holy Spirit tends to work in unexpected ways that are uniquely suited to his purposes. With imagination we can indeed expect the revelation that is the church will continue to expand and grow through the ages as the Spirit leads. The challenge, of course, is to keep it from being polluted and corrupted by things of the world which seems to be mankind’s relentless bent.
Jesus’s bodily resurrection is ample evidence (at least to me) that we are not reconstructed from God’s memory when our earthly bodies die. If we become disembodied memories, what’s to distinguish us from what artificial intelligence is becoming? Yikes!
Hi Ed, thank you for reading and for taking the time to write this — and please don’t underestimate your intellectual instincts. The questions you’re asking are not lightweight. They go straight to the heart of things.
I’m grateful you raised the Holy Spirit. I share that conviction deeply. The Church is not trapped in the first century. The Spirit leads us — sometimes slowly, sometimes through crisis — into deeper clarity. Doctrine grows not because truth changes, but because it must be preserved, articulated, and protected across time. The danger, as you rightly say, is not growth itself but distortion — when imagination drifts from the givenness of what has been revealed in Christ.
Your instinct about the resurrection is spot on. Jesus was not restored from a divine backup file. The resurrection narratives are stubbornly physical for a reason. The tomb is empty. His wounds remain. The same Jesus who was crucified stands before them — transformed, yes — but in continuity. And that continuity is the heart of Christian hope.
And your “Yikes!” made me smile, because it names something very 'real'. If we are reduced to memory, information, or narrative pattern, then, in principle, we are not that different from what artificial intelligence is attempting to simulate. That’s precisely why this matters. Christianity has never promised that God is a perfect archivist. It has promised that the subject, what makes you you, persists — that the one who loved and suffered and trusted is not downgraded into mere data.
Wow. Thank you for this careful work!. You managed to critique Wright without comparing your best with his worst. Im neither intellectually nor theologically qualified to thoughtfully engage with this work but one thing I do know is that if Wright reaches out to have a conversation with you (which he should) - Id like to be in that meeting :-)
Thanks, Jim, for reading and feedback. I doubt Wright will ever see this :-) I tried to be accurate in representing him and careful in my response.
you never know - that kind of critique sometimes interest thinkers who want to engage authentically with others.