Note 153 — Quest. LXXXVII.
Reading edition
“By affirming, that the grain produced from the seed sown, is not the very body which is sown, the apostle I think insinuates, that the body to be raised is not numerically the same with the body deposited at death, but something of the same kind formed by the energy of God. Having such an example of the divine power before our eyes, we cannot think the reproduction of the body impossible, though its parts be utterly dissipated. Farther, although the very numerical body is not raised, yet the body is truly raised, because what is raised, being united to the soul, there will arise in the man thus completed, a consciousness of his identity, by which he will be sensible of the justice of the retribution which is made to him for his deeds. Besides, this new body, will more than supply the place of the old, by serving every purpose necessary to the perfection and happiness of the man in his new state. According to this view of the subject, the objection taken from the scattering of the particles of the body that dies, has no place; because it does not seem necessary, that the body to be raised, should be composed of them. For the scripture no where affirms, that the same numerical body is to be raised. What it teaches is; that the dead shall be raised.”
Dr. Macknight.