A
adambasher
Guest
How shall God resurrect us on the Day of Judgment? Will He recreate us with the same body we have here on this earth? Or will He create some new types of bodies with probably new materials and then insert our souls and upload our memories into the new bodies?
In the Holy Qur’an, God tells a story about Prophet Abraham who wanted to see how God gives life to the dead. Here is the verse:
2:260 (Remember) when Abraham said: "My Sustainer! Show me how You give life to the dead." God said: "Do you not then believe?" Abraham said: "Yes! But to satisfy my heart (faith)." God said: "Then take 4 birds, and tame them to incline to yourself, and (slaughter them, cut them into pieces) then put a portion on every hill of them, then call them, they will come to you in haste (flying). Know that God is All-Mighty, All-Wise."
Shall God recreate us in the same way described in this story? To answer that, let us change this scenario a little bit. Suppose, Prophet Abraham killed 4 birds, mixed up the flesh and divided the meat into two halves. He then fed one half of the meat to a baby bird (a fifth one) over a long period of time. The baby bird grew up to an adult bird eating the meat. The meat helped it grow muscle of different organs of its body. At this time Abraham killed the fifth bird and remixed all the meat – another half of 4 birds’ meat and the meat from the body of the fifth bird - and divided it into five portions. He put each portion on a hilltop.
Abraham then called all five birds. How God will recreate all five birds at the same time? If God collects the meat – all the molecules – of four birds and give them lives, how can He give life to the fifth bird? The body of the fifth bird is made with the flesh (molecules) of the four birds! All five birds cannot be brought into life at the same time unless God borrows some flesh (molecules) from elsewhere – but then the birds will not be the same birds, because they do not have the same bodies as before. Some of their flesh is now made with borrowed flesh from somewhere else.
The problem here is, the bodies of the four birds were recycled to create the body of the fifth bird. So they cannot be recreated at the same time. In the same way, God keeps on recycling the materials (the bodies of animals, humans, plants, etc) on earth. How many human bodies God had created since Adam? Probably hundreds of billions. If we count the animal – then even more. There is no way to resurrect all of them at the same time with the same bodies (made with the same materials). Absolutely impossible!
So the example that God showed to Prophet Abraham was to demonstrate how God can give life to the dead. This is not the same way God shall resurrect the dead on the Day of Judgment.
Then how God is going to resurrect our bodies on the Day of Judgment? The answer probably is, we will not get the same body. God shall give us new bodies, maybe made of new kind of materials, on the Day of Judgment. Our souls will enter the new bodies. Our memory will be uploaded into these new bodies and we will feel like we are the same as we were on earth. It is the memory that matters, not the body (refer to our previous article titled Who Am I).
By the way, the judgment cannot be held on this earth either. God mentioned in the Quran that He shall resurrect all animals and human on the Day of Judgment. Even though He recreates all human and animals with new materials, this earth is not large enough to contain all those hundreds of billions of people and beasts at the same time. So the Day of Judgment must be held on a different planet other than the earth – definitely one that is much larger than the planet earth.
In the Holy Qur’an, God tells a story about Prophet Abraham who wanted to see how God gives life to the dead. Here is the verse:
2:260 (Remember) when Abraham said: "My Sustainer! Show me how You give life to the dead." God said: "Do you not then believe?" Abraham said: "Yes! But to satisfy my heart (faith)." God said: "Then take 4 birds, and tame them to incline to yourself, and (slaughter them, cut them into pieces) then put a portion on every hill of them, then call them, they will come to you in haste (flying). Know that God is All-Mighty, All-Wise."
Shall God recreate us in the same way described in this story? To answer that, let us change this scenario a little bit. Suppose, Prophet Abraham killed 4 birds, mixed up the flesh and divided the meat into two halves. He then fed one half of the meat to a baby bird (a fifth one) over a long period of time. The baby bird grew up to an adult bird eating the meat. The meat helped it grow muscle of different organs of its body. At this time Abraham killed the fifth bird and remixed all the meat – another half of 4 birds’ meat and the meat from the body of the fifth bird - and divided it into five portions. He put each portion on a hilltop.
Abraham then called all five birds. How God will recreate all five birds at the same time? If God collects the meat – all the molecules – of four birds and give them lives, how can He give life to the fifth bird? The body of the fifth bird is made with the flesh (molecules) of the four birds! All five birds cannot be brought into life at the same time unless God borrows some flesh (molecules) from elsewhere – but then the birds will not be the same birds, because they do not have the same bodies as before. Some of their flesh is now made with borrowed flesh from somewhere else.
The problem here is, the bodies of the four birds were recycled to create the body of the fifth bird. So they cannot be recreated at the same time. In the same way, God keeps on recycling the materials (the bodies of animals, humans, plants, etc) on earth. How many human bodies God had created since Adam? Probably hundreds of billions. If we count the animal – then even more. There is no way to resurrect all of them at the same time with the same bodies (made with the same materials). Absolutely impossible!
So the example that God showed to Prophet Abraham was to demonstrate how God can give life to the dead. This is not the same way God shall resurrect the dead on the Day of Judgment.
Then how God is going to resurrect our bodies on the Day of Judgment? The answer probably is, we will not get the same body. God shall give us new bodies, maybe made of new kind of materials, on the Day of Judgment. Our souls will enter the new bodies. Our memory will be uploaded into these new bodies and we will feel like we are the same as we were on earth. It is the memory that matters, not the body (refer to our previous article titled Who Am I).
By the way, the judgment cannot be held on this earth either. God mentioned in the Quran that He shall resurrect all animals and human on the Day of Judgment. Even though He recreates all human and animals with new materials, this earth is not large enough to contain all those hundreds of billions of people and beasts at the same time. So the Day of Judgment must be held on a different planet other than the earth – definitely one that is much larger than the planet earth.
