Marc Cortez recently raised the extraneous body problem to a more traditional view of the beatific vision in personal eschatology. We argue that the criticism is overstated, and that there are two variants of one solution to the problem that supply an explanation that either undermines the extraneous problem of the body or deflates its weight as a significant concern. We disagree with Cortez’s assessment that Aquinas and Edwards are on equal footing in terms of this problem, and we supply solutions consistent with both; however, if we are right, then Edwards’s view, utilizing his unique idealism, may supply a superior explanation of how the body finds a place in the beatific vision. By drawing from a Christological development of the body, the charge is deflated, and, even better, using Edwards’s idealism we can show how the body remains intrinsic to the beatific vision.
Brandt et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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