Resurrection: the Role of the ‘Natural Body’

Abstract

Coleridge was sure that, after the cessation of their life on earth, all human beings experienced some sort of Afterlife.³ As he had believed this since an early age,⁴ his extended March 1828 exploration of life after death⁵ seems intended to determine not whether life exists after death, but rather how the Ideas involved may be formulated in order to teach them within a religious context. It may be observed, however, that due (in small part) to feeling a need to make God appealing within the scientific, evolutionary climate of his day, and as a result (in much larger part) of his own personal desires and inclinations, the ideas that Coleridge formulated about this Future State display a strong urge to accommodate both his scientific and religious beliefs.

5 May 1827.—To the right understanding of the most awefully concerning declarations of Holy Writ there has been no greater obstacle, than the want of insight into the nature of Life—what it is and what it is not. But in order to this the mind must have been raised to the contemplation of the Idea, the Life celestial to wit—or the distinctive essence and character of the Holy Spirit. / — Here Life is Love, communicative out-pouring Love. Ergo, the terrestrial or the Life of Nature (ever the shadow and opposite of the Divine) is appropriative, absorbing, appetence. But the great mistake is, that the Soul cannot continue to be without Life—and for if so, with what propriety can the portion of the reprobate Soul be called Death? What if the natural Life have two possible terminations—true Being, & the falling back into the dark Will?—¹