The problem is that you equate man with God and equate everything as material. At least thats the way it sounds. You may disregard what I amaabout to say if I am misunderstanding you.
Jesus made a couple statements that counter the idea all is material. So does other scriptures. Jesus said we must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus said we should love the lord with all.our heart soul mind and strength. In Hebrews the writer say the word is sharp dividing the soul and spirit. Jesus said God is a spirit. John said the word became flesh.
Human logic doesn't grasp that. You are leaning on human logic. You disagree with what God says. You are leaning on your own understanding. Yes our bodies do exist and we will always have a body. But there is another part of us that the Bible calls spirit and soul. That is NOT flesh. Without the spirit and soul the body is dead. The flesh is only part of us. It's the totality of what the scripture tells us that matters. You are actually leaning on your fleshly understanding. Which is limited to what the fleshly mind can comprehend. That's why we need to conform our thoughts and understanding to what God says even if we can't fully wrap our minds around it. That's why scripture tells us to lean not on our understanding, but in ALL our ways which includes our thoughts, acknowledge HIM. Acknowledge that our thoughts and ways are not his.
Feel free to ask me questions if you want more clarification of my views.
The problem is that you equate man with God and equate everything as material. At least that the way it sounds.
Each particle of matter has its own free will/volition, in my view. Of its own free will, the huge mass of matter known as Yahweh labored at least 13 billion years, in my opinion, to become holy, before forming us out of a SEPARATE chunk of matter (Yahweh decided to have kids). God is therefore SEPARATE AND DISTINCT from man, and merits praise for His suffering/hard work. You'll recall that even Calvary has no merit without suffering.
I have my own free will and my own set of thoughts. Given that I don't know what God is thinking, I'm pretty sure that I'm not God. And this is to be expected, because we are two separate pieces of matter. Is it theoretically possible for God to physically merge me into His mind? I don't know, perhaps so, but I still wouldn't merit worship, not having labored for 13 billion years like He did. So it's a bit of a moot point. And certainly, since He created me for FELLOWSHIP, He would prefer for the two of us to REMAIN perfectly distinct from each other, as we are now.
I know it's hard to consider a new point of view. You're asking, as HatGuy did, 'Well if everything is matter, isn't it all one person?" But this question is even more difficult for immaterialists. Immaterialism doesn't allow separate quantities/quantities. Immaterial substance is defined, in their view, has having no size or shape, and thus no location in space (yes, no one can understand this, it's all gibberish). If immaterialism were literally true, then, reality would have no way to SEPARATE and DISTINGUISH two individuals (or to put it technically, there would be no individuation). Thus we may SAFELY conclude:
immaterialism = pantheism (man and God are all one person).
Immaterialists will deny this conclusion of course, but it is clear implication of their system. It's one of several logical contradictions that I've been exposing.
Jesus made a couple statements that counter the idea all is material. So does other scriptures. Jesus said we must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus said we should love the lord with all.our heart soul mind and strength. In Hebrews the writer say the word is sharp dividing the soul and spirit. Jesus said God is a spirit. John said the word became flesh.
Consider a jury that listened to the defense but never heard the prosecution, or vice versa. Is that fair? It's not enough to consider ONE point of view. In order to make an informed decision, you need to hear both sides.
The problem is that many people's minds are so saturated with 2,000 years of immaterialism that they are perhaps unable to even COMPREHEND another side, they find it impossible to think in those terms. But here's why you should try.
You have a Pentecostal insgnia that marks you an evangelical/Protestant. Therefore you are probably grateful that the Protestant Reformation, in 1500 A.D, globally published a LOT of evangelical teachings that seem to have largely died out for up to 1500 years. Reform can be very GOOD thing.
But if mistakes can lie unfixed for 1500 years - what about the last 500 years? Do you really want to assume that the Reformation fixed EVERYTHING? That's a dangerous assumption. Just pretend you're on a jury and ask yourself this question, 'I've heard the defense. Do I love God enough to hear out the prosecution at least ONCE? If He possibly labored 13 billion years to help ME, am I grateful enough to entertain a mere CHANGE OF MIND to please HIM?' Sadly, I think a lot of Christians are unwilling to do so. Most Christians are perfectly happy to hear sermon after sermon (the same stuff repeated for 2,000) years, Sunday after Sunday, but some of them are unwilling to hear out even ONE sermon that argues a different point of view, for the sake of reforms potentially pleasing to God.
Jesus made a couple statements that counter the idea all is material. So does other scriptures. Jesus said we must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus said we should love the lord with all.our heart soul mind and strength. In Hebrews the writer say the word is sharp dividing the soul and spirit. Jesus said God is a spirit. John said the word became flesh.
Jesus didn't say that we worship in 'spirit' (that's an English word). He said we worship in Pneuma. The Greek word Pneuma NORMALLY means wind/breath (all scholars agree on this fact). Immaterialists CLAIM that we should, in a few passages, read it as 'immaterial spirit'. But I've been debating that point both on biblical and common-sense grounds.
If your soul is immaterial, it logically contradicts daily experience, because free will would fail. An immaterial soul that CHOOSES to do good or evil would be too intangible to PUSH or PULL the body in that direction. This is called the mind-body problem - and immaterialists have no solution to it.
Out of desperation, apparently, Millard J. Erickson tries to take a middle stance on the issue (it boils down to gibberish, but at least it acknwolwedges the need to solve the mind-body problem). Erickson is one of the most influential evangelical theologians of the past century, if you didn't know. Erickson's position is:
(1) The soul is immaterial when God creates it.
(2) When He places it in the human body, it suddenly becomes material !!!!
Human logic doesn't grasp that. You are leaning on human logic.
It's very dangerous to accept a 'doctrine' that you cannot grasp. You shouldn't accept gibberish. You should hope to find doctrines that you CAN grasp - and then decide which ones are true based on your research into God's Word.
You disagree with what God says. You are leaning on your own understanding. Yes our bodies do exist and we will always have a body. But there is another part of us that the Bible calls spirit and soul. That is NOT flesh.
But Paul does call it flesh.
Yes we are two parts. Our natural body consists of ordinary atoms. This is what I call unawakened matter, it is dead and will always be dead. It's not what sins. However, God also placed a soul in that body. It's physical, because He breathed it into Adam's nostrils (Gen 2:7). Note the aeorodynamics. Physical breath/wind cannot physically PUSH an immaterial soul into Adom's nostrils. That wouldn't work. It had to be a material soul. That's what sins, and because it is MERGED with our (dead-matter) body, it presumably has a somewhat fleshy-texture. Hence Paul calls the sinful mind 'the flesh' - you can also call it heart, soul, mind, spirit - any of these terms are suitable as long as you understand it to be a material mind (i.e. TANGIBLE mind, don't assume it has PRECISELY the same kind of atom-based structure as ordinary dead matter). That's my argument.