What Kind of a Body Is God's?

In saying that God is/has a body, we assume that we know what it means that we are/have bodies. Most lay (and many scholarly) interpretations of this doctrine, however, are largely shaped by Cartesian assumptions about the character of bodies—the scriptures unwittingly mingled with the philosophies of men. The picture of God’s embodiment is complicated, moreover, by the fact that the scriptures are explicitly pluralistic about kinds of bodies (see, e.g., 1 Cor. 15:39–40; D&C 76). In this chapter, Wrathall explores some ways to think pluralistically about bodies, about matter, about flesh, and thus about embodiment. He then articulates some of the alternatives this pluralism opens up for thinking about the doctrine of divine embodiment, and of God’s finitude more broadly.