In order to delve into this matter more deeply we have to distinguish normal efficient causality in which bodies interact with each other in space from another kind of interaction which takes place by formal causality.This allows us to pick up the idea of a dialogue with the sciences, for a case can be made that formal causality underlies strange phenomena that can be found in physics, biology and psychology. To take one example, one of the greatest mysteries of modern physics is the question of nonlocality. In numerous experiments two particles, separated in space, have instantaneously influenced each other’s behavior in ways that normal physical laws cannot explain. They act as if they are not confined in separate dimensional spaces, but somehow share a higher dimensional formal unity. I have explored how this plays out philosophically in regard to nonlocality, as well as morphic resonance and synchronicity, in The Mystery of Matter.

What is at stake here is to ask whether an analogous form of formal causality could help us penetrate more deeply into the nature of the resurrection. Then we could say that the spiritual soul, even after death, radiates a formal energy which resonates with the body it once had. In the normal course of events this energy is too weak to prevent the rapid disintegration of the bodily organism, but in certain exceptional cases, perhaps because the formal energy of the spiritual soul has been transformed and elevated by a high degree of grace, the body appears to resist disintegration. It is as if the soul’s formal energy can resonate with and reactivate the imprint that the loss of the entity of union left in the animal soul, not enough to bring the body back to life, but enough to prevent disintegration from immediately proceeding.