Now according to the Gospels, Christ's Risen Body combined material and immaterial properties in a remarkable manner. Thus He could be touched and eat food, and yet apparently pass through closed doors and vanish at pleasure; and this is often thought to be incredible. But strictly speaking it is not _incredible_; since no material substance (a door or anything else) is _solid_. There are always spaces between the molecules; so that for one such body to pass through another is no more difficult to imagine, than for one regiment to march through another on parade. And if a regiment contained anything like as many men, as there are molecules in a door, it would probably look just as solid. Moreover Christ's risen Body, though possessing some material properties, is represented to have been _spiritual_ as well. And the nearest approach to a spiritual substance of which we have any scientific knowledge is the _ether_, and this also seems to combine material and immaterial properties, being in some respects more like a solid than a gas. Yet it can pass through all material substances; and this certainly prevents us from saying that it is incredible that Christ's spiritual Body should pass through closed doors. Indeed for all we know, it may be one of the properties of spiritual beings, that they can pass through material substances (just as the X-rays can) and be generally invisible; yet be able, if they wish, to assume some of the properties of matter, such as becoming visible or audible. In fact, unless they were able to do this, it is hard to see how they could manifest themselves at all. And a slight alteration in the waves of light coming from a body would make it visible or not to the human eye. And it is out of the question to say that God--the Omnipotent One--could not produce such a change in a spiritual body. While for such a body to become tangible, or to take food, is not really more wonderful (though it seems so) than for it to become visible or audible; since when once we pass the boundary between the natural and the supernatural everything is mysterious. It may of course be replied that though all this is not perhaps incredible, it is still most improbable; and no doubt it is. But what then? We have no adequate means of judging, for the fact, if true, is, up to the present, unique. It implies a _new_ mode of existence which is neither spiritual nor material, though possessing some of the properties of each, and of which we have no experience whatever. So we are naturally unable to understand it. But assuming the Resurrection of Christ to be otherwise credible, as it certainly is if we admit His Incarnation and Death, we cannot call it incredible, merely because the properties of His risen Body are said to be different from those of ordinary human bodies, and in some respects to resemble those of spirits. It is in fact only what we should expect. (2.) _Man's Resurrection._