While reading Davis and Yang's An Introduction to Christian Philosophical Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding, I came across the following which would have important ramifications for how one understands sanctification of people after death, as well as the exegesis of texts such as 1 Cor 3:15 and D&C 76:104-107 (see 1 Corinthians 3:15: A very un-Protestant Biblical Verse):
The first is that if
sanctification can be “zapped” in such a way that someone is instantaneously
sanctified, then why can’t God zap us in our earthly life so that we would be
instantaneously sanctified? This appears to be a modified version of the
so-called problem of evil, and some of the responses to that problem may be
applicable here. The source of the concern, then, appears to be whether
sanctification demands a temporal process or whether it can be instantaneous,
and whether a “zappy” sanctification would undermine the value of the
sanctifying process . . . [for the second problem] Suppose that someone is
zapped so at to be made instantaneously perfect; thus, they are completely
perfect and without moral defect. But would that still be the same person?
Imagine yourself or someone who has many temptations and sinful desires, and who
often gives in to those temptations and commits sinful actions. Now imagine
that in one second all those temptations and desires are immediately gone, and
instead there is in their place a whole host of holy desires and virtues that
were not there before. Some are concerned that such a character transformation
would be so radical that it would result in a different person, and hence it
would not be “you” that was sanctified, but rather you were replaced by someone
else—a better and holier version. If all of your moral defects and vices were
gone and new virtues were acquired, we might suppose that it would be hard to
recognize yourself as yourself.
This may not be too
worrisome, however. Much depends on what it takes to be the same person over
time, which philosophers have argued a lot about. Perhaps you stay the same
over time as long as you have the same soul, or as long as you have memories of
your past experience. If either of these two views are correct, then perhaps
you could survive being zapped into perfection since you could have the same
would or remember your past experiences. However, perhaps a sanctification zap
is not a threat to personal identity but a threat to the value of
sanctification. (Stephen T. Davis and Eric T. Yang, An Introduction to
Christian Philosophical Theology: Faith Seeking Understanding [Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2020], 166-67)
