Question: A living body is in a state of formation and deformation, and so is subject to disintegration and is non-eternal. Eating and drinking perpetuate the individual; sexual relations perpetuate the species. These are fundamental to life in this world, but are irrelevant and unnecessary in the World of Eternity. Given this, why have they been included among Paradise's greatest pleasures?

Answer: A living body declines and dies because the balance between what it needs to maintain and takes in is disturbed. From childhood until the age of physical maturity, it takes in more than it lets out and grows healthier. Afterwards, it usually cannot meet its needs in a balanced way. Either it takes in more than what it needs and so become fat, or takes in less than it needs and so becomes thin. This causes the balance to be destroyed and, in normal circumstances, finally leads to death. In the World of Eternity, however, the body's particles remain constant and are immune to disintegration and re-formation. In other words, this balance remains constant.[1]

Like moving in perpetual cycles, a living body gains eternity together with the constant operation of the factory of bodily life for pleasure. In this world, eating, drinking, and marital sexual relations arise from a need and perform a function. Thus a great variety of excellent (and superior) pleasures are ingrained in them as immediate wages for the functions performed. In this world of ailments, eating and marriage lead to many wonderful and various pleasures. Thus Paradise, the Realm of Happiness and Pleasure, must contain these pleasures in their most elevated form. Adding to them otherworldly wages (as pleasures) for the duties performed in the world by them and the need felt for them here in the form of a pleasant and otherworldly appetite, they will be transformed into an all-encompassing, living source of pleasure that is appropriate to Paradise and eternity.

According to: The life of this world is but a pastime and a game, but the Abode of the Hereafter—it is all living indeed (29:64), all lifeless and unconscious substances and objects in this world are living and conscious in the other world. Like people and animals here, trees and stones there will understand and obey commands. If you tell a tree to bring you such-and-such a fruit, it will do so. If you tell a stone to come, it will come. Since stones and trees will assume such an elevated form, it will be necessary for eating, drinking, and marital relations to assume a form that is superior to their worldly forms to the same degree as Paradise is superior to this world. This includes preserving their bodily realities.

[1] In this world, human and animal bodies are like guesthouses, barracks, or schools for atoms. Lifeless atoms enter them, become worthy of being atoms for the eternal world, and then leave them. In the Hereafter, however, according to: The Abode of the Hereafter—it is all living indeed, the light of life (29:64), the light of life encompasses everything. There is no need for its atoms to make the same journey and undergo the same training as atoms in this world must do.

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