I have a question about what happens to mentally retarded people when they go to heaven in Christian theology.
Like, survival of the soul after death means that some entity, some "part of you" that has your personality and a continuity of memory and anticipation with the mortal you, exists in heaven after your bodily death, correct?
So, seeing as being intellectually disabled has implications on the aspects we think of as core to self and identity— things like personality, perception, behaviours, understanding, response to stimuli, etc.— in order to really be the "same person" that died, must somebody retarded in life continue to be retarded for eternity in the afterlife?
Or, leaving the constraints and limitations of their physical bodies, the same way people aren't likely to carry physical scars, injuries, and defects into the afterlife, do mentally disabled people suddenly gain normal mental capacity? If that's the case, it seems less like a person is living on in the afterlife, and more like one physical person dying, and another entirely unrelated non-physical person being born at the same time.
Of course, compared to heavenly beings, we are probably all pretty retarded, so does that mean that none of us truly lives on after death? We're doomed to die, and to be replaced by less retarded beings?
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