Our inclinations are so bent that we think that “the Spirit” is somehow contrary to embodiment, that “flesh” is to be transcended by shaking off the sluggishness and impurity of soil, air, water, muscles, blood, skin, and bones. Well, it seems to me that one of the best illustrations of what St. Paul is imagining as he thinks of “the flesh” is Hegelian idealism, in which whatever happens was already in disguise in the processes that animate the world, and comes to perfection only as reason becomes acutely conscious of itself.