• Astorre
    120
    I propose to discuss the text of my essay.

    The contemporary assertion of the dualistic nature of humanity in a spiritual context, positing spirit and body as separate entities, appears to modern individuals as something commonplace, self-evident, and taken for granted. In their popular interpretations, a significant portion of Christian denominations lean toward dualism, viewing the body as a temporary vessel for an immortal spirit, which, after the completion of earthly life, continues to exist independently or is reborn in a new body.

    The purpose of this work is to elucidate the source of the self-evident nature of the dualistic approach in Christianity and to explore alternative approaches and hypotheses regarding Christian anthropology.

    The methodology of this study employs a comprehensive approach, encompassing a hermeneutical analysis of Scriptures (Old and New Testaments), a historical-critical examination of the development of theological thought, and a comparative analysis of ancient philosophical concepts and their influence on the Christian worldview.

    The anthropological concept of the New Testament—the understanding of human nature—is a subject of intense debate among theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers. To substantiate the dualistic nature (body/spirit), the following biblical sources are traditionally cited:

    Matthew 10:28: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” At first glance, this verse clearly suggests a distinction between body and soul, pointing to the soul’s independent existence, invulnerable to physical death.
    2 Corinthians 5:6–8: “So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Here, the Apostle Paul expresses a desire to leave the body to be with the Lord, interpreted as evidence of the spirit’s potential existence apart from the body.
    Luke 23:43: The Savior’s words to the thief crucified beside him: “And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’” Proponents of dualism see this as confirmation of the soul’s immediate entry into paradise after death, prior to the general resurrection of bodies.
    According to advocates of the view that soul and body exist as independent entities, these passages testify to the independence of spirit and body. On this foundation, subsequent constructs and superstructures concerning the afterlife and posthumous existence are built. However, the primary sources themselves do not fully disclose this content, leaving ample room for interpretation.

    Let us consider the matter from a different angle. Christianity emerged within Judaism, in a region where Judaism was the dominant religion. If we view Christianity as a doctrine, its ideas arose either in opposition to or as a development of prevailing Jewish thought (e.g., Jesus’ sermon: “You have heard that it was said… But I say to you, ‘Do not resist the one who is evil’” — Matthew 5:38–39).

    In the context of Jewish ideas of the time, the prevailing notion was the unity of human body and soul. In the Old Testament, a person is regarded as a holistic entity (in Hebrew, nephesh, often translated as “soul” but more accurately meaning “living breath,” “person,” or “being,” rather than an immaterial substance). Death was perceived as a disruption of this wholeness. For instance, Genesis 2:7 states: “Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” Here, “living soul” (nephesh chayyah) does not denote a separate soul but the living human being.

    Christianity introduced a revolutionary concept of resurrection at the time. This is a central doctrine of the New Testament, which does not envision the disembodied existence of the soul after death as the ultimate goal but points to the complete restoration of the person, including their corporeality. The doctrine of resurrection, emphasized in texts such as 1 Corinthians 15 and John 5:28–29, speaks precisely of resurrection as the return of the whole person to life. Scripture lacks direct and unambiguous references to the resurrection of the soul alone. It speaks explicitly of the resurrection of the body, as exemplified by Jesus Christ (Luke 24:36–43, where Jesus appears to his disciples in bodily form).

    In the context of complete resurrection, the Christian practice of burying the deceased rather than cremating them appears particularly logical. The New Testament inherited the Jewish anthropology of the Old Testament, where a person is a unified whole (nephesh), and death is a temporary disruption to be overcome by resurrection (Daniel 12:2: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt”). Burial practices, such as those of Jesus (John 19:38–42) and Lazarus (John 11:17–44), reflect this belief, symbolizing the expectation of bodily restoration.

    The Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:12–14, 42–44, asserts: “Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised… It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Paul’s metaphor of the body as a seed sown in the earth (linked to burial) underscores its transformation, not its abandonment, affirming the body’s role in eternal life. Thus, the claim that dualism is inherent to Christianity appears less than convincing.

    But where, then, did the notion of dualism in Christianity originate?

    Early Christians anticipated the imminent return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead (1 Thessalonians 4:13–17: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first”; Mark 13:30: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place”). When this did not occur (the so-called “delay of the parousia”—from Greek parousia, “coming”), a theological crisis arose: what happens to the deceased in the interim between death and the anticipated resurrection?

    In this regard, the historical context is noteworthy. By the second century, Christianity had spread into the Greco-Roman world, where Platonic dualism prevailed. The idea that the mortal body is merely a temporary vessel for the soul originates with the Greek philosopher Plato. In dialogues such as Phaedo, Plato argued that the soul is immortal and divine, while the body is its prison, the source of all suffering and limitations. The goal of philosophy, according to Plato, is to liberate the soul from the body’s shackles. This doctrine found widespread acceptance in the Hellenistic world.

    Early Christian apocrypha, such as the Apocalypse of Peter (late 1st to mid-2nd century), and theologians like Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) and Origen (c. 185–c. 254), began emphasizing the immortality of the soul, borrowing Plato’s concept of the body as the soul’s “prison.” Origen, for instance, actively employed Platonic categories to explain Christian doctrines, contributing to the spread of dualistic views. Later, Augustine of Hippo (354–430) solidified dualism in Western Christianity, integrating Platonic ideas into his theology, particularly in City of God (Book XIII). He viewed the body as the lower part of humanity and the soul as the higher, capable of communion with God. This raises the question: did new converts not accept Christianity within the prevailing philosophical framework of their societies, adapting it to existing worldview paradigms?

    The above example of Platonism’s infiltration vividly illustrates the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer’s teaching on the hermeneutical circle and “prejudices” (Vorurteile). In his work Truth and Method, Gadamer argues that individuals perceive and interpret the world, texts, and doctrines through the lens of their cultural, historical, and personal experience. We always approach understanding with a certain “horizon of prejudices,” which are not negative judgments but rather the conditions that make understanding possible. These “prejudices” (or preliminary judgments) shape our perception.

    In this context, it is worth citing an example from modern African Christian churches, such as those in Ethiopia or certain communities in South Africa. Their churches feature icons depicting the Virgin Mary and the Holy Son with black skin. This suggests that believers in these congregations envision the Savior and the Mother of God in accordance with their racial and cultural identity, which may contradict European iconographic canons but does not conflict with Scripture itself. This example demonstrates how cultural context shapes the perception and interpretation of religious imagery, just as the Hellenistic context influenced Christian anthropology.

    Returning to the “delay of the parousia” and the need to make sense of the intermediate state of the deceased, the adoption by some Christians of Hellenistic ideas, particularly Platonism’s view of the soul as immortal and independent of the body, appears consistent. Texts such as 2 Corinthians 5:6–8 and Luke 23:43, even if they originally held different meanings in a Jewish context, could easily be interpreted through a dualistic lens, suggesting a temporary disembodied state of the soul.

    Early Church Fathers, such as Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202) in his work Against Heresies, emphasized bodily resurrection and the wholeness of humanity, aligning with a monistic anthropology. Irenaeus argued that the body, as part of God’s creation, is redeemed alongside the soul, and that salvation pertains to the entire person, not merely their spirit. He criticized Gnostics who despised matter and the body.

    However, as previously noted, by the third century, Origen and others began incorporating Platonic dualism, describing the soul’s intermediate state. This transition confirms the idea of dualism as a later adaptation and synthesis of Christian doctrine with the prevailing philosophical ideas of the era.

    Dualism, though entrenched in later Christian tradition and becoming “self-evident” to most believers, relies heavily on philosophical accretions and is less consistent with the original Jewish and early Christian context of the New Testament. Texts that appear dualistic (e.g., Matthew 10:28, Luke 23:43) can be reconciled with a monistic anthropology if interpreted as descriptions of a temporary state after death, rather than assertions of an eternal disembodied existence of the soul separate from the body.

    The true, original Christian message about humanity was likely more holistic, emphasizing the value of all that God created—including the body, which is not a prison but an integral part of the person, destined for resurrection and transformation.

    But what if we deconstruct religious notions as later superstructures and approach the interpretation of the Gospel from a monistic perspective? What if there is no separate, disembodied soul existing apart from the person? What if the human body is not a cage, not a mortal and base vessel, but a valuable creation destined for glorification? What if humanity is valuable as such, in its inseparable wholeness of spirit, soul, and body, and its resurrection after death is the sole truth about the afterlife, offering hope for a complete existence in a transformed state?
  • DifferentiatingEgg
    695
    For centuries people thought the "will" and the "ego" were genuine causes, facts about consciousness that explained action and responsibility. This is merely a projection of outdated psychology. Modern insight reveals that what we call "the will" doesn't cause action, motives are mere suruface ripples, and the Ego is a fiction of IT ( the body). Humans mistook these illusions for real quantums of force, and we built our metaphysics based upon them and projected it upon the world, turning the Ego into ideal models of "being." Resulting in a massive inherited error: believing in the spirit and the mind as if they were causes via the conception of a "thing in itself..." a summary of one of the 4 great errors by Nietzsche in Twilight of Idols...

    But also...

    The Greatest Utility of Polytheism 143 Gay Science goes into this. "Not I, Not I, but as an instrument of my God did I do such a thing..." and "the individual set up for themselves their own ideals as Gods, Ubermensch, Heros, and subordinate undermen..."

    And Ecce Homo on Inspiration, Nietzsche talks about how, Zarathustra, another Ego within Nietzsche held within himself... he speaks about how this ego waylaid him on his walks to become an unwitting mouth piece... it took him 30 days to write the first three sections in TSZ, 10 days a piece. The words flowed out of him and he just kept writing... there was no stopping to consider this or that and how to organize the book. He just knew from the get go... below are some snips from his discussion.

    Has any one at the end of the nineteenth century any distinct notion of what poets of a stronger age understood by the word inspiration?...

    There is an ecstasy so great that the immense strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, during which one's steps now involuntarily rush and anon involuntarily lag....

    There is the feeling that one is utterly out of hand, with the very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and titillations descending to one's very toes....

    Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity....

    Hope that helps.
  • Fire Ologist
    1.5k
    the body, as part of God’s creation, is redeemed alongside the soul, and that salvation pertains to the entire person, not merely their spirit. He criticized Gnostics who despised matter and the body.

    However, as previously noted, by the third century, Origen and others began incorporating Platonic dualism,
    Astorre

    Interesting theological/philosophical topic.

    Mind/body distinction does seem a naively practical way of talking about what a human being is. We need this basic concept to do anything physical that is hard, or seemingly impossible. And it helps us deal with death of a loved one. And it helps explain permanence (idealistic spirit and mind located law) versus change (body), both of which we seem to experience S phenomena.

    I’m a Catholic. So theologically, the distinction between mind and body highlights where the important aspect of the human being exists - the mind, the soul, the heart - these are where love exist. But the heart itself overlaps with the passions and emotions, and these are of the body and of “strength”. These passions and strengths are physical, and human, and good as well.

    In the end, I would argue that, Christ, in the resurrection, was affirming the goodness of body and a role for the body in human eternity. God has prepared a place for all of us, but this need not merely be metaphor. It is not Christian to despise the body; it is Christian to seize control of it, to master it, to tell the mountain to be thrown into the sea by faith. Death and suffering show how impossible this is without grace, but heaven and grace are not merely for the soul - they are for the whole person which is always individuated in some bodily form.

    So the mind/body distinction is a helpful one for the understanding and for discussion, but it does not mean there are human souls that exist without bodies, or that the distinction between mind and body is so distinct that one can rationally deduce that a soul can live without a body. (Eternal life will be a miracle, a gift, not a function.)

    To the extent angels or God have no body whatsoever, I don’t think we can conceive of this, and I am not sure God who is Holy Spirit equates to God has no body (it may just be that God’s body is not like our bodies - God’s body may be a word, the Word with him and is him himself - whatever that philosophically means).

    I think it has been error to shrug off the body as if it is not necessary. It may be subject to death, and it may be a hindrance to true freedom and knowledge, but that does not mean eternal life and knowledge of truth can only happen without a body. I think when Paul and other saints were so ready for death they embraced it and even seemed to long for it, they were not judging the body as bad, but merely expressing their own limitation in receiving the grace they needed to be even closer to God. If instead of dying, God came to them and perfected their form, they would t have been disappointed. Instead of asking for that, they humbly accepted what God seemed to have planned for all of us and that is an initiation into eternity through birth, life and death on this earth.

    What if there is no separate, disembodied soul existing apart from the person? What if the human body is not a cage, not a mortal and base vessel, but a valuable creation destined for glorification? What if humanity is valuable as such, in its inseparable wholeness of spirit, soul, and body, and its resurrection after death is the sole truth about the afterlife, offering hope for a complete existence in a transformed state?Astorre

    I wonder the same things…

    I also think no distinction between mind/body jibes better with eastern philosophies. Even reincarnation seems at first to draw a sharp distinction, but it could all be reduced to “carnation” as much as “transmigration of the soul”. There is no life before carnation that is reincarnated. And the end of this process is as much purely spiritual as it could be purely physical - one with the One.
  • Leontiskos
    5k


    This is an interesting and thoughtful essay. :up:

    I wonder if you would be willing to provide a rough bibliography for your ideas?
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4.1k


    You pose an interesting question with a well thought out OP. A difficulty here is that the relevant ground to cover is incredibly broad, because there are so many different veins of Christian and Pagan thought that are relevant.

    Just some things I noticed:

    Christianity introduced a revolutionary concept of resurrection at the time

    As you note, this is also present in what is often taken to be the latest book of the OT, Daniel (although some still argue for an earlier, exilic dating). There is also Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones coming back to life, which is almost always dated to the Babylonian Exile and thought to be the work of a single man for various textual reasons (593-571 BC). The idea of the resurrection shows up in some of the Septuagint texts, but the most relevant point is that Jewish belief (and lack of belief) in the resurrection of the dead was a hot issue by the time of Christ's ministry and Acts actually has Saint Paul playing different camps off against each other on this issue when he is hauled in for questioning.

    "Platonism," broadly speaking, had also already worked its way into Judaism by this point. It's in the Old Testament wisdom literature, Sirach, but particularly The Wisdom of Solomon, and Philo, probably the most famous ancient Jewish Platonist, was writing when Jesus was young. So, Platonism (as a broad set of Middle Platonist ideas) has a doorway into Christian thought because it is already a potent force in the Roman Empire and within its Jewish communities, and because it is in some ways written right into OT and NT texts (e.g., Wisdom and John).

    What if there is no separate, disembodied soul existing apart from the person? What if the human body is not a cage, not a mortal and base vessel, but a valuable creation destined for glorification? What if humanity is valuable as such, in its inseparable wholeness of spirit, soul, and body, and its resurrection after death is the sole truth about the afterlife, offering hope for a complete existence in a transformed state?

    That's a direction a lot of the early monastics went in. Creation is inherently good, and so is the body (hence the resurrection), hence the body in its natural state is good. A quite common theme in the Patristics is that man's current state is unnatural, and that man is in need of healing to achieve Adam's former state. In the unnatural, fallen state, man is disordered, and this is why the body, or "flesh" is problematic, because man has not been properly ordered and harmonized. Whereas, the holy man is rightly ordered to the body. Hence, the "flesh" and "world," or "passions" to be rejected are not the body, physical reality, and emotion, but rather all misaligned love and disordered desire and activity.

    Not that there weren't threads that tended more towards rejecting the body and physical reality, Gnosticism being the prime example. These never went away fully, although I think it's fair to say they were defeated and became subterranean for long periods. Hence the idea that the body of holy men becomes itself holy, leading to the cult of bodily relics (the opposite extreme).

    The condemnation of Origen and Evagrius are a pretty important chapter in this push and pull.

    Not to make things more complicated, but there was another view layered on top of this, a trichotomous view of man as body, soul, and spirit (often drawing on Saint Paul's writing, which does seem to offer up such a distinction in many ways).

    The drive towards dualism is bound up in a larger trend in the thought of late antiquity, where it starts to look inwards (this owing to the instability of political life and political opportunity for the well-educated, as power shifts to the legions and public life and the culture of public duty deteriorates). Stoicism and Pagan Neoplatonism play a large role here, and shaped Christianity quite a bit, for centuries to come since the same ideas keep coming back. The early-modern period saw a sort of resurgence of these Stoic elements (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neostoicism), which did a lot to set the ground for Descartes, the "Buffered Self," and stricter mental/physical and subject/object dualisms. The other big factor often identified here is Franciscan spirituality, which at times tended towards a very "other-worldly" focus. I don't think you can see even the outlines of this problem in Saint Bonaventure, who is still striking a far more harmonious balance, but these tensions do seem to start to build pretty rapidly not long after.

    Now, at the risk of saying something overly broad, my feeling is that the "dualism" of late-antiquity and the middle ages tended not to raise the same philosophical or spiritual problems that dominated the early and later modern periods because the standard metaphysics was quite a bit different. The soul's ability to "exist" apart from the body is less stark in a metaphysics of participation and of creation as more akin to emanation, where substance is understood through an act of existence that is ultimately God's. The Divine Comedy, for instance, is extremely "bodily" and Dante does not have to go beyond his body to a "spirit realm" to encounter the dead. Indeed, he can see the damned and those being purged just fine from the body; it is only traversing the heavens that requires "transhumanization" and an ambiguous sense of leaving the body behind (the ambiguity mirroring Saint Paul's vision). By the time Descartes is writing, things are much different. Substance is a sort of independent substrate, and while I think his solution to the resulting mind/body problem is a poor one, I can see why it was appealing.

    An interesting topic indeed. Origen and Evagrius are good examples of the "flight from the body," and Saint Maximus the Confessor a good example of the correctives that were offered to this that tended to become more dominant (for a period).
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4.1k
    Relics are also relevant in the other direction. There can be nuance on relics, but on pretty much any sound theological view handing over gold so that you can touch the severed hand of some saint is not going to ensure you have a bumper crop or make the fairest local maiden fall in love with you. The origins of the later dualism seem to have something to do with the desire to pull back from this sort of far extremity of the identification of the holy man or woman with their body, where it becomes a sort of magical power than might be employed towards all sorts of ends.
  • MoK
    1.8k
    As you note, this is also present in what is often taken to be the latest book of the OT, Daniel (although some still argue for an earlier, exilic dating). There is also Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones coming back to life, which is almost always dated to the Babylonian Exile and thought to be the work of a single man for various textual reasons (593-571 BC). The idea of the resurrection shows up in some of the Septuagint texts, but the most relevant point is that Jewish belief (and lack of belief) in the resurrection of the dead was a hot issue by the time of Christ's ministry and Acts actually has Saint Paul playing different camps off against each other on this issue when he is hauled in for questioning.

    "Platonism," broadly speaking, had also already worked its way into Judaism by this point. It's in the Old Testament wisdom literature, Sirach, but particularly The Wisdom of Solomon, and Philo, probably the most famous ancient Jewish Platonist, was writing when Jesus was young. So, Platonism (as a broad set of Middle Platonist ideas) has a doorway into Christian thought because it is already a potent force in the Roman Empire and within its Jewish communities, and because it is in some ways written right into OT and NT texts (e.g., Wisdom and John).
    Count Timothy von Icarus
    Thanks for the information! :up:

    So, in your opinion, what was the reason that Christianity has been so successful? It didn't bring any new idea at all, or I am missing something!
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4.1k


    That's a very broad question. I think it comes down perhaps to evangelical zeal and praxis, although providence is another option!

    But Christianity did a lot that was new, particularly through synthesis, including its understanding of the resurrection and judgement, and divine union. It just wasn't a totally new idea. Also, the OT leaves Sheol/Hades very ambiguous and my understanding is that there were vying interpretations in the Second Temple period.



    ...which reminds me of another influence. Homer has the shades of the dead existing after the death of the body, and Virgil picks this up too. The state of the body has consequences for the dead. Those who have not had proper burial rights end up having to wander around the Styx for a lifetime before they can make it to the Elysian Fields (in Virgil). However, the existence of the shade isn't dependent on the body. Sheol is much more ambiguous, but the Greek rendering of it as Hades in translations of the OT suggests a certain conceptual overlap by the time of the Septuagint.

    How literally such scenes were taken surely varied a great deal of course.
  • MoK
    1.8k
    That's a very broad question. I think it comes down perhaps to evangelical zeal and praxis, although providence is another option!

    But Christianity did a lot that was new, particularly through synthesis, including its understanding of the resurrection and judgement, and divine union. It just wasn't a totally new idea. Also, the OT leaves Sheol/Hades very ambiguous and my understanding is that there were vying interpretations in the Second Temple period.
    Count Timothy von Icarus
    Thanks for the information!
  • Astorre
    120
    I wonder if you would be willing to provide a rough bibliography for your ideas?Leontiskos

    There's a little bit of complexity to that. The fact is that my native language is Russian. I read books in Russian and write in Russian, and then translate with the help of translators or AI. I check the relevance of what was written using the reverse translation from Google. Bibliography is another matter. It is prepared, but in Russian. Below I will give a bibliography as the translator will translate it, but I cannot check the relevance of its translation. I apologize for this complexity but I can recommend using AI to find an analogue in English

    1. Bible. Old and New Testament scripture books. Synodal translation. - M.: Russian Bible Society, 2012.

    2. Plato. Fedon/State/Laws. Per. from ancient Greece. A. N. Egunova, F. A. Petrovsky and others - M.: Thought, 1994. - (Philosophical Heritage Series).

    3. Irenaeus of Lyons. Against heresies. Per. with lat. and Greek N. N. Shevchenko. - St. Petersburg: Oleg Abyshko Publishing House, 2012. - (Church Fathers series).

    4. Origen. About beginnings. Per. and entry. Art. I. D. Kuzmina. - M.: Nauka, 2000. - (Monuments of philosophical thought).

    5. Clement of Alexandria. Stromates (Carpet patterns). Kn. I–III. Per. A.V. Sidorova. - St. Petersburg: Publishing House "ABC-Classics," 2007.

    6. Augustine the Blessed. About the city of God. Per. with lat. A. S. Demina. - St. Petersburg: Amphora/OLMA Media Group, 2008. - (Series "Philosophy of the Middle Ages").

    7. Apocalypse of Peter//Apocrypha of ancient Christians. Volume 1. Apocalypses. Per., Entry. Art. and comm. A.V. Mikhailova. - M.: Ladomir, 1997.

    8. Gadamer, H.-G. Truth and method. Per. with nem. T.I. Oiserman and Ya. A. Borovoy. - M.: Progress, 1988.
  • Astorre
    120
    You pose an interesting question with a well thought out OP.Count Timothy von Icarus

    Thank you for your deep and meaningful comments. I admit honestly, this is my first work on a Christian theme in my life, and reading your review I felt like a small fish in the ocean.

    Indeed, the idea of resurrection was not new for that time. However, according to my information, it was not the central teaching for all of Judaism as a whole. The revolutionary nature of Christianity consisted in establishing this idea as central to the entire religion. But this is a very valuable remark and I will correct it in the essay.

    Regarding the fact that Platonic ideas in that world were already gradually "growing into" the searches of progressive philosophers, I also have no doubt. But still, in my opinion, they were not a mass phenomenon at that time.

    Reading your comment on the sanctity of relics, I caught myself thinking that I had not taken this phenomenon into account at all. Based on the main message of my essay, preserving the relics of saints in parts generally looks like depriving the deceased of the opportunity for resurrection.

    In general, all the later superstructures of philosophers and theologians, who asked good questions as civilization developed and sought consistent answers to their questions, in my opinion lead to the fact that the basic idea itself is in complete decline. For example, Descartes was so carried away by the search for an interface connecting the soul and body that he proposed the existence of the pineal gland, which magically resolved all questions.

    In conclusion, I would like to present you with an idea from the Orthodox confession about holism. Holism is a view of man as a single, inseparable, spiritual-mental-physical personality. There is no opposition of spirit and matter, but their interpenetration and interaction. As light permeates the air, so the soul permeates the body, forming a single whole. Unfortunately, I do not know for what reason, but none of the Orthodox priests I met mentioned this topic until I became familiar with it myself. Can you share with me about this area if you have knowledge on this topic?
  • Astorre
    120
    I wonder the same things…Fire Ologist

    Frankly speaking, it seems to me that the idea of the resurrection of a person as a whole looks much more inconsistent to our contemporary than the separation of the soul after death. The soul cannot be measured (although some have tried), it is difficult to prove or disprove the exit of the soul from the body, but the decay of the body looks very clear. It will probably be very difficult to believe that the dust will then rise again. Ordinary people, not interested in theology, with whom I spoke, do not imagine any resurrection after their death at all. They all talk about purgatory and subsequent distribution in heaven or hell. Perhaps the current dualistic or trinitarian approach looks simpler, clearer and more logical to a contemporary.
  • Leontiskos
    5k
    Below I will give a bibliography as the translator will translate itAstorre

    Thanks, this is very helpful. :up:

    I agree with your essay in large part. With that said, I think it is very natural for Christianity to navigate the area between monism and dualism, especially given the Platonic context of early Christianity. It strikes me as something Christians will need to continue to revisit and refine as time goes on.

    A learned Western author who addresses the same sort of issue from an Anglican view and with an eye towards the Reformation is N. T. Wright. He has a famous quip: "Christianity is not primarily interested in life after death, but rather life after life after death." From his Western vantage point he will claim that the problem you identify was exacerbated by the Reformation emphasis on justification for the sake of a disembodied heavenly state.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4.1k


    Indeed, the idea of resurrection was not new for that time. However, according to my information, it was not the central teaching for all of Judaism as a whole

    This is what I understand too, broadly speaking. Although there seems to have been a fair amount of diversity. However, the Pharisees, who play an outsized role in the NT, did believe in a resurrection, as did the Essenes. Unfortunately, the exact religious context is sort of murky. It's sheer luck (or Providential will perhaps) that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found and we have come to know as much as we do about the general context.

    I have seen the claim though that the resurrection was more central to Judaism in the late Second Temple period, and that it is rather Christianity, and Judaism increasingly being defined in opposition to it, that led to a pivot away from the theology. More mainstream, it is generally taken that this is why the Jews moved away from using the Septuagint, and the Septuagint has more texts that are friendly to a theology of resurrection.


    In conclusion, I would like to present you with an idea from the Orthodox confession about holism. Holism is a view of man as a single, inseparable, spiritual-mental-physical personality. There is no opposition of spirit and matter, but their interpenetration and interaction. As light permeates the air, so the soul permeates the body, forming a single whole. Unfortunately, I do not know for what reason, but none of the Orthodox priests I met mentioned this topic until I became familiar with it myself. Can you share with me about this area if you have knowledge on this topic?

    Sounds familiar. The Eastern Fathers and later thinkers stay closer to the formulation of the tripartite soul (appetitive, spirited, rational), whereas this psychology evolved in the West into the idea of the concupiscible appetites, irascible appetites, and rational appetites (will/intellect). I do think this tended to do more to locate the "lower appetites" in the body as set against an immaterial component. Whereas the nous remains more defuse. I do recall this being a tension Saint Gregory Palamas addresses in the Triads, where he affirms a role for the body in the contemplative ascent as against Barlam's "Western" view. However, the more famous high scholastic voices like Saint Bonaventure and Saint Thomas are more nuanced, and I think they can be read as often saying something compatible, but with a different emphases (although the beatific vision as being primarily intellectual could be read in starker terms. I think the more developed Eastern theology of the Transfiguration marks a difference in emphasis here too.
  • Astorre
    120
    I think the more developed Eastern theology of the Transfiguration marks a difference in emphasis here too.Count Timothy von Icarus

    Thank you all for your insightful and thoughtful comments! Your comments helped me to better understand the topic and to clarify some aspects of the essay. In response to your reflections, especially on the holistic approach in Orthodoxy (Count Timothy von Icarus) and on the balance between dualism and monism (Leontiskos), I would like to share the results of a phenomenological analysis that I conducted while visiting a Catholic and an Orthodox church. My goal is to relate these observations to the discussed topic of anthropology in Christianity.

    For my research, I used a phenomenological method (inspired by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty) to describe how the liturgical experience in the churches of the two faiths manifests itself through bodily perception, intentionality, temporality, and the world of the senses. Here are my observations:

    Catholic church:

    Bodily experience: Lightness, a sense of verticality, airiness, “going up.”

    Intentionality: Direction towards the transcendental — arrows of arches, light, striving towards the sky.

    Givenness of the world: God is perceived as transcendental, calling, luminous.

    Temporariness: Striving towards the future, dynamics of movement.

    World of feelings: Clarity, cold light, harmony.

    Orthodox church:

    Bodily experience: Weight, feeling of confinement, “oppressive presence”.

    Intentionality: Immersion within, all-consuming presence in the sacred.

    Givenness of the world: God as all-present, dense, mysterious.

    Temporariness: Stopping time, feeling of eternal present.

    World of feelings: Warm shadow, richness of icon painting, sound fullness (singing, ringing of bells).

    The purpose of this analysis was not to compare confessions with the aim of favoring one over the other, but to try to understand how liturgical experience shapes human perception, including ideas about soul, body and spirit. These observations, combined with the literature and our discussion, suggest differences in the anthropological approaches of Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

    In the Catholic church, the liturgical experience emphasizes transcendence and aspiration to the divine, which may reflect a dualistic understanding: the soul is perceived as separate from the body and directed towards God, and heaven and hell are posthumous states or places. In the Orthodox church, the experience is more immanent, mystical, with an emphasis on the holistic presence of God in the world and man. This corresponds to a holistic approach, where soul, body and spirit are inseparable, and heaven and hell can be understood as states experienced already in earthly life through the body and senses.

    These differences may be related to the influence of Platonism on Western Christianity, as we have discussed earlier (e.g. through Augustine), and to the persistence in Orthodoxy of a more monistic anthropology rooted in Eastern Fathers such as Maximus the Confessor or Gregory Palamas. Do you think that these phenomenological intuitions may point to differences in the anthropological views of the confessions? And can such an approach be used to further explore the topic of dualism and monism in Christianity?
  • Wayfarer
    25.2k
    These differences may be related to the influence of Platonism on Western ChristianityAstorre

    I had rather thought that Aristotle was the greater influence on Western (Catholic) Christianity due to the rediscovery of his works from the Islamic world. And that Platonism was more of an influence on Orthodox Christianity through Pseudo-Dionysius and other sources. Although it’s true that Plato is writ large in all of this. But I once put this to an Orthodox father and he was in agreement.
  • Astorre
    120
    I had rather thought that Aristotle was the greater influence on Western (Catholic) Christianity due to the rediscovery of his works from the Islamic world. And that Platonism was more of an influence on Orthodox Christianity through Pseudo-Dionysius and other sources. Although it’s true that Plato is writ large in all of this. But I once put this to an Orthodox father and he was in agreement.Wayfarer

    That's the whole point. I don't know why, but the Fathers of the Orthodox Church don't talk about the idea of holism at all in private conversations. They answer questions based on dualism. Maybe it's the influence of Western culture (for example, films or literature), but the idea of dualism (soul + body, with the subsequent separation of the soul after death) seems self-evident to everyone. Personally, I came across the problem that served as the impetus for writing my essay purely by chance, through independent study. As it turned out in the process of writing, my intuition did not fail me and there is something in it.

    And what is your personal opinion (not necessarily in the context of Christianity) does a person consist of a soul and a body or is he one?
  • Wayfarer
    25.2k
    'Holism' is a modern word. It was coined by Jan Smuts early in the 20th c. I don’t think I’ll comment on the other matters but will follow the thread.
  • Astorre
    120
    Thank you for this clarification. I was unaware of the history of this term and in using it I was describing older ideas. "Monism" could have been used with the same success. My questions are not about terminology but rather about ideology. I am not interested in which teaching more accurately conveys the idea or metaphysics of that time. I am interested in the justification or refutation of the idea of monism in Christianity. I am interested in whether dualism, as well as the stories of heaven and hell, are later superstructures.
  • Wayfarer
    25.2k
    The contemporary assertion of the dualistic nature of humanity in a spiritual context, positing spirit and body as separate entities, appears to modern individuals as something commonplace, self-evident, and taken for granted. In their popular interpretations, a significant portion of Christian denominations lean toward dualism, viewing the body as a temporary vessel for an immortal spirit, which, after the completion of earthly life, continues to exist independently or is reborn in a new body.Astorre

    One point I would make about this is in respect of the cultural influence of René Descartes. As you will know, he is generally introduced to philosophy students as 'the first modern philosopher'. Descartes, along with Newton, Galileo, and some other key figures, were principals of ;the scientific revolution.

    Cartesian dualism, as you will also know, posits that man is a composite of two substances, res extensa, unthinking extended matter, and res cogitans, immaterial thinking soul or mind. This dualistic model has been hugely influential in modern culture. But it was an awkward marriage trom the start - Descartes himself was never really able to explain how two radically different substances interact, positing it was through the pineal gland, but hardly going into any detail.

    Then there's the added confusion around the word 'substance'. As you might know, 'substance' in philosophy means something quite different from 'substance' in everyday use. The philosophical term originated with the Latin translation of Aristotle's 'ouisia', which is much nearer in meaning to 'being' than to our word 'substance'. Essentially, for Aristotle, substance is the underlying reality that persists through change. A substance is a combination of matter (the potential to be something) and form (the actual, defining essence of that thing).The translation was actually 'substantia', meaning, that of which attributes can be predicated.

    So the upshot of all of this, was that Western culture adopted this rather oxymoronic conception of 'spiritual substance' or 'thinking substance'. Whereas, the ability to manipulate analyse and exploit material substance, the main occupation of science and engineering, proceeded brilliantly. So when modern people talk about 'dualism', it is usually something like Cartesian dualism that they have in mind, even if they don't know any details of how that originated or really what it means, And besides, they will say, the idea of 'thinking substance', which they will equate with 'soul', is an outmoded concept. Everyone knows, they will say, that mind is what the brain does, the credo of scientific materialism.

    It should also be clear that the dualism of matter and form (Aristotle) is intrinsically more intelligible than Descartes dualism of matter and mind. To this day, hylomorphism remains a live option in philosophy, whilst Cartesian dualism is generally regarded as untenable. They're very different conceptions.

    None of that is relevant to the origin of Christian conceptions of the soul but probably relevant as an influence in the modern period.
  • Astorre
    120
    I like your approach. Earlier, in the comments, I already referred to Descartes and his pineal gland as an attempt at a simple explanation of everything, which, judging by the popularity of this idea today, sounded simple and clear.

    But since I am primarily interested not in theology, but in ontology (as are you, judging by your comments) and phenomenology, I wanted to try to deconstruct the Cartesian approach to human anthropology, to look in the fundamentals. Based on the theses that I outlined in the essay, the comments on this forum, early Christianity was something completely different from what is understood by it today. It was also perhaps something different in relation to the Aristotelian approach to ontology.

    Will I be able to grasp this? I do not know, but I would like to get more diverse opinions on this matter, after which I would like to correct my essay.
  • Wayfarer
    25.2k
    You have your work cut out for you, that’s for sure.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    4.1k


    Not to add more wrinkles, but in his Orthodox Psychotherapy, Hierotheos Vlachos argues that soul (psyche) is said in two ways in Scripture, as the life of the entire man (including the body) and as our spiritual essence as spiritual beings. He draws on Saint Gregory Palamas here to help make the distinction, likening the spiritual essence of man (one use of soul) to our/God's essence, and the broader usage of soul to refer to our whole life to our/God's energies. That is, the life of the body is the actuality of our soul as a spiritual essence. I am pretty sure I have seen similar distinctions in other places, and made by Catholics (although some Catholics lean more towards a greater separation of body and soul).



    As to the churches, that's an interesting comparison. The difficulty for me is that Orthodox Churches are quite rare where I live. I travel pretty far to go to mine and most of the services I attend are at a "mission" that holds its services in a Lutheran Church.

    I'd tend to agree that, of the Orthodox Churches I've been to, they seem to do more the capture the idea of the liturgy as taking place outside of time, in the eternal throne room of Revelation, with the whole communion of the saints. And yet, Pope Benedict was writing about this same thing not long before he became pope.

    I think it might partly be merely a difference in membership though. Orthodox Churches are rare here, so they are either large or attached to monasteries. Catholic churches are everywhere. I have 5 within ten minutes of me and I live in a rural town with one stoplight. In expanding they have often taken over buildings used by Protestants, and so their aesthetic style is sort of contained by the building they started with. Vatican II was followed by a pretty significant period of iconoclasm it seems as well, along with an experiment with new styles (like the lovely Chapel of the Sun in Sedona Arizona). So, some Catholic churches are very bare, and then some (like the largest near me), do more to incorporate the famous Gothic style (which also took so much from Dionysius the Areopagite in its own way).

    The biggest difference in emphasis for me is the centrality of the crucified Christ versus Mary at the front, and the presence of Christ as almighty creator in the dome. This to me is emblematic of a relatively greater focus on the Crucifixion and Atonement, versus the Incarnation. The Stations of the Cross are another example of this. Both of these place an emphasis on the body of Christ, but in different ways.

    But, I will here draw an even starker contrast, which are the entirely functional Evangelical church buildings I've been too, which often feel like, or are even built into, strip mall type settings. Here, full coffee shops and donuts are often out front and food is carried into the sanctuary for the service, a far cry from mandatory fasting before the Eucharist.

    This might be the best representation of a tradition that attempts to wholly look beyond the physical. It also tends to look beyond the formal, with little formal structure of the "service" (which is explicitly no longer a "liturgy"). Often, the worship service is performed by a band, rather than hymns and Psalms being chanted by the church. Indeed, formal structure is generally seen as inhibiting authenticity, and so too for any physical formality. The idea of the Eucharist as wholly symbolic and mental would seem to go right along with this. What is important is what is going on "inside," not the bread and wine (or now often grape juice), if it even makes an appearance (it often doesn't most weeks).

    When I think about this, it seems very strange. The tradition that tends most towards literalism ends up also paying the least attention to concrete instantiations of the faith. And yet maybe it makes sense in a certain way. In the Anglophone context, ethics if often thought to be the main substance of the Church. But this is often paired with a view of ethics as sitting entirely outside nature as command. Likewise, a view of God as primarily will, and of notions of nature as a potentially nefarious limit on that will, would tend towards demoting nature in a way.

    So it makes sense in a way, but it still seems to me that fundamentalism and an attempt to excise the influence of Greek thought from the faith might make equally as much sense when paired with an extremely concrete practice, e.g., one that tries to life out the concreteness of the old covenant (maybe Messianic Judaism is sort of an example?)

    I will say that in terms of sermons I've heard these do tend to suggest the strongest mind/body and nature/supernatural dualism, even though, at the same time, the general rejection of asceticism, monasticism, celibacy, etc. seem to in some ways go in the other direction. It is a tradition that does not focus on the physical, but precisely because it focuses on the physical so little, it has little time for a sort of Platonic unease with the body.
  • Astorre
    120


    Thank you for your profound and inspiring response! I sense that for you, religion is not merely a rational comprehension but also a mystical, intentional experience, which deeply resonates with my own approach.

    I’d like to share another idea related to my ontological inquiries, hoping it will pique your interest. Inspired by the ideas of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, I distinguish between existence and being. Existence is a passive state, the boundaries, tension, embodiment, and relatedness to others of which are defined externally: a stone, a tree (following its biological program), or an AI (executing an algorithm). These are “existents,” which simply are. Being (Dasein), on the other hand, is the capacity of an existent to redefine itself autonomously, driven by its inner freedom and aspirations. Being is a gift; it is a unique state of an existent. For instance, a human, through cognition and choice, possesses the ability to redefine all four criteria of existence—boundedness (ограниченность), tension (напряжённость), embodiment (воплощённость), and relatedness to others (причастность к другому)—and the stronger this capacity, the fuller their being.

    Applying this to the dualistic concept of the soul, which supposedly leaves the body after death, I ask: where is the being in this? Can such a soul, deprived of a body, redefine itself? Can it even perceive itself? Can it aspire to anything? Based on the texts I’ve studied, the answer seems to be no. A separated soul appears as something that affects neither itself nor the world—akin to a stone. If so, what is its being, and what is the purpose of such an existence?

    This question was the starting point for my essay. If this approach intrigues you, could you share your thoughts? How do you view the soul in the context of being and existence?

    I apologize in advance for any confusion in terms, as the translator cannot cope with the semantic translation
  • Astorre
    120
    That is, the life of the body is the actuality of our soul as a spiritual essence.Count Timothy von Icarus

    I would like to express my full agreement with this approach.


    When I think about this, it seems very strange. The tradition that tends most towards literalism ends up also paying the least attention to concrete instantiations of the faith. And yet maybe it makes sense in a certain way. In the Anglophone context, ethics if often thought to be the main substance of the Church. But this is often paired with a view of ethics as sitting entirely outside nature as command. Likewise, a view of God as primarily will, and of notions of nature as a potentially nefarious limit on that will, would tend towards demoting nature in a way.Count Timothy von Icarus

    I am a parishioner of the Orthodox Church. But I send my friends who profess Orthodoxy and do not understand it, who just want to pray a little or listen to a sermon, to a Catholic church and they like it there better. Those who have visited a Catholic church then share their impressions of the simplicity and clarity of what is happening. Those who have visited a Catholic church are happy with the lack of pretentiousness, as well as the lack of the need to stand on their feet the entire service, listening to something in an incomprehensible Old Church Slavonic language (inherent in the Orthodox Church).

    And they just like it, and personally I think that in religion it is very important that it finds a response in you
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