|
Do you see this Kevin?
I guess we are too ignorant to know these things without a smart and scholarly
mediator.... Sure can't trust the Bible alone without traditions of
men to guide us can we?
Bill I think you are the only one who has been
influenced by Augustine (unless Kev has been taking a peek once
in a while) I don't read him so the historical shifts
and subtle philosophies escape me. He may be guilty of
building a doctrine on one lone verse but don't put
that off on me.
The triunity of mankind is seeded in the book of
Genesis where God created man and can be seen in Luke 1:46 in Mary's Magnificat
"My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit doth rejoice in God my savior" of
course we know she had a body; as well as 1 Thess 5:23; not to mention Hebrews
4:12 which tell us that God's Word can separate between soul and spirit (so they
are not the same thing) ... Where have you been? Put away those Greek
books and read your Bible.
judyt
To be fair to Kevin and Judy, it is not they who
have built a doctrine on one lone verse.
It was actually Augustine who
did this. The Church, being quite Western by then (and not wanting to
tangle with the great Saint Hippo)
has just sort of wallowed with him ever
since. As for Kevin and Judy: well, not knowing, of course, what has taken
place, they (being ignorant of historical
shifts and the subtle philosophies of their own, shall we say,
psyches) have become great, and I mean truly superb,
defenders of the faith once delivered
-- by Augustine, of course.
Anyway, not much hope in changing minds on this one
-- so til next time, Bill
Kevin writes > Anyway [it] can't be as stated above
since in the NT it is used as a part of the person, not the whole.
1 th 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you
wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and
soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ.
And (elsewhere) Kevin writes > C'MON JD, Who
scripture twists? ... Besides doctrine should not be built on ONE lone
verse ...
From: Kevin Deegan
Many Hebrew words have many meanings. There is
latitude in the greek also. See the usage of different words for love and
the "inconsistent" usage.
H5315 ����
nephesh neh'-fesh >From H5314;
properly a breathing creature, that is, animal or (abstractly)
vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative
sense (bodily or mental): - any, appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, X
dead (-ly), desire, X [dis-] contented, X fish, ghost, + greedy, he, heart
(-y), (hath, X jeopardy of) life (X in jeopardy), lust, man, me, mind,
mortality, one, own, person, pleasure, (her-, him-, my-, thy-) self, them
(your) -selves, + slay, soul, + tablet, they, thing, (X she) will, X would
have it.
I accept the words at face value and do not create personal
translations, so that in reading them to insert that personal
translation.
For instance a water dog says water equals baptism so he may read
scripture "thus by the washing of the water (baptism) of the word
(Jesus)"
We have better processing equipment than some give credit. See the
typoglycemia post
The words meaning can also be derived from sentence structure and from
context.
when we talk of souls we are talking about
whole persons: body, mind and spirit.
Anyway can't be as stated above since in the NT it is used as a part of
the person, not the whole.
1 th 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you
wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and
soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Just cause you do not understand it does not mean it is
ambiguous.
God created man in His image as a TRI Unit ( notice not Greek
Duality for those of you stuck on philosophy out there) being 1) Body
2) Soul & 3) Spirit
Bill Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
It says "soul" it means "soul" that is not interpreting.
For examples of intrepreting see some of the "better" posters on
TT
or the million dollar question:
Which is a private interpretation?
Soul = Soul
Soul= when we talk of souls we are
talking about whole persons: body, mind and
spirit.
The Hebrew word sometimes translated
into English as "soul" (when it was not being translated into any of
twenty-six other possible variations), is nephesh. The following
is a sampling of OT verses with nephesh present in them. Do me a
favor and try to identify this word in each verse. If when you are
finished, you still want to argue, I guess we can, -- but my position will
be that nephesh in the Hebrew is a workhorse word which was used
in numerous ways to speak not just about an ambiguously wispy "soul" but
of whole persons.
Bill
KJV Exodus 21:30 If there be laid on him a sum of money,
then he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon
him.
KJV Deuteronomy 18:6 And if a Levite come from any of thy
gates out of all Israel, where he sojourned, and come with all the desire
of his mind unto the place which the LORD shall choose;
KJV Deuteronomy 24:15 At his day thou shalt give him
his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is
poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the
LORD, and it be sin unto thee.
KJV Judges 5:18 Zebulun and Naphtali were a people
that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the
field.
KJV Job 2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is
in thine hand; but save his life.
JV Job 18:4 He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth
be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
JV Job 32:2 Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of
Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath
kindled, because he justified himself rather than God.
KJV Job 41:21 His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth
out of his mouth.
KJV Psalm 105:18 Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was
laid in iron:
JV Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the LORD hate:
yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
KJV Proverbs 14:10 The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and
a stranger doth not intermeddle with his joy.
KJV Isaiah 53:10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he
shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the
pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005
6:45 AM
Subject: Re: [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re:
[TruthTalk] Saved - Salvation
It says "soul" it means "soul" that is not interpreting.
For examples of intrepreting see some of the "better" posters on
TT
or the million dollar question:
Which is a private interpretation?
Soul = Soul
Soul= when we talk of souls we are
talking about whole persons: body, mind and spirit.
Lance Muir <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
As you, and perhaps others interpret
Scripture, vis a vis the 'soul' you are COMPLETELY GREEK IN YOUR
UNDERSTANDING. Can I get an AMEN?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: April 20, 2005
08:33
Subject: [Bulk] Re: [Bulk] Re:
[TruthTalk] Saved - Salvation
Blind guides. This must be
where 'G' gets his inspiration also as Jeeves makes mention of all
the same Geeks - oophs!
I mean Greeks. Studying the physical
brain to try and find the soul is on the same level as getting
on Sputnik and flying out into space expecting to see
God... and excuse me - The idea of an immortal soul arises from
Genesis 2:7 which is NOT Greek thought... Then he wades
through the hodgepodge called tradition (that makes God's Word
of no effect) and quotes what Origen thought (that is the guy
who castrated himself because he didn't understand that the power
emanating from the cross could free him from lust) and mixes it
with a little Plato and Augustine. This may be where Jeeves
gets his wisdom but he can have it. Jeeves doesn't know his
Bible. Soul does not mean body, mind, and
spirit
just becaue the oldtimers used to
call people souls. Soul means soul. Mind means
mind. and spirit means spirit. Spirit and soul can be divided
by God's Word... and both are different from the physical
body.
What a waste of time that could be redeemed
by spending it in the presence and counsel of God.
jt
(1) Beliefs - Whatever happened to the soul? (by Malcolm
Jeeves)
First, I am suggesting that statements about the physical nature
of human beings made from the
perspective of biology or neuroscience refer
to exactly the same entity as statements made about the soulish or
spiritual nature of persons from the point review of theology or
religious traditions. This disavows the suggestion that human
science speaks about a physical being whilst theology and religion
speak about a non-material essence or soul. Perhaps a better way of
saying this is that when we talk of souls we are talking about
whole persons: body, mind and spirit. One might say "we are
souls, we don't have souls". Such a view
contrasts sharply with views of soul and body in, for example,
Socrates discourse on death. He wrote "Does not death mean that the
body comes to exist by itself, separated from the soul, and that the
soul exists by herself, separated from the body? What is death but
that?� (Socrates, Plato's Phaedo, Fourth century BC).
The idea of an
immortal soul arises not from the Bible but from Greek
thought. In the end, Plato
records that Socrates lived out his own teaching by drinking the
poison hemlock in the serene conviction that his immortal soul would
now find release from its bodily prison. For Socrates and Plato,
bodily death was a welcome liberation. Indeed, it was actually not
dying.
In the centuries after Christ, theologians combined this
Greek doctrine of the immortal
soul with biblical images of human nature.
When Origen, a third century
platonic philosopher, became the father of theology, he built into
Christian doctrine Plato's idea of the soul.
In the early fifth century, Augustine thought Plato to be the most bright in all
of philosophy. And in the sixteenth century, John Calvin, who was
heavily influenced by both Plato and Augustine, declared that Plato
alone "rightly affirmed" the immortal soul that "lies hidden in man
separate from body".
Second, whilst scriptural teachings about the image of God do not, by
their nature address directly any dualism-physicalism distinction,
there is at the same time nothing in their teachings that
necessitates belief in an
ontologically distinct soul. What is clear from Scripture is that
the image of God is primarily relational.
That is, it implies a capacity to enter into a covenant
relationship with God and with other humans. Humans are considered
unique from the rest of God's creation primarily due to their
capacity for covenant relationships.
Third, any ideas we have about the nature of persons ultimately
affect the way we treat one another. What we understand about human
nature impacts on our ethics. Are there any consequences of the
views I am putting forward which might start us on a slippery slope
of ethical or moral decline? In the past, dualist views have
certainly sustained a sense of caution about what can appropriately
be done to besouled bodies of other individuals. If an immmortal
soul is present, doesn't this force one to continue to honour and
love the seriously mentally defective or demented? The medical
ethicist Stephen Post, whilst recognizing that in the past dualism
has played a protective role within ethical systems, suggests that
the fundamental biblical motive for the care of those who have
little ability to reciprocate is not to be found in a dualist
consideration of the soul of the other person. Rather, he argues, it
emerges from the ethos of bestowed love and from the narratives of
Jesus amongst the most vulnerable. Thus a narrative of love and
consideration to helpless, dying or deficient persons is sufficient
motive, and perhaps a more purely biblical motive, than the
consideration of a separate substantial soul.
(2) Practices-The Mind-Brain link and the Christian Life
By emphasising, in the way that I have, the unity of the human
person, I am, by implication, suggesting that the spiritual dimension to a person's
life is no more immune to changes in the
brain than other aspects of mental life. Such a suggestion, at
times, seems to surprise and trouble, some Christian people. I do
not believe that it should and may I now give you three brief
examples to illustrate why I think this is the case,
There are a number of well documented cases of what happens to
devout Christians when they develop Alzheimer's disease. The
psychologist professor Glenn Weaver documents the spiritual
pilgrimage of a devout Christian lady who after a life of regular
attendance at church services where she was well known as a gentle
Christian, with a deep concern for her fellow Christians , she began to develop the tell tale
symptoms of increasing forgetfulness. She struggled with the problem
in the way that many people do but she was fighting a losing
battle. She found that she could no longer
remember the names of those she wanted to pray for and her
letters became verbose and
lost much of their content. This in turn
made her increasingly anxious; and her anxiety led onto depression
and the classical textbook description of developing Alzheimer's
disease became evident.
Glenn Weaver, however, points out that in her case there was much
more to her experience than the usual textbook account. She was deeply troubled about her
relationship with God. She felt she was personally responsible for
falling away from her former close walk with God ,and that she was
deserting her friends through her friendship and prayers.
She concluded that because of her lack of
faith God was setting her aside because she was no longer fit for
his service.
As she continued she became more confused and began to lose
control of her natural processes and away from the security provided
by her home and husband, she would wander about violating the
commands of her nurses and then describing bizarre sexual
disturbances in an explicit way. She came to believe she'd committed sins that provoked
God's wrath and the continued deterioration of her condition and the
fact that the doctors could not help her confirmed her in her
beliefs. Eventually she lost all interest in
her daily devotions and prayer. The main point here is quite
simple; with neural changes
there are psychological consequences and
these in turn affect spiritual awareness. Such is the unity of the
human person.
My second example is the attempts to explore the association of
some forms of religiosity and
the occurrence of mystical experiences with their possible neural
substrates, an attempt which has continued
from time to time over the last thirty years. Many who write on the
topic begin with the apostle Paul's Damascus Road experience and
then quickly move on to talk about the religiosity of the
typical epileptic patient,
something which has been recognised since at
least 1838 by Esquirol.
The debate will continue as more evidence becomes available.
However, as one recent study by David Tucker and his associates has
reported, "the data indicate that hyper-religiosity is not a
consistent interictal trait of individuals with temporal lobe
epilepsy. Further, although hyper-religiosity and temporal lobe
epilepsy may co-occur in a few individuals, it does not appear to be
a direct causal relationship between repeated seizure discharge in
the temporal lobes and hyper-religiosity."
Third, I suggest that a return to a more holistic view of the
human person, prompted in part by recent developments in
neuroscience has helpful implications, I believe, for understanding
the spiritual distresses that are well documented in the experiences
of Christian leaders and from which we all, from time to time,
suffer . It means that the spiritual
dimension to our personality is not immune to the changes in our
biological and neural
substrates. I have already given you one
example of this in the specific instance of Altzheimers disease.
The psychiatrist Gaius Davies has documented how some of the
outstanding men and women of God whom all acknowledge have been
greatly used by him are also found on close study often to be those
who have endured significant swings in the immediacy of their felt
awareness of the presence and power of God. Davies shows how in the
case of some of these people it is possible for us, with the benefit
of hindsight, and informed by the advances in psychiatry at the end
of the 20th-century, to be fairly sure that some of their
experiences were pathological in the sense that today we would
classify them in accepted categories of psychological
illness.
Some were obsessive compulsive, some were manic depressive, some
struggled with specific phobias, and so on. Among those studied by
Gaius Davies were John Bunyan and Amy Carmichael, William Cowper, CS
Lewis, Martin Luther, Gerard Manley Hopkins and J. B.
Phillips . The relevance of his studies to us
today is that there are those amongst them whose illness probably
had a significant biological and biochemical etiology and these
would include Luther, Cowper,
Shaftesbury and Phillips. Luther was probably an obsessive
compulsive/depressive; Cowper suffered six serious depressive
breakdowns and made several suicide attempts; Shaftesbury was
probably a manic/depressive suffering from a bi-polar affective
disorder (he reported how his moods swung from �wild joy� to �cruel
despondency�. Phillips was probably an
obsessive-compulsive. Despite all these
things they triumphed to our lasting benefit. We do indeed �have
this treasure in earthen vessels�.
Those of you, who like me enjoyed the fascinating BBC television series by Susan
Greenfield on the brain, may remember that
in her first lecture she made several references to the religious or spiritual dimension to a
person's life and personality. It is
interesting that following her presentation there were a number of
letters to the press complaining that she was attacking religion and
the spiritual dimension to life.
While we can understand the sensitivity, for some people, of
singling out religion for reference in this way, a little thought
would quickly indicate that it was unjustified. To be more specific,
Susan Greenfield could as easily have indicated that in due time,
using appropriate brain imaging techniques, we may be able to say a
little more about which
systems in the brain are most active when
she is talking about brains and their properties.
No one, I think, would have then gone on to argue that because we
may understand something of brain mechanisms underlying her
fascinating presentations, therefore, we could give no validity to
the brain story that she was telling us. In a word, understanding something about the brain
mechanisms underlying mental life tells us nothing, one way or the
other about the truth claims of the statements being made at the
time.
To be more specific because this is an important point, she could
as easily showed us a picture of Einstein's brain drawing
attention to some of its unusual features, but this would have told us nothing at all, one way or
the other about the truth of his theories.
What I believe is much more relevant is that by welcoming every new bit of information
about the neural substrates of spirituality,
should give us insights which will enable us to understand ourselves
better, but more importantly will enable us to show more sympathy
and compassion to those who may be going through what in past
centuries used to be called "
the dark night of the soul".
His most recent book is '>From Cells
to Souls - and Beyond' (editor) with an essay by Alan Torrance
entitled 'What is a Person?' It addresses the
important issue of the mind/brain as well as the rampant dualism and gnosticism one sees
in society at large, the believing community and, on
TT.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: April 19, 2005
21:49
Subject: [Bulk] Re:
[TruthTalk] Saved - Salvation
"Portraits of
Human Nature: Scientific & Theological" by Malcolm
Jeeves. Anyway, I think that is what you are talking
about. I was thinking I had sent one of his books home with
you. Is that right?
Bill
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, April 19,
2005 6:56 AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk]
Saved - Salvation
Bill
, what was the title and author of that CD from
the pyschiatrist we listened to some on the trip to
Miss?
__________________________________________________
Do You
Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection
around
http://mail.yahoo.com
Do you Yahoo!?
Make
Yahoo! your home page
|
