The 
Person 
Paradigm

Personhood

 

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spirit soul body

 

It is important not to make a category mistake and assume we are talking about the same types of stuff (see Ryle) and consider ourself a bipolar dualism with body as our material stuff, and soul or spirit as our non-physical stuff.

A far more useful paradigm for understanding personhood and created reality are

1) the Genesis model
body - word pattern prescribed boundary
spirit - breath life personhood
soul - the whole being and

2) the Australian Aboriginal Inside/outside paradigm

Humanity, like all created reality, is predominantly spirit (which is not spatially or temporally located) proscribed within creation by the word of God. Spirit manifesting boundaries as body.

In the context of the broader body of humanity, placing a boundary for the place of the human within creation divided from and separated from the place of what is other than human.

We are further defined within humanity through what we share in common, and our voluntary and involuntary affiliations.

And obviously, we are defined and individuated as separate human beings, differentiated in bodies of flesh.

Our inside, our spirit, is the place we should live. but seperated from God, the source of our proscribing word, we often live on our boundariies, and look to our boundaries to define who we are, and boundaries generally (the outside) to define reality for us.

At our boundaries we come into contact with those who are Other than us. Other, out of the context of a loving and proscribing god is a fearful concept. We feel we have to protect, defend and fight for our boundaries. We become fearful of nakedness, and our Other can often be seen as evil.

In this state we have a tendency to flee to nothingness to hide in God's Other away from personhood per se.

We hide in death.

Spirit is fundamental and archetypal personhood. It can neither be added to or taken from without changing us from being who we are, though it can be enriched by open links with other persons, and principly the source of personhood, God.

Spirit cannot be described, Spirit can only be personally known, spirit is the heart of our personhood. We can also understand spirit from the body and soul, in a similar way we can understand God from creation. Though this is limited by the effect of the fall on our knowledge.

Body is what the person or spirit lives in and through.  A body is an interface between an entity and the entity's environment.  Body provides unique and differentiated space for soul and individuality, in a similar way to God providing space for Other through Christ.

Western culture considers only physical bodies, however Christianity perceives of bodies in 2 realms, the physical and the spiritual.

Understood within the context of the Person Paradigm and the Speaking/Hearing dynamic, a physical body could be understood  as the physical realm hearing or perceiving an entity or person.  A spiritual body is the spiritual realm hearing or perceiving an entity or person.

Christianity is a resolver of dualisms, and the dualism is resolved by going back to the foundations, and the fact that the person or entity is One and can be manifest in different realms.

I consider that the stuff of a spiritual body is the Virtues. Interestingly some elements of research into the emotions ('emotion' being a category with significant cross over to the virtues and vices) define emotion in terms of an interface between a person and their environment.  (for more musings on this - see the writings section - celestial bodies)

Soul is personality, a gathering of ideas into the basket of our body, through the device of conscious and subconscious memory and knowing.

 

 

God as Good! 

 
  Who is your God?

The character of Yahweh vs the character of Jesus

Goodness Love and Virtue (A theological appraisal of the 'Old Testament God')

The 'Wrath of God' as Satan

The Prodigal Son

The Woman 'caught in adultery'

The Jericho Thought Experiment - WWJD?

William Law

Goodness Love and Virtue (rtf version for printing)

God is Good Links


 
 
 

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