Fw: Spirit & Soul
Brian Dean bridean@worldnet.att.net
Tue, 31 Mar 1998 02:41:22 -0500 (00891351682, 19980331073208.AAA21400@briandea)
>CREA
> Strangely enough, I have yet to meet a secular atheist who espoused
>dualism in any form. Every one has been a "devout" materialist of one
>stripe or another. Please cite even ONE atheist who has acknowledged his
>philosophical adherence to a Platonic dichotomy between matter and spirit
>(or who posits the existence of a spiritual realm at all). To accuse
>atheists of being dualists, whether "false" or not, is roughly on a par with
>my accusing you (and other Christians) of being a "false" polytheist.
>
> If you feel that the characterization of matter as bad/evil or inferior
>to spirit is foreign to Christianity, please explain Romans 8:3 where the
>flesh is characterized as being "sinful" -- and more emphatically Galatians
>5:16-25, paying special attention to verse 17, where it says:
>
> [17] "for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against
>the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot
>do the things that ye would."
RON
What Romans 8:3 actually says is that Jesus incarnated in the
"likeness of sinful flesh". As 8:13 points out we must not live
according to the desires of the flesh. It's not that the flesh is
inherently evil, but that the flesh, if we are ruled by the desires of
the flesh (whether good or evil) we will tend to sin. The need for food
becomes gluttony, the pleasure of sex becomes adultery or fornication.
What Paul is suggesting is that the spirit is intended to rule
heirarchically over the body/soul/spirit being. If you mistake yourself
for only one of these you end up in trouble. Sex is God-created and
good, for instance, but promiscuity leads to diseases and children
without proper care.
Atheists are dualists, from my perspective because they do not merely
denigrate the spiritual, but in fact deny its very existence. A unitive
view considers all aspects of reality (yes, I know we disagree on what
is real).