Thanks for the post, and the extended reply to my comment.
I’ve got some listening to catch up on so perhaps you have explained this, but my Protestant-formed ears struggle to square “you are a mind” with “you are not a mortal container”. I end up thinking of Descartes’ “ghost in the shell” and how destructive that has been for modernity - the severing of humans from the natural world, the conception of the mind in mechanical terms, and a great divide set between body and spirit.
I understand that sense-perception is not wicked, rather clouded, but that still doesn’t quite feel enough. Christ’s conjoining of the two natures seems to elevate materiality (in my limited understanding of John of Damascus), and this elevation has something to do with 1 Cor. 15’s “seed raised spiritual”. Probably part of the problem comes from seeing “spiritual” as immaterial woo-woo (see Descartes) and “material” as the solid facts of this world. Which of course the Scriptures reject - God is eternal and pre-material, and the stuff of this world is passing away. But you can’t teach an old dog a new phronema.
I realise the Fathers aren’t speaking to French philosophers or modern Evangelical concerns about Gnosticism, but I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.
A true, important, and necessary understanding of being made in the image and likeness of God.
The stereotyping conflict of humanity isn't solved by making gender fluid, biologically malleable, and behavior modified by computer or DNA modeling/molding. We're each unique, but we are man or woman, fragile in a broken world, and only marginally here transformed by the creator. We peek at the Kingdom even as we unwittingly ruin where we now reside. All will be restored.
Thanks for the post, and the extended reply to my comment.
I’ve got some listening to catch up on so perhaps you have explained this, but my Protestant-formed ears struggle to square “you are a mind” with “you are not a mortal container”. I end up thinking of Descartes’ “ghost in the shell” and how destructive that has been for modernity - the severing of humans from the natural world, the conception of the mind in mechanical terms, and a great divide set between body and spirit.
I understand that sense-perception is not wicked, rather clouded, but that still doesn’t quite feel enough. Christ’s conjoining of the two natures seems to elevate materiality (in my limited understanding of John of Damascus), and this elevation has something to do with 1 Cor. 15’s “seed raised spiritual”. Probably part of the problem comes from seeing “spiritual” as immaterial woo-woo (see Descartes) and “material” as the solid facts of this world. Which of course the Scriptures reject - God is eternal and pre-material, and the stuff of this world is passing away. But you can’t teach an old dog a new phronema.
I realise the Fathers aren’t speaking to French philosophers or modern Evangelical concerns about Gnosticism, but I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.
A true, important, and necessary understanding of being made in the image and likeness of God.
The stereotyping conflict of humanity isn't solved by making gender fluid, biologically malleable, and behavior modified by computer or DNA modeling/molding. We're each unique, but we are man or woman, fragile in a broken world, and only marginally here transformed by the creator. We peek at the Kingdom even as we unwittingly ruin where we now reside. All will be restored.
This is the shortest part of our eternity.
Good stuff, Thomas.