7 Comments

Fantastic! Your first post was about differentiating between your soul and your body, could you write about how to tell the difference between your soul and the Spirit? Is it something like the soul/body relationship at a higher vertical level?

Expand full comment

Thanks, Sean! By the Spirit here of course is meant the Holy Spirit, whose nature is wholly different from our own (the human spirit can’t be self-generating anymore than the soul or the body can, and so wouldn't be worthy to begin and end the parabola) — but you’re still asking a worthy question that I will be thinking about. Certainly the relationship between the Church as the Body of Christ and the Spirit that animates it is so named Body and Spirit for a reason, even if the Persons of the Trinity are not to be confused. And then there are key NT texts to be grappled with, such 1 Thes. 5:23 and Heb. 4:12.

Expand full comment

A new baby and her mother were churched today at liturgy and a particular phrase caught my attention and reminded me of your thoughts here:

"...Thou hast shown [her] the sensory life that [she] might be vouchsafed the noetic life..."

Expand full comment

Beautiful!

Expand full comment

Really amazing stuff, Cormac. Your fractal way of thinking generates some wonderful insights and seems so--here's for a word that gets overused and abused, but in this case is deeply true--balanced.

Since conceptualizations such as body and soul seems to arise more clearly as categories within Patristic and Greek approaches to anthropology and theology, it would be really interesting to bring in those more 'earthy' Hebraic symbols like the eyes, the feet, the bones, the tongue, the heart, and see how they can help heal us from the pitfalls of dialectics in the theology of man. "Bright eyes cheer the heart; good news strengthens the bones" (Proverbs 15:30)

Expand full comment

Also, it’s really nice to see you develop your contemplation of Mark 2:23–28, arosa77!

Expand full comment

Thank you so much, Anthony. I think that’s a great idea — I say go for it! I love your use of the verse from Proverbs here.

Expand full comment