Jan,
You seem to be assuming too much - that anything based on Greek philosophy
is suspect, and that reformed thought is the only correct version and
entirely devoid of Greek influence. Be aware that Reformed theology proposed
a number of ideas that were generally foreign to Chrisitanity in the 1400 or
so years prior to it. The dualistic idea is not something that the medieval
theologians/philosophers invented. A careful study of historical documents
in Christianity will reveal that early church fathers such as Justin Martyr,
Irenaeus and Athenagoras were dualist. I suspect that most of the early
Reformers were dualist as well. If the virtual consensus of Christendom in
2000 years on this issue is wrong because of Greek influence, then one has
to question if the Bible itself is accurate in its claim that Jesus promised
the guidance of the Holy Spirit to the church.
I argue that in spite of the shortcomings of some major characters in the
early/mid medieval church, it was nevertheless the church as the Body of
Christ; the same church that adopted some Greek ideas and rejected others;
the same church that grew out of the early church, and grew into what we see
as Christianity today. If the medieval church was wrong in foundational
philosophical assumptions, then I believe the credibility of the Scriptures
is at stake.
-----Original Message-----
From: Jan de Koning
To: Adrian Teo
Cc: 'Asa@Calvin. Edu '
Sent: 2/5/2002 3:06 PM
Subject: RE: Do animals ever "sin" (was something else)
What Adrian wrote below does not answer my posting. Thomistic views are
not reformed, and I pointed out that almost all philosophies, including
Thomism is based on Greek philosophy. For that reason Vollenhoven had
trouble with it and showed the original Hebrew and Greek bible texts,
which
no-where indicated a dualism. If so, show the bible texts,then we may
be
able to discuss. Again, time and again it has been shown that the
medieval
RC philosophers based their theories on the philosphies of either Plato,
or
Aristotle, and argued on the base of Greek philosophy rather than the
Bible.
Jan de K.
At 05:50 PM 04/02/02 -0800, Adrian Teo wrote:
>This is a difficult philosophical and theological problem that is also
>highly controversial - today. The position Jan is advocating seems to
be
>consistent with what has come to be known as nonreductive physicalism -
>which is a monistic understanding of the nature of the person. There
are
>just some major philosophical/theological problems with this approach,
and
>is quite unsatisfying. The more traditional dualistic understanding
(not
>Cartesian but Thomistic) does a better job I think. In this case then,
the
>person is not a soul, but a body AND soul. This position (of dualism)
has
>been held by Christians since the earliest days, and to claim in the
20th
>century that these folks got it wrong all along (i.e. for 20
centuries)on
>such a major theological issue is to call into serious question the
role of
>the Holy Spirit in guiding the church.
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