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Thank you so much for your thoughts on Plato et al!

As with many other subjects on this forum, we tend to run into problems with the words that are used and what was intended by them v. how they are read by different people. You mention the Kabbalist use of the terms neshamah for soul and ruach for spirit being inverted as to your understanding of the words “soul” and “spirit.” I agree that it is confusing for the very same reason and prefer to look at the underlying descriptions to “sort it out.”

I confess I especially continue to be a bit confused as to what is and is not accredited to ruach. A word study in the Scriptures seems appropriate.

I look at the ruach as being what Adam and Eve obtained by their disobedience, the knowledge of good and evil and hence, the duty of choice. Before their disobedience, they were pure eternal beings (chaya) incapable of error. To keep them from enjoying eternal life after such disobedience, they were banished under the penalty of death, i.e. became mortal beings (nefesh.) As I mentioned in the previous post, because God exists outside of space/time, the gift - the breath of life (neshamah) was forever. So adamic man ended up with all three: neshamah wanting to go home, ruach making him responsible for his decisions and nefesh wanting to be alive in the flesh. These are just my “two cents” but they closely correspond to the Jewish tradition and the Word. Freeper Views on Origins

Hmm. I see no need to elevate mind over passion, when passion is pure. It is of higher consciousness, of course, but even as such it must draw from that upon which it rests. But as for moral or relational essence, it is more of an adminstrator (head) while passion I think may be even more akin to the essense of our being (heart, will and relatability). It is difficult to know the latter with our minds, so we like to call it something less than mind (even if Plato admitted there seemed to be more of it). I'd prefer to say that our minds are given the task of moderator and ambassador. So, higher I suppose it is, but not as essential to our being.

On this I would strongly emphasize your pre-requisite: “when passion is pure.” In my view, passions are just as likely – or perhaps even more likely – to be ego-centric, self-gratifying, vindictive, etc. IMHO, when the ego has been utterly purged from the passion, the result is pure. The Word tells us that kind of self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, i.e. we achieve it with His help (emphasis mine:)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. – Galatians 5:22-23

I agree with you that the bride of Christ is the collective body of believers (Revelation.) There is however also a personal belonging, or engagement, that we experience until the groom arrives. That is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is symbolized by the oil in lamp in the parable of the ten virgins (Matthew 25:1-13.)

IMHO, the challenge you raise in researching knowledge in the Scriptures v. the Greek philosophers would require a considerable preliminary effort to define terms. The Scriptures differentiate between knowledge, wisdom and understanding – and we’d have to consider that which is a gift of God v. the resulting effort of man (Proverbs 1 and 2:)

And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, - Exodus 31:3

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. – Proverbs 3:5-7

I leave the discussion of dualism in your and betty boop’s capable hands. I’ve been accused of being one, so I’d like to know more what it means (LOL!)

For instance, although I’m very much aware of being a new creature in Christ – I do see the old me, the carnal me, like some impish, powerless nuisance hanging around in my psyche. She throws me some nasty thoughts now and again and I find myself rebuking her. All of this goes on strictly within my being, and rarely spills over to my contacts with others. I know that Paul struggled with the same issue:

For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. – Romans 7:22-23

The good news is that the carnal man (or woman in my case) has no authority and can be beaten by walking after the Spirit.

[There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace. Because the carnal mind [is] enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. – Romans 8:1-9

So I stay in the Spirit and rebuke the carnal me whenever she speaks. I cannot enter her mind any longer, she’s a whole ‘nother thing now. But having read all this Kabbalah material, she strikes me as a big hunk of the nefesh and thus would be attached to my ruach (decision making) - so I can’t dump her until I finally return home. Sigh…

So am I a dualist or what?

...dualist? ;-`

I confess I find the Scriptures adoption of the language of gnosticism annoying. ;-` But I'm glad that through it captives to that motif have been lead to their freedom.

The flesh vs. the spirit to the Greeks and mystics is a divide of the dimensions of man. But in the Lord's Word to us, it is just what you have said, a distinction between the fallen nature (in all its aspects eternally separated from God) and the new nature (in all its aspects eternally united with Him) and that because it is of the dimensions of God and man fully related!

I don't know the Greek word for "Spirit," used in the declaration, "the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace," but the Spirit is the Spirit of God Himself breathed into us by the precious gift of the lain flesh of Jesus the Unifier. And because of this new breath breathed by the willing, all that is of a person has come under it's power, by the authority of the Word it carries.

As I walked out of that cultic church a few years ago, one who was sort of "strongly suggested out" just before I left pointed me in the direction of a book by another man of might, Jesse Penn (mightier than the Body) Lewis. It was so wonderful to be reassured in his book, that God has given me a will -- and a will to be a will! -- a will which is all mine and not ever to be violated, nor dominated, nor dissipated, not by any creature and not even by God Himself. Why? For the very reason He made life: because He did not want to be succumbed to, but to be fully agreed with and very, very, very wilfully embraced. Ho, the difference!

That is a good test of whether one is free from gnostic notions: whether one is confident in God's gift of full person and an autonomous identity in all aspects of our lives, an identity in which we may run to willingly unite with His, yet as two individuals, and yet still in a unity which is utterly autonomous as a new joined relational identity, after the God-Man Himself. We never cease to be any less self in this relationship. However, we find self's other! We find a new fathomless giving of each other, God to me and me to God, a giving past death, that is a new living phenomena in all of creation, not possible had it not been for both the fall of the first Adam and the rise of the Second!

Thus, my reason is free, my emotions are free, my head and heart are free, and my will is enabled to agree with God in winning the soul's ground for the dwelling of one God and me.

Die, to live, yes, in Christ. But done once and for all. And yes, we still have the fallen nature to drag along with us until our earth bound bodies are worn down, but yes, it is not us anymore. It is as you say, just what was. And yes, we still have our old Adamically cursed bodies, but even they as degenerate as they are, are sanctified by what the vessel contains and until the new thoroughly pure flesh is put on.

Oh what we know! Oh WHO we KNOW! (when we are what we may be).

Yes, creation is expanding.