Is it possible - just a thought before I dig deeply into all the rest of this - that Christian dualism springs from the difficulty that most Christians have in realizing that they already participate in eternal life? In other words, that we tend to look forward to some unspecified future date and destination, failing to realize that we've already arrived now? "In the world but not of the world" must have some meaning greater than simple human aspiration, don't you think?
Thank you so much for writing -- will be in touch soon.
logos, I agree with your sense concerning how many Christians view themselves as being either "here" or "there" - not realizing that the "there" is "here" when a believer has been born again (Romans 8, John 3). Spiritual awareness takes time/trial/patience, IMHO - and without it, I don't see how one could rationalize it as anything other than a dualism.
lockeliberty, the "in between" communication of the soul/spirit has been the subject of Jewish mysticism from the beginning. The Kabbalists claim that such traditions were passed down verbally from Adam, that writing such Holy matters was forbidden. I believe that is what the word actually means.
Notwithstanding the Kabbalists, there is much discussion of soul/spirit on traditional Jewish websites. Sadly, the New Age movement has picked up on also and have their own form of mysticism using the same terms.
The "in between" has to do with the words used in the Torah. In Genesis 1, the word nephesh is used to describe the soul of animals. In Genesis 2, the word neshama is used to describe the breath of God given Adam so that he would be a living soul.
In Jewish mysticism there are even more words, ascending as follows: nephesh, ruach, neshama, chaya and yeshida.
The idea is that the ruach is the spiritual arrow within a man (free will) where he decides to either be carnally minded (nephesh) or Godly (neshama). The levels above neshama have to do with becoming ever more spiritual. At least that is the way I understand what I have read. LOL!
This hierarchical communicating soul/spirit structure appears to be quite similar to Plato's metaxy. Perhaps the thinkers arrived at similiar ideas from different directions, or perhaps Plato picked it up in studying the Torah in Egypt as I recall being mentioned in one of Justin Martyr's papers.