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To: betty boop; hosepipe; marron
Of course, this is all Greek to me! LOLOL!

LOLOL! Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

This is the theme of the great myth of the divine puppet-master in Plato's Laws. We humans are as if suspended in an "in-between" reality that subjects us to the competing pulls of the divine "golden cord," or the variety of pulls that come from "below," from our instinctual, animal, emotional nature.

Jewish mysticism speaks to the same tugging.

In man, the neshama (Genesis 2) is the breath of God which tugs him to the divine. And the nephesh (Genesis 1) is the animal soul which tugs him to the earthy.

The ruach (Old Testament) is the pivot, the man's soul which chooses whether to be focused on the divine or on the earthy. In the great debate, Plato is focused on the divine and Aristotle on the earthy.

Paul in Romans 8 speaks to these two aspects (carnal or fleshy man versus the spiritual man) - or to use hosepipe's metaphor, the donkey versus the rider.

Christians are secured because we have have more than the breath of God (neshama) - we actually have the indwelling Spirit, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. We must follow the Spirit, ruach Elohim which means Spirit of God.

[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

To God be the glory!

84 posted on 11/15/2008 1:18:46 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: Alamo-Girl
In man, the neshama (Genesis 2) is the breath of God which tugs him to the divine. And the nephesh (Genesis 1) is the animal soul which tugs him to the earthy.

I have long ceased to be amazed by the key correspondences that exist in the symbols that man has developed down the ages, seemingly almost regardless of the cultural contexts in which they arise. Certain themes never seem to go away. The Old Testament account of man and his relations — with God and the other partners in the great hierarchy of being — the classical philosophical, and the Christian all see the same thing, and articulate it in remarkably similar language. This tells me there is a "seam" of God's Truth that perennially runs through the world; and noetically and spiritually sensitive people of all times and places notice things like that.

C. S. Lewis has a great appendix (in The Abolition of Man) that provides further details of this phenomenon.

To God be the Glory!

85 posted on 11/15/2008 2:20:59 PM PST by betty boop
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