Created Soul—Eternal Spirit: A Continuing Theological Thorn
Discussing in the Institutes the nature of God's image in man, Calvin refers to the dream of the Manichees, which Servetus has attempted in our own day to revive. Because it is said that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2.7), they thought that the soul was a transm...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1966
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| In: |
Scottish journal of theology
Year: 1966, Volume: 19, Issue: 1, Pages: 23-34 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Discussing in the Institutes the nature of God's image in man, Calvin refers to the dream of the Manichees, which Servetus has attempted in our own day to revive. Because it is said that God breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2.7), they thought that the soul was a transmission of the substance of God; as if some portion of the boundless divinity had passed into man. It cannot take long time to show how many gross and foul absurdities this devilish error carries in its train.1In our own day this view, which Calvin takes to be so fatal an error, is very much alive. Occasionally it is expressed in terms not dissimilar from those described by Calvin.2 More often, however, it appears in a more generalised form, where man's possession of a spiritual consciousness is taken to prove that the Divine is latent within him. Spirit is regarded above all as the vehicle by means of which the eternal penetrates the temporal. God himself moves in man, so that human consciousness cannot be satisfied with anything belonging to time and space, our transient world; instead, it strives continually to attain to its proper supramundane dimension.The Platonic inspiration of such a view is evident when it is advanced as a distinctive argument: for example, in Rufus M. Jones' West Lectures, Spirit in Man.3 |
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| ISSN: | 1475-3065 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Scottish journal of theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0036930600002015 |