The Body: Love it, Hate it or Escape it?
Brethren,
Many see the body as a prison from which the soul must deliver itself, an idea linked back to Plato. How is it that what God has made have become so despised? It's a shame that many competing philosophies in the world that surrounded the church during its period of development contributed to our current lack of emphasis on the physical. For instance, the early Christian church took the attitude that the Roman and Grecian ways of life pampered and indulged the body at the expense of the soul. So intense was the reaction of the church to this philosophy that an overreaction to this way of life led to the opposite error. By the time of the Middle Ages it was considered immoral to view even one's own body; therefore, people seldom bathed and wore notoriously dirty garments [D. G. Dawe, "The Attitude of the Ancient Church Toward Medicine," Part II, Minnesota Medicine XLVII (November 1964), 1352].
My question, has Neoplatonism entered the Bible? Whether or not it did, what influence did it had on the developing Christian church? CM
Comments
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The world was an is an environment, like aquarium water of all kind of ideas, neo-Platonian and other. Out of that came the Truth that Christ taught and that we have in the word of God. The origin of Truth is the heart of God revealed by God to people and validated by the Holy Spirit. Not the other way around.
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@C_M_ said:
Brethren,
Many see the body as a prison from which the soul must deliver itself, an idea linked back to Plato. How is it that what God has made have become so despised? It's a shame that many competing philosophies in the world that surrounded the church during its period of development contributed to our current lack of emphasis on the physical. For instance, the early Christian church took the attitude that the Roman and Grecian ways of life pampered and indulged the body at the expense of the soul. So intense was the reaction of the church to this philosophy that an overreaction to this way of life led to the opposite error. By the time of the Middle Ages it was considered immoral to view even one's own body; therefore, people seldom bathed and wore notoriously dirty garments [D. G. Dawe, "The Attitude of the Ancient Church Toward Medicine," Part II, Minnesota Medicine XLVII (November 1964), 1352].My question, has Neoplatonism entered the Bible? Whether or not it did, what influence did it had on the developing Christian church? CM
When a person comes into contact with Christ, they bring along the pagan philosophies their environment imposed on them. And they naturally approach the scriptures as a type of Rorschach test, seeing what they're conditioned to see.
Since scripture belittles the flesh, many literalize this and think the body is sinful. And all sorts of horrible asceticism follows. But the spiritual understanding of the flesh depicts the body as God's Temple made without hands. And the flesh is the body apart from God. Or our thoughts and actions apart from God, or when opposed to God.
With God, love becomes our motive. Apart from God, hatred (loving ourselves more than others) becomes the motive and chief characteristic of the flesh.
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Considering we will have our bodies eternally.....
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The clear Biblical evidence that God is interested in our physical well-being is put forth for abundant living. At the same time, people and some Christians, don't feel that they have an obligation to render God their body in as healthy a condition as possible.
* "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:19, 20).
It seems the early believers were influenced by unbiblical philosophies in the then world. This is obviously what Paul was addressing. History reveals Plato is linked with the idea that the body is the prison from which the soul must deliver itself. Cullmann summarizes the philosophy of Plato simply as:
"Now, it must be granted that in Greek thought there is also a very positive appreciation of the body. But in Plato the good and beautiful in the corporeal are not good and beautiful in virtue of corporeality but rather, so to speak, in spite of corporeality: the soul, the eternal and the only substantial reality of being, shines faintly through the material. The corporeal is not the real, the eternal, the divine. It is merely that through which the real appears—and then only in debased form."
Who was it that revived Plato's ungodly concepts and how did it get into the Christian way of life? It's not one or the other. It's body and spirit. It's both. Let's keep digging. CM
SOURCE:
-- Oscar Cullmann, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1964), pp. 30, 31.
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Many Christians are worried about the Mark of the Beast when they should be worried about the Mark of the Feast.
Perhaps a new thread on sharing what we use at the gym, and what we eat, and how we think to keep healthy in Christ.....
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@Dave_L said:
Many Christians are worried about the Mark of the Beast when they should be worried about the Mark of the Feast.Perhaps a new thread on sharing what we use at the gym, and what we eat, and how we think to keep healthy in Christ.....
What in the world are you talking about now?
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@davidtaylorjr said:
@Dave_L said:
Many Christians are worried about the Mark of the Beast when they should be worried about the Mark of the Feast.Perhaps a new thread on sharing what we use at the gym, and what we eat, and how we think to keep healthy in Christ.....
What in the world are you talking about now?
Thanks for asking. I am replying to CM in his post about our bodies. Just saying many Christians over-eat and do not take care of God's temple, our bodies. Do you eat right and workout?
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@Dave_L said:
@davidtaylorjr said:
@Dave_L said:
Many Christians are worried about the Mark of the Beast when they should be worried about the Mark of the Feast.Perhaps a new thread on sharing what we use at the gym, and what we eat, and how we think to keep healthy in Christ.....
What in the world are you talking about now?
Thanks for asking. I am replying to CM in his post about our bodies. Just saying many Christians over-eat and do not take care of God's temple, our bodies. Do you eat right and workout?
Eat right, mostly, workout, not as often as I would like to. But you still did not explain your "Mark of the Feast" etc.
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@davidtaylorjr said:
@Dave_L said:
@davidtaylorjr said:
@Dave_L said:
Many Christians are worried about the Mark of the Beast when they should be worried about the Mark of the Feast.Perhaps a new thread on sharing what we use at the gym, and what we eat, and how we think to keep healthy in Christ.....
What in the world are you talking about now?
Thanks for asking. I am replying to CM in his post about our bodies. Just saying many Christians over-eat and do not take care of God's temple, our bodies. Do you eat right and workout?
Eat right, mostly, workout, not as often as I would like to. But you still did not explain your "Mark of the Feast" etc.
Mark of the Feast = fat
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@Dave_L said:
Many Christians are worried about the Mark of the Beast when they should be worried about the Mark of the Feast.Perhaps a new thread on sharing what we use at the gym, and what we eat, and how we think to keep healthy in Christ.....
yes, on another thread would be nice. CM
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@C_M_ said:
Who was it that revived Plato's ungodly concepts and how did it get into the Christian way of life? It's not one or the other. It's body and spirit. It's both. Let's keep digging. CM
I found the answer to my own question yet, a valid addition to the one who revived Plato's concept, good soul, bad body. It was the philosopher Plotinus, who lived in the third century A.D., is recognized as the founder of a school of thought that revived some of Plato's concepts into a system known as Neoplatonism. This movement had its influence on the developing Christian church. What disappointment!
This dualistic concept creeps into the early church from the influence of the Platonic tradition of the Greeks but the Eastern philosophy of Gnosticism also seems to have had a significant part in its adoption into Christianity.
With its promise of salvation by release from bodily existence and its insistence that in this life we are to repress or ignore the body, Gnosticism was denounced as a heresy by church theologians, but "its influence did not die with its condemnation."
Dawe adds: "Gnosticism continued to have a subtle and distorting influence on much of Christendom for centuries to come. In 529 Justinian closed the medical schools of Athens and Alexandria at the promptings of Churchmen. In 1215, Innocent III condemned surgery. In 1248 dissection and the study of anatomy were pronounced sacrilegious." (See Source).
Paul's writings demonstrate Jewish tradition rather than Greco-Roman thought, even though he seems to have been thoroughly conversant with the latter. The body is not the prison house of the soul. Instead, Paul states: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Romans 12:1).
To the Corinthians, he addresses the rhetorical question: "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Caution must be taken for correct understanding, just because of Paul's use of Greek terms. It could easily be misunderstood in the light of their common meaning in his day, Nevertheless, Paul remains true to what he calls himself, a "Hebrew of the Hebrews."
More next time... CM
SOURCE:
-- D. G. Dawe, "The Attitude of the Ancient Church Toward Medicine", Part II, Minnesota Medicine XLVII (November 1964), 1352.
