Textbook reading 1
Birthright - Needham Reading Assignment #1, self reflection
Preface/Introduction
1. Supernatural vs natural: We are supernatural beings with natural inclinations
2. Born again and victorious: When we were born again, our life changed and we were and are being transformed with certain birthrights. That message of victory ought to define who we are as believers and bring about a certain amount of joy.
3. Identity: We need not see ourselves as merely saved sinners.
Chapter 1
1. New Creation: As a new creation, even though God is working deeply in me and wants me to experience the miraculous - yet, it is for the edifying of His saints and the body, and to the glory of Himself.
2. In many ways, our life is similar to animals: In many respects, we are like animals in that we were created directly by God, have His breath inside of us, and are living beings because of God.
3. Image of God by our characteristics and what we do (more emphasis on characteristics): We are made in the image of God, and one way that image is shown is by fulfilling the responsibilities that God gave man to do: work by having dominion over the animals.
4. Brain for humans unique: Our brain is highly complex allowing us to marry experience, learning, and creativity to think, act, and not just regurgitate - but assimilate and produce new information or make new connections of old information together. This sets us apart from the animals.
5. Fall and result, death: The fall is a tragedy, and certainly not the very thing that God wanted to happen. It set us up for terrible failure and we died not only spiritually on that day, but physical death also began. We became mortal.
6. All beings are fearfully and wonderfully made: Be impressed not only with how fearfully and wonderfully I am made, but how fearfully and wonderfully all the animals are made … for God was as intimate and intricate with their design as He was with ours.
7. Mercy, justice, truth; these are the qualities that God loves, that He is attracted to. If I can’t boast in knowing God’s mercy in my life, there is nothing else to boast in.
8. Earth is corrupt because man is corrupt: The rebellion of man has not only caused his death, caused corruption in him, but has also caused corruption in the world. Ancient writers say the earth is corrupt because of us.
9. Fall of Eden, memories faded: That which gave excitement to the human heart and soul, yes Eden itself, is now a distant memory from our human consciousness. Did it really exist, were we once really happy, alive, and free in God? Yes … yes we were … and we lost it.
10. Vastness: When we think of our mortality, the vastness of everything else around us, or the vastness of that which is in us (our brains for instance) - we come to the realization of our own limits.
11. Love still surrounds us: And yet, even in our puniness, even in our humility, our low, sinful, rebellious state … God in Jesus Christ still loves us.
Hall - Foundations - Reading assignment 1 - self reflection
1. Man is the starting point for all counseling models; what he is like, what he does; etc. Three parts of man’s life include physical, spiritual, and psychological, and all three must be examined.
2. Definition of nature. Nature primarily are the characteristics that make up the man; it’s secondary definition is the innate disposition of a person that creates conduct. Keeping the two definitions together but distinct is helpful.
3. Don’t confuse the two definitions of nature. Confusing the two definitions can cause confusion, such as believing there are two equal or two unequal natures in man.
a) One confusion: we are in Christ, but we are also in Adam; we are alive in Christ, but also dead in Adam simultaneously.
i. No such thing as Adam-Christ sinner or sinner-saint Christian
b) To make it clear: We are saints that can sin; but our identity and nature is not sinner.
4. Man is made up of both material and immaterial.
a) Material - body
b) Immaterial - but spiritual and psychological (pneumatikos and psyche). There is enough scripture to show that there is a difference between our spirit (spiritual life) and psyche (psychological, personality)
5. Goal of counseling: The goal of all counseling is ‘change’. Counseling can help change the spiritual and the psychological; permanent physical change is not necessarily the goal of the counselor.
Erickson - Theology Reading assignment 1 - The Constitutional Nature of the Human - self reflection
1. Three possible views of human condition. Human condition or status may be trichotomy, dichotmy, or monism. Each comes with presuppositions or implications.
2. Trichotomy distinguishes physicality, personality (soul), and spirituality. Pneumatikos (spirituality) is different than psyche, soul or personality. The main core of teaching this is based on 1 Thessalonians 5 is that these 3 make up man, and can sometimes be traced to early Grecian philosophy. (3 makes up: physical, spiritual, psychological)
3. Dichotomy/Dualism holds that man is a dichotomy. Dichotomists would say that man is made of a body inhabited by a spirit that can also be termed soul. Many passages in the Bible seem to equate the two, and both spirit or soul is sometimes seen to depart the body. Some liberal dichotimists have stated that personality <soul, spirit> persists or is immortal after death, but not that there is a resurrection. Even so - the body is not so discounted among conservatives.
4. Monism says man is a radical, single unity and the Hebrews would have understood man completely. He is a body, soul, and spirit - a living being. There is no existence without the body. It is only the Greeks later who sought to make distinguishing marks of various parts of man. The Hebrews would not have thought to do so.
a) Main characteristic of monist: For monist, to be human is to have a body. There is no disembodied life beyond the grave without resurrection.
b) Monism was popularized by JT Robinson.
c) Breath-soul: Man’s body possess breath-soul, which is meaningless without the body. The body is the full person and if they have no breath-soul - they are not.
5. Shortfalls of Monism based on Scripture: Monism cannot grapple with texts that seem to speak of life beyond the grave: the thief on the cross, the rich man in hades, Paul’s desire to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, and Jesus’ warning to fear destruction of both body and soul in hell.
6. Robinson’s assumption that the Greeks made the different terms, Hebrews does not … is faulty. In both expositional and cultural contexts, one word can mean more than one thing.
7. Against monism -the Bible does not say a person’s body merely died - but that the person died. Resurrection is the whole person, so dual thought is faulty on this point.
8. Erickson says memory is dependent on the body, but
9. Secular Monism: Monism and especially a secular versions of it sees and observes man’s behavior only and discounts what they think is unobservable: the soul.
10. Weakness of Monism in two types of death: The Bible discounts monism by referring to “first death” and “second death”. Death physically cannot be the end of the person.
11. Erickson’s view
a) The bible proves there is an intermediary state between death and resurrection.
b) Ignoring the implications of dichotomy is extreme, but making harsh divisions so body is eliminated at death is also extreme. Conditional Unity is a better thought.
c) Man can exist either in a materialized state (with a body) or an in-materialized state (body has died). But the normal existence of man is materialized, with a body.
d) For conditional unity, man must be treated as a whole person - psychosomatic, holistically. Peter’s conclusion: The conclusion given can be given almost for all views. But Conditional Unity’s main point is well taken: man is meant to exist most in his physicality, and the fall affects this existence beyond the grave. In other words, God’s plan for man was never to exist outside the body.