In the context of Christian theology, Christian anthropology is the study of the human (anthropos) as it relates to God. It differs from the social science of anthropology, which primarily deals with the comparative study of the physical and social characteristics of humanity across times and places.
One aspect of Christian anthropology studies is the innate nature or constitution of the human, known as the nature of humankind. It is concerned with the relationship between notions such as body, soul and spirit which together form a person, based on their descriptions in the Bible. There are three traditional views of the human constitution: trichotomism, dichotomism and monism (in the sense of anthropology).
Early Christian writers
Gregory of Nyssa The reference source for Gregory's anthropology is his treatise .The Greek text: PG 44, 123–256; SCh 6, (1944) Jean-Jacques Courtiau (ed.)Étienne Gilson, p. 56 His concept of man is founded on the ontological distinction between the created and uncreated. Man is a material creation and is thus limited, but infinite in that his immortal soul has an indefinite capacity to grow closer to the divine.Maspero & Mateo Seco, p. 38 Gregory believed that the soul is created simultaneous to the creation of the body (in opposition to Origen, who speculated on the soul's pre-existence) and that embryos were thus persons. To Gregory, the human being is exceptional being created in the image of God.Maspero & Mateo Seco, p. 39 Humanity is theomorphic both in having self-awareness and free will, the latter which gives each individual existential power, because to Gregory, in disregarding God one negates one's own existence.Maspero & Mateo Seco, p. 41 In his Song of Songs, Gregory metaphorically describes human lives as paintings created by apprentices to a master: the apprentices (the human wills) imitate their master's work (the life of Christ) with beautiful colors (virtues), and thus man strives to be a reflection of Christ.Maspero & Mateo Seco, p. 42 Gregory, in stark contrast to most thinkers of his age, saw great beauty in the Fall: from Adam's sin from two perfect humans would eventually arise myriad.
Augustine of Hippo Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with very clear anthropological vision. He saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: soul and body.Cf. A. Gianni, pp.148–149 He was much closer in this anthropological view to Aristotle than to Plato.Hendrics, E., p. 291.Massuti, E., p.98. In his late treatise On Care to Be Had for the Dead sec. 5 (420 AD) he insists that the body pertains to the essence of the human person:
Augustine's favourite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua – your body is your wife.Enarrationes in psalmos, 143, 6; CCL 40, 2077 – 2078 ); De utilitate ieiunii, 4,4–5; CCL 46, 234–235. Initially, the two elements were in perfect harmony. After the fall of humanity they are now experiencing dramatic combat between one another. Body and soul are two categorically different things. The body is a three-dimensional object composed of the four elements, whereas the soul has no spatial dimensions.De quantitate animae 1.2; 5.9 Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body.De quantitate animae 13.12: Substantia quaedam rationis particeps, regendo corpori accomodata. Augustine was not preoccupied—as Plato and Descartes were—with going too much into details in efforts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. It sufficed for him to admit that they were metaphysically distinct. To be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, and the soul is superior to the body. The latter statement is grounded in his hierarchical classification of things into those that merely exist, those that exist and live, and those that exist, live, and have intelligence or reason.On the free will (De libero arbitrio) 2.3.7–6.13cf. W.E. Mann, p.141-142
According to N. Blasquez, Augustine's dualism of substances of the body and soul does not stop him from seeing the unity of body and soul as a substance itself.El concepto del substantia segun san Agustin, pp. 305–350. Following ancient philosophers he defined man as a rational mortal animal – animal rationale mortale.De ordine, II, 11.31; CCL 29, 124 ; PL 32,1009; De quantitate animae, 25,47–49; CSEL 89, 190–194; PL 32, 1062–1063Cf. Ch. Couturier SJ, p. 543
Terms or components
Body
The body (Greek soma) is the corporeal or physical aspect of a human being. Christians have traditionally believed that the body will be resurrected at the end of the age.
Rudolf Bultmann states the following: (English translation Theology of the New Testament 2 vols, London: SCM, 1952, 1955) "That soma belongs inseparably, constitutively, to human existence is most clearly evident from the fact that Paul cannot conceive even of a future human existence after death, `when that which is perfect is come' as an existence without soma – in contrast to the view of those in Corinth who deny the resurrection (1 Cor. 15, especially vv. 35ff.)."Bultmann, I: 192 "Man does not have a soma; he is a soma"
Soul
The semantic domain of biblical soul is based on the Hebrew word nephesh, which presumably means "breath" or "breathing being".Hebrew-English Lexicon, Brown, Driver & Briggs, Hendrickson Publishers. This word never means an immortal soulBaker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology. or an incorporeal part of the human beingDictionary of Biblical Theology, Father Xavier Leon Dufour, 1985. that can survive death of the body as the spirit of dead.New International Dictionary. This word usually designates the person as a wholeNew Dictionary of Biblical Theology or its physical life. In the Septuagint nephesh is mostly translated as psyche () and, exceptionally, in the Book of Joshua as (), that is "breathing being"."A careful examination of the βiblical material, particularly the words nephesh, neshama, and ruaḥ, which are often too broadly translated as "soul" and "spirit," indicates that these must not be understood as referring to the psychical side of a psychophysical pair. A man did not possess a nephesh but rather was a nephesh, as Gen. 2:7 says: "wayehi ha-adam le-nephesh ḥayya" (". . . and the man became a living being"). Man was, for most of the biblical writers, what has been called "a unit of vital power," not a dual creature separable into two distinct parts of unequal importance and value. While this understanding of the nature of man dominated biblical thought, in apocalyptic literature (2nd century BCE–2nd century CE) the term nephesh began to be viewed as a separable psychical entity with existence apart from body.... The biblical view of man as an inseparable psychosomatic unit meant that death was understood to be his dissolution."—Britannica, 2004. The Septuagint follows the terminology of the New Testament which uses the word psyche in a manner performatively similar to that of the Hebrew semantic domain,Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament that is, as an invisible power (or ever more, for Platonists, immortal and immaterial) that gives life and motion to the body and is responsible for its attributes.
In Patristic thought, towards the end of the 2nd century psyche was understood in more a Greek than a Hebrew way, and it was contrasted with the body. In the 3rd century, with the influence of Origen, there was the establishing of the doctrine of the inherent immortality of the soul and its divine nature.The early Hebrews apparently had a concept of the soul but did not separate it from the body, although later Jewish writers developed the idea of the soul further. Old Testament references to the soul are related to the concept of breath and establish no distinction between the ethereal soul and the corporeal body. Christian concepts of a body-soul dichotomy originated with the ancient Greeks and were introduced into Christian theology at an early date by St. Gregory of Nyssa and by St. Augustine.—Britannica, 2004 Origen also taught the transmigration of the souls and their preexistence, but these views were officially rejected in 553 in the Fifth Ecumenical Council. Inherent immortality of the soul was accepted among western and eastern theologians throughout the Middle Ages and after the Reformation, as evidenced by the Westminster Confession.
On the other hand, some modern Protestant scholars have adopted views similar to conditional immortality, including Edward Fudge and Clark Pinnock. In the last six decades, conditional immortality—or better "immortality by grace" (, kata charin athanasia)—of the soul has been widely accepted among Eastern Orthodox theologians by returning to the views of the late 2nd century, where immortality was still considered as a gift granted with the value of Jesus' death and resurrection.Immortality of the Soul, George Florovsky. The Seventh-day Adventist Church has held to conditional immortality since the mid-19th century.
Spirit
The spirit (Hebrew , Greek , , which can also mean "breath") is likewise an immaterial component. It is often used interchangeably with "soul", psyche, although trichotomists believe that the spirit is distinct from the soul. Bultmann states:
"When Paul speaks of the pneuma of man he does not mean some higher principle within him or some special intellectual or spiritual faculty of his, but simply his self, and the only questions is whether the self is regarded in some particular aspect when it is called pneuma. In the first place, it apparently is regarded in the same way as when it is called psyche – viz. as the self that lives in man's attitude, in the orientation of his will."Bultmann, I:206
Charles Taylor has argued in Sources of the Self: Making of Modern Identity that the attempt to reduce spirit or soul to the "self" is an anachronistic project claiming historical precedence, when in reality it is a modern, Western, secular reading of the Scriptures.
Constitution or nature of the person Christian theologians have historically differed over the issue of how many distinct components constitute the human being.
Two parts (Dichotomism)
The most popular view is that the human being is formed of two components: material (body/flesh) and spiritual (soul/spirit). The soul or spirit departs from the body at death and will be reunited with the body at the resurrection.
Three parts (Trichotomism)
Some theologians hold that human beings are made up of three distinct components: body (flesh), soul, and spirit. This is known technically as trichotomism. The biblical texts typically used to support this position are and .
This position holds that within the person of Jesus Christ existed three parts: a Body, a rational Soul, and the Holy Spirit (whom he received in the Baptism of Jesus).
One part (Monism)