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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: C-P: Paul and Plato
  • Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:09:29 -0500


Liz Fried wrote:

> >
> But the actual source for Paul's non neutral use of
> > SARX (it can simply
> > mean "the human race, cf. Gal 2:16; 1 Cor 1:29; Rom 3:20) --
> > especially his use of the
> > term as a cipher for fallen humanity or (from the point of view
> > of the moral stance
> > designated Spirit) an ethically negative sphere is the moral and
> > not ontological
> > dualism of Qumran and Jewish apocalyptic -- see 1QS 11:7, 9, 12;
> > 1 QM 4:3; Test.
> > Judah 19:4; T. Zeb. 9:7).
>
> I don't understand this. What is ontological dualism? Sorry.
>

Ontology is a philosophical term that generally has to do with a theory of
the nature
of reality, what the really real is like. Plato's ontology. like that of a
great deal
of Eastern thought, was that the world of becoming--the world of our senses
and the
world of which the body is a part--was not really real. What **was** real, and
therefore of ultimate significance, was the immaterial world of Being -- of
which the
PSUCH, being immortal, indivisible, and immaterial, was a part. His body/soul
contrast
has to do with describing the nature of what is really real, and thus
contributes not
only (a) to the view that what the world is made of is two essential things:
the (ever
changing, and therefore nor really real) material, and the (permanent,
unchanging, and
thus really real) immaterial world, of which the soul, and the forms or
essences of
things like beauty, goodness, courage, truth -- by which we recognize any
particular
instance or action or object or person as beautiful, good true, etc.; and (b)
to the
view that the body and the world of sensation of which it is a part and which
it
transmits to the soul is by its very nature evil. It is no accident that
Gnosticism
and (neo)Platonism share similar devaluations of the created order.

Moral dualism, in which much of Paul's language of SARX is grounded, is
centered in a
focus on, and an advocacy of one of, two competing (ethical) value systems --
affirmations or orientations toward, or evaluations of, how one or a
particular
people claiming a certain identity (the people of God) should "walk" while
**in** the
world. It **assumes** a particular ontology (the God of Israel stands behind
the
created order, the created order is material and material things are
ultimately real
and good, bodily life is the really real life), but is not dealing directly
with it.

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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