Page 38 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 8

Christian Psychology as a Challenge

a “good conscience” so that those who “revile sal thrust of emphasizing God‘s loving turn to
your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed” man, regardless of intellectual capacities. On
(I Peter 3: 16). This conduct of hope within the the other hand, that same theological univer-
framework of the “will of God” in suffering sality must not repudiate the relevance of rea-
(verse 17, constitutes a Christian and spiritual son as man‘s distinguishing feature.” (Dabrock
praxis of hope. Praxis is then an indication of 2010).
how the principle of wisdom (sapientia) is en-
fleshed in a new mode of being; hope then func- “Stereometry” is the overlay of images and mo-
tions as a motivating factor for people to carry tives that not only enhance the concreteness
on with life in a meaningful way. of special statements but also subject them to
In order to conclude one can say that all the dif- a multiplicity of perspectives (thus, as it were,
ferent references in scripture to soul (nēphēsh, “exploding” their meaning). Words and texts
kardia, nous) refer to good and wise conduct/ are thus rendered semiotically transparent
habitus as existential modes of being and exem- to one another, thus disclosing one another‘s
plification of spiritual aesthetics. Furthermore, meaning (by opening up semantic spaces). Ap-
different categories should be accessed as dif- plied to Old Testament anthropology this im-
ferent perspectives on the integrated whole of plies such stereometric thinking “defines man‘s
our being human. “In what concerns the Old area of life in terms of characteristic organs, thus
Testament, irrespective of all methodological describing man as a whole.” On a conceptual
problems inherent in the so-called stereome- level, this wholeness also envisages talk about
tric approach, that approach firmly opposes any the complex and differentiated unity of persons
disregard of the embodied dimension of man‘s for whom, since “the body … anchors us in the
special status. Wherever any specific aspect of world” “not only the sphere of life but also the
human existence is considered, whether it is sphere of social relationships is constitutive”.
nēphēsh (soul), ruach (spirit), lev (heart), or ba- Applied to Old Testament or sapientia thin-
sar (flesh), it is always intrinsically linked with king, stereometric thinking “pegs out the sphe-
the whole of our being human: One does not re of man’s existence by enumerating his cha-
have a soul; in a very specific way whole being racteristic organs, thus circumscribing man as
in all the existential dimensions in life, is soul, a whole” (Janowski 2013: 18). Concepts like
desire, finitude, etc.” (Dabrock 2010) In each heart, soul and spirit are often used alternate-
2
case the whole of man is addressed. They should ly in Hebrew poetry to reveal certain aspects of
all be interpreted in the light of the fact that a the human being. One component of our being
human being in Scripture is determined by two human, for example the ‘heart’ or ‘mind’, repre-
factors: the transcendental framework of crea- sents the whole of life. Stereometric reasoning
tion and the eschatological qualification of life. allows for the Semitic view of a person as an in-
For example, reason is not the same as rationa- tegrated unit within the whole of the cosmos.
lity in terms of a pure cognitive dimension. “… The Greek dualism of body and soul is foreign
reason must be linked with the more encompas- to a Semitic approach. Stereometric reasoning
sing theological concept of man‘s transcendent- is relational and systemic. It does not view a
ly relational vocation. This requires two tasks. person in terms of isolated, different parts, but
On the one hand, reason‘s exposure to empirical as a functional unit (whole) within a network of
evidence concerning its presence or absence in relationships. The subject-object split of ratio-
any particular human being must not be allo- nal scrutiny is far removed from the relational
wed to undermine theology‘s pointedly univer- dynamics of Semitic communalism.

In order to conclude, one can say that the basic
2 P. Dabrock. 2010. Drawing Distinctions Responsib- research assumptions for the science of ‘soul
ly and Concretely: A European Protestant Perspective
on Foundational Theological Bioethics. First published: care’ in pastoral theology are:
07/09/2010. Online: http://cb.oxfordjournals.org/con- • ‘Soul care’ is not merely psychology within
tent/early/2010/08/16/cb.cbq015.full#fn-20. Accessed: a Christian framework. ‘Soul care’ is a theo-
27/04/2014.
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