I found myself musing upon the idea that we ourselves as individual people are a trinity: body, soul and spirit.
I was wondering whether this was or is similar to established ideas in Christianity or have I had a spark of inspiration
I think that most theologians hold to the tenant that there is only a body and a soul comprising “
person”. Scripture would have us believe the
person that is saved. Consequently, we do not look forward simply to the resurrection of the body without a soul or a soul without a body. Besides, a body without a soul would be one of those TV nightmares. There is no life in a person whose body is without a soul. It is the whole
person,
body and* soul *which are assumed into heaven. Christ is the model we look to. But, there is also parallel we can look to in our physical world.
It has been determined that the phenomenon of gravity in nature is a force that attracts any two bodies proportional to their mass (m) and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (s) between the centers of mass.
Of course Einstein has a different formulation - much more complicated but essentially with the same results. But, the formulation isn’t the point, rather an the analogous parallel.
Even as smart as our physicists are they do not know how “gravity” actually applies it force, or what “substance” it might be. Nevertheless, we cannot say an attracting force exists except in the form of “
substance” plus ‘
gravity’. They must both exist simultaneously for a force to exist. I cannot rest gravity in my hand except in the form of matter; and as long as matter remains in my hand the gravitational effects, force, are present. As the mass becomes infinitely small, approaching zero, the gravitational force becomes infinitely smaller; however matter remains unchanged in the presence of an infinitely small gravitational force. Likewise as the distance between any two bodies increases towards infinity the gravitational force between them becomes infinitely smaller by the square of the distance. Thus regardless of mass or distance the force remains and the matter remains without any change in the essence of matter.
The constituent elements of person are
body and
soul are related as matter is related to gravity. Together they exhibit the forces of life. Present in all life is the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Life. Just as the absence of gravity indicates the absence of matter in nature, so too is the absence of God’s spirit a corresponding absence of Life. And, by the obvious extension of logic, without life there is no person. The universe exists and remains in existence only because of the will of God (i.e. the Spirit) without which there is no life, no cosmos, or universe.
In ‘
person’ the corruptible substance is joined with an immortal soul which animates the body. When the soul leaves the body only corruption remains, the soul continues in eternity only in God’s will and will die also without a body to animate. At the end of time however our person is glorified with the re-joining of our former corporal body to the soul. As such ‘
persons’ are saved, not souls alone, nor the body alone because there is no
force of life until they are joined. In all of this God’s Spirit directs the force of creation, ‘
quickening’ the higher appetites of the soul; as gravity is the force quickens the joining of matter into a homogenous form.
JoeT
