Prospect

In chapter 1, I noted the fact that we have a wide variety of views of human nature available to us in our culture: trichotomism, dualism, physicalism, idealism and many variations on each of these themes. I claimed that the variety can be explained in part by the fact that Christian theologians have taught a number of different views throughout the tradition's long history. Many of these differences are due to the borrowing of assorted accounts from ancient philosophy. Other differences are due to conflicting interpretations of the biblical texts. I made a claim there, which might not be so widely accepted as these others, that there is no such thing as the biblical view of human nature. I argued that the scriptural authors were interested in the various dimensions of human life, in relationships, not in the philosophical question of how many parts are essential components of a human being. This virtual silence in Scripture has made it easy for Christians throughout their history to adopt and adapt a variety of cultural assumptions about human nature.

I also claimed that there were only three major points in church history when Christians were forced to re-evaluate their theories of human nature. One in the early centuries was occasioned by the spread of Christianity into more Hellenized regions of the Mediterranean world. The second was the Aristotelian revival in the late middle ages, occasioned by Muslim conquests in Europe.