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Theological Anthropology

 Theological Anthropology or 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 studies 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).

The reference source for Gregory of Nyssa's anthropology is his treatise De opificio hominis. His concept of man is founded on the ontological distinction between the created and uncreated. Man is a material creation, thus limited, but infinite in that his immortal soul has an indefinite capacity to grow closer to the divine. Gregory believed that the soul is created simultaneous to the creation of the body (in opposition to Origen, who speculated on the soul's preexistence), and that embryos are thus persons. To Gregory, the human being is exceptional being created in the image of God. 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. In the 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. 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.


Meanwhile, Augustine of Hippo 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. He was much closer in this anthropological view to Aristotle than to Plato. In his late treatise On Care to Be Had for the Dead sec. 5 (420 AD), he insisted that the body pertains to the essence of the human person:
In no wise are the bodies themselves to be spurned. [...] For these pertain not to ornament or aid which is applied from without, but to the very nature of man. 
Augustine's favorite figures to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua - your body is your wife. Initially, the two elements were in perfect harmony. After the fall of humanity, they are now experiencing dramatic combat between one another.

They are two categorically different things. The body is a three-dimensional object composed of the four elenents, whereas the soul has no spatial dimensions. Soul is a kind of substance, participating in reason, fit for ruling the body. Augustine was not preoccupied, as Descartes and Plato were, with going too much into details in efforts to explain the metaphysics of the body-soul union. It sufficed for him to admit that they were metaphysically distinct. To be a human is to be a composite soul and body, and that 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.

According to N. Blasquez, Augustine's dualism of substances of the body and soul doesn't stop him from seeing the unity of body and soul as a substance itself. Following ancient philosophers, he defined man as a rational mortal animal - animal rationale mortale.

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Picture from Pexels.

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