Post your case study here: 500-800 words
This is to be a “real life” case study. Find a person who is willing to sit and talk to you for thirty minutes to one hour. This person may or may not be a Christian. This might be a family member, a co-worker, someone at the gym, or even someone from church.
With notes in hand, you are to teach what you have learned in Humanity and Sin class concerning the constitution of humanity.
These are the issues that need to be covered:
• Cover these questions before you begin:
1. Do you think that man has an immaterial and material part?
2. If so, what is the immaterial part?
3. When does a person gain this immaterial part (e.g., conception, birth, “age of accountability”?)
• After this, you are to go through the different theories about the constitution of man covered in class. (Refer to your notes.) Be sure to explain the significance of the body.
• Finally, you are to explain the different theories concerning the creation of the soul. Demonstrate the relevance of this topic to the current issue of abortion.
The object of this assignment is to present the different views of man. Your goal here is not to convince someone of your particular persuasion, but to help people to understand the importance of thinking through these issues.
After you are done, write a half page to a page summary of the encounter and hand it in. Online student are to post their summary in their class forum. Grades will be based upon the completion of the assignment, not the effectiveness of the presentation. Everyone who completes this will receive credit for the case study.
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September 27th, 2008 at 12:32 am
For this case study, I sat down with a 13 yeaqr old from our youth group at church tht I know (a.k.a one of my daughters…). I first asked her the intital question about whether man has a material and and immaterial part. She didn’t understand this at first, and did not see the distinctions, so I proceeded to define them. As we were on the topic already, we transitioned into going over Monism, Dichtomy, Conditional Unity, etc. Once I explained it to her, she agreed that we have both a material as wel as an immaterial part, though I think she was just following my lead from the material. When I asked her specifically what the “immaterial part” was, she listed thinking, feelings, perspectives, and your inner morality. To the question of when someone gains their soul, she picked at conception though she had not thought about the various alternatives.
Once we went over the ramifications of Creationism and Conditional Unity, then her folk thrology came out. She thought we went to heaven as spirits (more of that Gnostic Dualism…) and didn’t realize the resurection meant we’d get perfected versions of out bodies back. This lead to a discussion of what would happen after the resurection (always a favorite in my experience… everyone wants to imagine all the fun they’ll have. Specifically she wanted to dicuss my thought on whether she could just jump off cliffs etc…
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:07 am
Humanity and Sin
Case Study 1 – What is Man?
For this case study I spoke with Teresa, a Christian friend. I started by asking her the questions, 1) Do you think that man has an immaterial and material part? 2) If so, what is the immaterial part? 3) When does a person gain this immaterial part?
In response to the first questions she said that yes, she believed that man has both material and immaterial parts. The material would be the physical body and the immaterial would be the soul, and mind or thoughts. I thought it was interesting that she stuck to the word soul when talking about man, and only referenced the spirit when talking about the Holy Spirit. She made the distinction that the spirit was separate and represented God within man. As to when a person gained the immaterial part, she believed that biblically it begins at conception. She believed that everyone had an immaterial part but didn’t know how it got there, either directly by God or through the birth process. At this point we turned to a discussion of the constitution of man.
I shared with her the differences between Physicalism and Dualism. We reviewed together the support for and against the different views including Naturalism and Monism, Trichotomy and Dichotomy. We spent much of the time discussing Conditional Unity and the idea of the intermediate state. Her concern seemed to be with what happens to unbelievers after death and before the judgment and I wasn’t sure how to respond. We agreed to do some more studying of the scriptures, 2 Corinthians 5:4 and I Thessalonians 4:13 in particular, and then have a following up discussion about them. I think this is important to her because she has so many family members who are or were unsaved. We talked about what happened to those in the Old Testament, before Christ, and whether or not they are in heaven or in the intermediate state
An interesting side note, I had never heard of the intermediate state before this class, but while listening to a Christian radio talk show just before I was to have this discussion the subject was brought up by a caller and the moderator talked about a lot of the things we have discussed. Must be something God wants me to be thinking about.
Finally, we discussed the theories of creation including the pre-existence, creation and traducian theories. We discussed the implications of Christ’s being like us and yet without sin. She said that she believed in a combination of creation and traducian theories believing that it was likely that God uses people as intermediates but that he could and would intervene at any point in the process to create a “custom report” so to speak such as the case with Christ. Ultimately, she felt that it was all supernatural so whether God is acting directly at the time of conception or if it’s just a part of the life process it was all God’s doing and not important enough to spend too much time worrying over the difference.
It was confusing at times but I think all together it was a very interesting and productive time.
October 4th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
CASE STUDY 1:
WHAT IS MAN
My Case Study was conducted with my son Keaqgan Luke Massie. Keagan is 15 years old and is quite sharp and perceptive in studying Scripture. I thought he would be interested in learning a little of what his Dad is studying in The Theology Program.
We covered the questions as follows:
1. Do you think that man has an immaterial and material part?
:
He looked at me as if to say, “what do you mean”? I clarified by rephrasing the question: “… a physical and nonphysical, or spiritual part.”
Answer:
Yes. There’s a body and a soul.
2. If so, what is the immaterial part?
Answer:
“The soul I guess”.
3. When does a person gain the immaterial part(e.g., conception, birth, “age of accountability”?)
Answer:
His response to this was conversational as I had to help him think about it. His “off the cuff” response was that the soul doesn’t “start to exist” and some point, it just “is”, it existed before. We talked briefly about the options listed in the question and he wasn’t comfortable with anything but the idea that the soul just always was.
The discussion we had from question #3 was a perfect introduction into discussing the different theories covered in the course and specifically the “creation of the soul” theories. We covered the Monism and Dualism views explaining the “sleep/death” theory with all hope focused on the resurrection and the Dualism view which allowed for conscious existence apart from the body. We discussed Dichotomy versus Trichotomy and how most “mainstream” Christians hold to Dichotomy. We covered several Scriptures supporting each view. We discussed the theory of “Conditional Unity” and how the “whole person” consists of the unity of body and soul and while the soul may exist consciously apart from the body, the person is not complete apart from the resurrected body. So, our hope and the completion of salvation will be ultimately fulfilled at the resurrection of the body. We discussed further the creation of the soul and the three major views: Pre-existence, Creation, Traducian. Keagan’s understanding of these topics was expanded from our discussion and I believe he better appreciates the Traducian theory for the existence of the soul and the impotance of the body in the constitution of the whole person. We discussed the common misunderstanding of Gnostic Dualism and it’s downplay of the importance of the body and the resurrection. Now Keagan understands a little bit more why Dad takes classes like these.
October 8th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Case Study #1
For this case I spoke with my brother Stephen. I’ve done a couple of other cases with him as well. It has been a great way to share with him some of what I’m learning in TTP.
I decided to begin by discussing “Why did God create man”? His comments:
• “God created us for purely unselfish reasons since He is in need of nothing.”
• “He created us to show us how loving He is. “
• “God didn’t create us for companionship. If He wanted a companion, He could have done a whole lot better than us”. ?
I then asked the case study questions.
1. He believes man has both an immaterial and material part.
2. The immaterial part is the soul and spirit. He believes we all have a soul and defined it as “who we are” and the spirit is “the part of us that has the ability to connect with God and recognize that we are more than a body”. “Our human mind connects with each other and the spirit connects with God”.
3. He believes we gain the immaterial part at conception.
I discussed the various theories re: the constitution of man.
Monism: he didn’t agree with monism because he believes in an intermediate state.
Dichotomy: he agreed because it includes the soul/spirit and an intermediate state.
Trichotomy: This was most aligned with his thinking because he believes the soul and spirit are differentiated and includes an intermediate state.
Conditional Unity: seemed very logical to him also in the sense that we don’t have a body and soul, but that we are a body and soul. He also agreed strongly that our physical condition and spirituality are linked.
Gnostic dualism: He related to this to a degree. He has had a lot of health problems throughout his life, so he does view the body as burdensome. He feels God gave us a body in order to relate to one another, because we’re not spiritually mature enough at this point to relate completely on a spiritual level. The body is what we’re capable of understanding at this stage. I stated that this implies that he places more emphasis on the spiritual, since we are striving to be more spiritual. He responded that in a sense he does, but since he believes in a physical existence in eternity he places importance on the physical as well as the spiritual.
I discussed the theories re: the creation of the soul. He believes God creates souls and places each within the body at conception, so Creationism makes sense to him. But, he didn’t rule out the pre-existence of souls. He stated that “God creates a pure soul, but our nature corrupts it”.
This assignment really opened the door to some great discussion and was a learning experience for both of us.
October 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Case Study #1 Humanity & Sin
I sat down with a Christian man to see what beliefs he had regarding the body/soul/spirit.
The conversation went on like this:
Do you think man has an immaterial and material part? Yes.
What is the immaterial part? Soul and Spirit.
When does a person gain this immaterial part? Conception; has always had it.
After that, we discussed the theories of the constitution of man. I asked what he believed we were made of? He answered body, soul, and spirit. I then proceeded to explain the different theories: monism and dualism which led to a discussion on dichotomy and trichotomy. He said he believed we are a trichotomy with a body, soul and spirit.
I asked him what the difference between the soul and spirit is. He replied that the spirit is our conscience and the soul is that which returns to God. I asked him if the spirit ceased to exist once we die since there will be no sin in heaven. He said no, the soul and spirit is joined in some way but could not explain it. He also believes the spirit, soul and body will rejoin after the resurrection.
I then asked him when the soul was created. He referred to Jeremiah 1:5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” He said he is not sure when the soul is created. He does believe the soul is joined to the body at conception.
He does not believe that when the soul is joined is an issue, even when discussing abortion. He does not support abortion.