Theoretical Anthropology

The psalmist:"You are totally miraculously made!"

ABSTRACT

This anthropology aims at an eclectic structuralism through objective subjectivity. Objective insofar as science is known to us and subjective insofar as it was necessary to bring order into such a complex world as the human being is. Subjective also, because worldview science (according to our terminology), by its very nature, is a form of knowledge that researches things at the fringes of science.

We have tried to make an anthropological and structural representation at once of the human being, apart from sex, faith, race, religion, or whatever orientation in sexuality, politics, or ideology. The human being here is seen as a mere vessel in which all other, indeed more important, matters take shape. One might conclude that this 'rendition' is prenatal and even could be called the universal basis on which we are formed. Only in different people different aspects gain the upper hand.
It can be readily inferred therefore that I do not view homo sapiens as being born as a tabula rasa on which anything can be written by the circumstances; but again rather like a precast vessel in which the individual's history is formed and with which it interacts. This may be seen from the fact that almost all humans somehow assimilate any language they are confronted with in their infancy. Language is a very complex matter and precisely because we are born 'ready' we can learn it. Animals not only lack vocal chords, but also this prenatal readiness.

In this representation we concentrate on this basic universality and therefore will bypass the nature versus nurture debate or the complex questions surrounded by genetic disposition as acted upon by society. It was our intent to bring together the most important aspects of the human being as in a kind of map or picture. This schema does not pretend to comprehensive completeness. We do realize that this kind of schema can give a modern thinker the impression that one shares the ambition of old philosophers like Hegel, about whose philosophy his students claimed that he had written the philosophy to end all philosophies. So do some pupils view Dooyeweerd. But history shows that every philopher chooses his own problems and searches for his own solutions.

One might discriminate against our schema as mere structuralism, but we look at it as a picture, as one way of many to look at the human being.

Proposal for an anthropology: A. Interactions of Human Aspects: One Way of Looking at Homo Sapiens

A. The thesis is proposed that anthropologically or philosophically the human being consists of four basic "essences, (forms of "being,") or "principles," if you like and three personality "essences," namely 1. "body," 2. "mind," 3. "soul," 4. "spirit" and a. "conscience," b. "will," c. "heart."

B. The Basic Essences

The body is comprised solely of matter; the mind is the thinking part or intellect; the soul is the "feeling" part; and the spirit is the "religious" part.

It is argued that these four basic principles can be traced in philosophies and theologies throughout history. Their isolated theories are known as materialistic atheism / naturalism; rationalism / deism / mechanicism; pantheism/ mysticism / holism / New Age; polytheism / parapsychology / the supernatural / magic / spiritualism.

C1. The four basic essences interact with each other so that sixteen interactions result, each of which has an introverted and extraverted aspect:

	EXTERNAL WORLD		INTERNAL WORLD
	(material/logical --objective--)		(symbolical/spiritual --subjective--)
	body	mind	soul	spirit
	matter	fine matter	immaterial	spiritual substance
	chemistry	knowledge	emotion	insight
	energy	theory	experience	worldview
	health	thinking	holism	religion
	subsistence	perceiving	life	intuiting
	action	instrument	value	meaning

	what	how	who	why
	----	----	----	----
	*body*	*mind*	*soul*	*spirit*
*spirit*	spirit health	dreaming	mystical	faith
*spirit*	spirit energy	imagination	romantic	prayer/ritual
*soul*	vital	historical	emotive awareness	ethical
*soul*	nutritional	economical	emotive response	juridical
*mind*	biophysical	logical	emotive ideas	theological
*mind*	pharmaceutical	empirical	social	philosophical
*body*	physical	perception	hedonic	paranorm. faculties
*body*	kinetic	senses	esthetic	paran. manifestations

C2. In addition every aspect functions as a microcosm of the entire human being. For instance within the logical aspect the perceptional becomes pragmatism (in the technical sense; other forms of pragmatism are to be derived from the perceptional under the worldview aspect for example; or under the juridical in a case where one argues that the majority must be served by necessity at the expense of the minority), the kinetic becomes the mechanical, and so forth.

NOMENCLATURE

Fine Matter	Fine matter could also be called super matter; as the mind is the best 'computer', consisting of very highly organized neurons and interacting neurotransmittors. Matter and fine matter are forms of energy and the area of body and mind. The immaterial and spiritual substances are forms of the "breath of life" that God breathed into Adam and of which the angels are made. Therefore the human being stands in between animal and angel (a continuous conflict!) and overlaps both matter and the immaterial. The human being is said to have been created; angels, animals and vegetation are said to have been made or formed (except for the great sea creatures); obviously of previously created material for it says "In the beginning God *created* the heavens and the earth".
Vital	With "vital" I mean the immaterial power of the soul to impart life to one's body.
Biophysical	"Biophysical" is to denote the soul's power over the chemical processes in the brain.
Pharmaceutical	Pharmaceutic denotes the material, chemical processes of the brain from neurotransmittors in the synapses to the production and dying of all cerebral cells.
Empirical	Empirical is the experimental area of trial and error.
Emotive Ideas	These are holistic ideas like 'father', 'virgin', 'teacher', 'leader', etc.
Kinetic	Kinesia denotes physical movement, also of substances in a chemical reaction.
Hedonic	Hedonic refers to our sensitivity to pleasure and pain.
Esthetic	Esthetic refers to our ability to appreciate beauty, harmony and order.
Faith	The direction of one's spirit towards the divine or towards idols and one's fellowmen in trust.
Paranormal/-psychol.	The difference between paranormal and parapsychological is that the former denotes the faculties of the spirit and the latter the visible activity of these. These powers are on the average absent or dormant in the humanistic/atheistic West, but very active in Asia and Africa; as well as under Indians in North and South America.

The other terms including the headings should be selfexplanatory.

It is argued that each of the 32 aspects in the basic anthropological structure, has its own right of existence. One must not try to reduce say perception to the physical level. However, it is maintained that somehow all the aspects result from the interplay of the four basic �essences.�
One problem that arises here is what I call focussing: that is to say, within the various aspects of the entire human being subaspects and subdisciplines must be reckoned with, each of which has also its own functionality. For instance within the physical element there are the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces; or fields like anthropology, psychology and sociology within the aspect of worldview. These latter three disciplines will never become exact sciences!

It will be supposed that Dooyeweerd�s arithmetical aspect and mathematics is to be derived from the logical aspect and that language is an integral capacity of the ego. It is, among others, in these aspects that the human creates and perceives order in a world that appears to him as chaotic in a positive sense where the vast complex of creation is concerned as being something transcendent and negative also as far as it is experienced as something contrary to one�s will and desire. A Dooyeweerdian will frown on this of course as a reduction of the arithmetical to the logical. But I think that the arithmetical is rather something that belongs to the material world and not in the first place to the human being. A logically thinking human sees that two of the same things can never be in exactly the same spot. The exact sciences will never be able to satisfy the higher longings of the human being. But they can be made subservient.

The 32 aspects better described:

	*body*	*mind*	*soul*	*spirit*
*spirit*	spiritual health	dreaming	mystical	pneumatic
	spirit's capacity to listen to the body	subconscious activity (only noticed during sleep, but always there)	mysterium tremendum	trust in divinity

	spirit power	imagination	romantic	precatory
	spirit's capacity to strengthen the body	flight of reason through spiritual strength	imaginative sublimity	beseeching of divinity

*soul*	vital	historical	emotional awareness	ethical
	life force	awareness of time	pure feelings	uprightness

	nutritional	economical	emotional response	juridical
	feeding	scarcity	expression of feelings	adherence to laws

*mind*	biophysical	logical	emotional ideas	theological
	phrenal chemistry	analysis, deductive reason	holistic ideas ('father', 'teacher', 'leader')	theoretical awareness of divinity

	pharmaceutical	empiric/ experimental	social	worldview science
	medicinal (drugs, alcohol, coffee)	synthesis, inductive reason, combining observations	solidarity and gregarious feelings (herd instincts)	theorizing about creation(al aspects)

*body*	physical	perceptional	hedonic	paranormal
	force	basic awareness	pleasure & pain	medium quality

	kinetic	senses	esthetic	parapsychological
	movement	bodily perceptors	harmony	supernatural manifestations

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

Spirit Power	(Cf. Prov. 18. 14)
Pneumatic	Concerning the human spirit, 'pneuma [new-ma]' in Greek.
Precatory	Concerning prayer, 'precari' means 'to pray' in Latin.
Mysterium Tremendum	The elevated experience of the mystery of life that makes one tremble.
Hedonic	The capacity to register feelings of pleasure and pain. These have as yet never been located in the body or even in the brain and it must be assumed that the body passes them on to the soul. If a pleasure and pain center will ever be localized in the brain, even then it is ultimately the soul that feels. For it should be obvious that a dead body, in which this center is also present, does not experience either pleasure or pain senses. The consciousness that a person experiences has left the body and has gone on to either heaven or hell.
Vital	The soul possesses true vitality and it is this vitality that keeps the body with its nutritional processes going. Descartes localized the connection between body and soul in one point, the pituitary gland. This must be wrong. The astral body with the spirit and soul, that is the immaterial body that leaves upon death (also with the mind, conscience, will and I), probably connects everywhere with the material body (and not as some occult philosophies preach in supposed areas such as 'chakra's' or other ideas found in say kabalism). For in the resurrection we all will be called to life with whole bodies that will be totally complete. Even when a person's DNA has been destroyed through cremation, then the soul's 'DNA', so to speak, will regenerate the entire body. In the case of the saved souls that will be a glorified body, as their souls will be transformed at that event. Therefore the blesseds also yearn for their deliverance.
Phrenal	Of the brain, from the Greek 'fren', i.e. 'brain'. The difference between phrenal and pharmaceutical might be termed as a difference between structure and content, wiring and wattage or even as hardware and software.
Worldview Science	The term worldview science is an alternative for 'philosophy' in the widest sense.

Again, the other terms should be selfexplanatory; if not use a dictionary and think.

The apostle Paul: "Let nobody deceive himself, if somebody thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise (1 Cor. 3.18)!"

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