The psalmist:"You are totally miraculously made!"
D1. Finally this entire “building” of intersecting behavioral aspects is steered by the personality, which consists of a superimposed structure
of the conscience, the will, and the “heart.” These three superior “essences” interact as well and have each also their introverted and extraverted
elements, viz.:
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conscience |
will |
heart |
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'talk' |
'willingness' |
'walk' |
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sanctification |
ambition |
wisdom |
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moral balance |
volition |
personality/ ego |
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heart |
the cherishing of personal moral principles |
personal volition; the awareness one has one's own will |
the pure 'ego'; the sources of life; seat of wisdom and language |
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the pursuit of personal moral goals |
the personal direction/ exercise of one's will; personal volitional goals; active ambitions |
"I-ness"/ personality; highest identifications (people identify with their most cherished beliefs/ ideologies/ idols) |
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will |
the aptitude of the conscience to be controlled by the will introverted or reflectively in contemplation of one's morals |
will as pure 'essence' |
the capability to control one's will reflectively in personal contemplation of one's ambitions |
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the aptitude of the concience to be directed outwardly by the will in making all one's aspects comply to one's standards |
the will to will something; the capacity to act |
the capability to control the direction of one's ambitions |
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conscience |
the conscience as pure 'essence' |
the will to be conscientious |
awareness of general morality across the various aspects of the underlying structure |
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the conscience as expression of and link to the underlying structure |
the will to act conscientiously |
forming & learning of moral principles in the various aspects of the underlying structure |
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D2. The three main aspects of the heart may be compared with the id, ego and superego of Freud; or the child personality,
the adult personality and the parent personality of a person (with their extravert and intravert sides), according to Eric Bernstein. The same
holds true for the heart, the will and the conscience. One could substitute these terms with Freud's and so come to
a better understanding of his generalizations. Although these ideas are still very much alive in our
society, in modern psychology and psychiatry they play hardly any role anymore. I am afraid modern scientists have
thrown out the baby with the bath water.
ELABORATIONS
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Sanctification
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The process in which the conscience is rendered sensitive and also in which the heart is changed. It stands over against a cauterized conscience.
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'Talk'
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The utterances of one's conscience.
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'Walk'
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The consequent acts of one's conscience as visible in one's life. (Cf.: 'Your talk talks and your walk talks, but your walk talks louder than your talk talks').
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Sense of Moral Balance
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Even though according to the bible the wise man bears his heart on the right, there must be a question of balance; as it also says that one must not veer off either to the right or the left. In order to make a straight path one must be able to balance one's conscience.
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Conscience
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A good definition of conscience is 'the moral awareness of something with oneself.' The problem is that we have a tendency to darken our conscience with the result that we are unconscious of our negative sides.
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Will
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The will may be defined as the power to exercise or steer an aspect of one'e being towards realization, including the will itself.
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Heart
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One's heart is the very center of one's being. Depending on how one translate, the bible says that from (preserving) your heart come all the sources of life.
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Personality/Ego
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Perhaps the ego/personality might be defined as that set of characteristics that makes an individual unique.
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D3. The very heart of a person, or pure “ego” is supposed to be the very essence of the human.
It is also the most elusive of all elements. Perhaps it is best compared to white light
before dissected in a prism, the spectrum, then, consisting of all the aspects; to use a
Dooyeweerdian allegory.
E. It is argued that each of the 32 aspects in the basic anthropological structure, as well as the 18 aspects in the personality 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 of the basic structure result from the
interplay of the four basic “essences.” And so the 18 aspects of one's personality grow to be in one's life through the
interaction of one's conscience, will and heart.
F. The conscience is often at odds with the heart, with the will left in the middle; as may be clear in the case of an
addiction.
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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