The image of God in fallen human beings’ part 3 (In the writings of Herman Bavinck)

 

The Soul, The Body and Their Capacities

All of our capacities as human beings have remained intact although according to Herman Bavinck ‘deteriorated’.

  • a.    Intellect; mental illness to geniuses
  • b.     The will: We can do what we want to do- The great ones such as Alexander, Columbus, Galileo.
  • c.      The feelings, the passions; love, hate, admiration (unregulated)
  • d.     The body as an instrument of the soul; Paul calls the body flesh, body a prison for the soul (Plato); Bavinck mentions that there are 12000 illnesses in which the body denies its service to the soul.  That was in the 1920s, so the number has probably risen since then.
 

 

Reflection

Everything about us survived the Fall but in a deteorated form.  We can see this in the corruption of the human race around every twist and turn.  Yet God keeps on blessing the human race by giving knowledge for cures and to make life better for everyone and yet on the other hand, although God pours his grace on natural humanity we corrupt it by making nuclear weapons using torture, legalizing murder of the helpless and practice abortion on a grand scale without even getting guilty about it.

 

Activity

Write a couple of sentences on what the following one (what we looked at)

Such as the intellect, the will, the feelings and passions, the body as an instrument of the soul.

Prayer

Using mindfulness where are we on Bavincks pendulum? We can pray that God will help to transform us to be more like our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith in the arras of intellect, will, feelings and passions and the use of the body as the soul’s instrument.

 

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