Christian anthropology
Man is a material creation and is thus limited, but infinite in that his immortal soul has an indefinite capacity to grow closer to the divine.
[6] 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.
[7] In his 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.
[8] 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.
[23] This word never means an immortal soul[24] or an incorporeal part of the human being[25] that can survive death of the body as the spirit of dead.
In the Septuagint nephesh is mostly translated as psyche (ψυχή) and, exceptionally, in the Book of Joshua as empneon (ἔνμπεον), that is "breathing being".
[28] The Septuagint follows the terminology of the New Testament which uses the word psyche in a manner performatively similar to that of the Hebrew semantic domain,[29] that is, as an invisible power (or ever more, for Platonists, immortal and immaterial) that gives life and motion to the body and is responsible for its attributes.
Inherent immortality of the soul was accepted among western and eastern theologians throughout the Middle Ages and after the Reformation, as evidenced by the Westminster Confession.
On the other hand, some modern Protestant scholars have adopted views similar to conditional immortality, including Edward Fudge and Clark Pinnock.
The spirit (Hebrew ruach, Greek πνεῦμα, pneuma, which can also mean "breath") is likewise an immaterial component.
Some theologians hold that human beings are made up of three distinct components: body (flesh), soul, and spirit.
[33] In the personhood of Jesus Christ God there are a Body, a rational Soul and the third person of the Holy Spirit whom He received in the Baptism.
Monism also appears to be more consistent with certain physicalist interpretations of modern neuroscience, which has indicated that the so-called "higher functions" of the mind are dependent upon or emergent from brain structure, not the independent workings of an immaterial soul as was previously thought.
Some Christians believe that this must have involved a miraculous creative act, while others are comfortable with the idea that God worked through the evolutionary process.
Creationism teaches that God creates a "fresh" soul within each human embryo at or some time shortly after conception.
Part of the development of church doctrine has historically been concerned with discerning what role the human plays in "redemption" from that fall.
The Christian church has traditionally taught that the soul of each individual separates from the body at death, to be reunited at the resurrection.
For example, the Westminster Confession of Faith (chapter XXXII) states: The question then arises: where exactly does the disembodied soul "go" at death?
In particular, Jesus teaches in Luke 16:19–31 (Lazarus and Dives) that hades consists of two separate "sections", one for the righteous and one for the unrighteous.
[45] Fully developed Christian theology goes a step further; on the basis of such texts as Luke 23:43 and Philippians 1:23, it has traditionally been taught that the souls of the dead are received immediately either into heaven or hell, where they will experience a foretaste of their eternal destiny prior to the resurrection.
Traditionally, Christians have believed that hell will be a place of eternal physical and psychological punishment.
