What we need to know more about than most other things is man. That is, not man "in himself", but rather man in his totality and in his dependence on an environment--an environment delimiting him on all sides, but at the same time extending him infinitely in all directions.
Not that we have found it inappropriate or false to distinguish between certain "parts" in man. One should only keep in mind that they are all just different aspects of an inseparable totality. An age-old schematic representation--in fact, even a fairly popular one--is the following. The human totality is a tripartition. This may sound like a paradox. But it is not necessarily an absurdity. The three "parts" traditionally suggested are the spirit, the soul, and the body. However, there has been considerable confusion as regards the actual meaning of these terms, and it may safely be added that this confusion has proved fateful to the understanding of human nature.
Of course, even Plato had a similar trichotomy in his anthropological explanations, and as Aristotle takes over the "office" of the leading philosopher, no actual refutation is made regarding the main contents of that conception: the highest part of man (the nous) is the principle of intellectual life, and the only part possessing immortality. The second is that of the soul (psyche), the principle of physiological life, comprising the realms of the senses and of nutrition. The lowest is that of the body (soma).
Christian "philosophical anthropology" may already be mentioned as establishing a trichotomy expressed in similar terms. For instance, Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, says:
And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Thes. v:23)
Some Fathers of the Church--neo-Platonists to a large extent--often speak of the manifestation of human life in very much the same way as they would speak of the manifestations of the Trinity. Thomas Aquinas, the Aristotelian, also, seems to take special pleasure in defining man as a "created trinity", corresponding to the "un-created Trinity".
In our modern world of specialization this division of man into "parts" has been grasped with particular eagerness and with the usual lack of comprehension. Thus medical and biological sciences have been occupied with the human body as their field of speciality. Psychologists have sometimes given the impression of considering themselves as the exclusive specialists in the field of the human mind. And, as for the august sphere of the spirit, the monopoly here has been disputed by several branches of learning, among which theologians--that goes without saying--take a dominating position.
Too often that customary dividing of man into three parts has been conceived in terms of storeys, one above the other, and each storey being evaluated--in relation to the other storeys--according to a fairly fixed system of comparative dignity, so to speak. The result of such a hierarchy has certainly not been too favourable. Paul Tournier[1] points out one erroneous idea resulting from it: the spirit is commonly believed to be a part having a very close relation to the mental area of the human being, but "not so close" to the body. Such an idea of spirituality in human beings, however, certainly has not come to us from Christianity, which to our culture certainly ought to be the most natural source of information when we desire to be more specifically informed regarding the nature of the spiritual and to know where we can expect to "find most" of that in man. In fact, the Christian idea of spirituality is most intimately connected with that of the Incarnation. According to this, the "spirit" is by no means a "department" in man, located at a "farther distance" from the body than from the soul. Where in the Bible is it taught that a human mind is "more spiritual" than a human body?
There is no serious reason to doubt where that tendency to establish such a schematic scale, with its varying degrees of dignity and spirituality, has come from. It has always been the result of a common failure in human thinking to conceive of man as a real unity, an inseparable whole. It was invariably the same obstinate prejudice of dualist spiritualism--ancient or modern--to consider some incorporeal fluctuations of the human mind as the one essential thing. But there is a deep truth worth considering in what Zurcher says: often the simple movement of a human hand (and we should assume most people will think of that as rather corporeal!) may have a value infinitely more spiritual than the most subtle thought.[2]
Generally speaking, any grading of values--within the realms of the human reality--is certainly a most problematic enterprise. All true evaluations here are, no doubt, bound to cut imperiously across all conventional lines of partition, with sovereign disrespect for our pedantic schemes.
The true value of man, says that same author, resides in the act which constitutes the soul, and which, in realizing that soul, "gives itself a body". For either the soul has to express itself through the entire being at once, or not at all.
Says Henry Baruk, relative to the same topic:
It would be a grave mistake to create levels and to believe that moral conscience is a separate function that can be placed either at the bottom of the hierarchy or at the top. Everything is merged into a unity.[3]
Notes: