Transforming the Body: A Journey to Moral Knowledge

Willard addresses the spiritual life of the body initially by recognizing many a misapprehension about the relation between spirituality and our physicality. A lot of the personals I work with don't want to talk about the body they want to talk about corporeality and the notion that it's not just the physical stuff. [00:07:40]

He takes a more balanced and fully Christian view stating that the spiritual and the bodily are by no means opposed in human life they're complementary he recognizes the human person as a Unity practically speaking then this means that both body and spirit the human person are called the sanctification. [00:10:10]

Spiritual transformation into Christ likeness as the process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it takes on the character of the inner being of Jesus himself the result is that the outer life of the individual increasingly becomes a natural expression of the inner reality of Jesus and of his teachings. [00:17:07]

He gives four recommendations and renovation of the heart the how this process of bodily transformation can begin and continue I'm not going to ask you to do them here but think about doing them when you're home alone. It's a matter of not just seeing the body in an isolated way but the whole person has four recommendations. [00:18:20]

The Practical Center for proper care of the body is the Sabbath the center for care of our body is the Sabbath I'll return to this after we've looked at Hildebrand lastly for Willard he speaks of the body's plasticity this is the term one often hears a neuroscience about the way the brain can change its structure and connections by new learning experience. [00:21:35]

Willard writes we must see the soul and the person in his ruined condition as I said we need to see that it can be reformed and we also need to think very practically about how this can be done. We have to begin from where we actually are and this includes our redeemed State as well. [00:16:26]

The good person is a central subject of moral theory at the conclusion of The Disappearance of moral knowledge this is very much in keeping with the gospel message as well Jesus talked relatively sparingly about rules and regulations but he talked a great deal about the type of person he wanted us to be. [00:29:14]

In real life the good person stands out as one who characteristically evokes trust admiration support and a desire to be associated with and to imitate it provokes a value response I think is the way that Hildebrand would put that we are confronted with a good person someone who radiates goodness and we respond to that in these ways. [00:29:32]

Willard calls the Sabbath a celebration of God and says that Sabbath is inseparable from worship and indeed genuine worship is Sabbath. I suspect for most of us two things come to mind when we hear the word Sabbath we don't work that day and we go to church that's true but it is a beginning. [00:30:38]

The appropriate response to the value that is a human person Hildebrand says includes reverence respect and love was personalistic Norm is the person is the kind of entity two toward whom the only proper response is love now this response to value is connected to hildebrand's vision of the person. [00:26:06]

The Sabbath teaches all beings whom to praise teaches all beings move to praise not a Graven image but God Dallas Willard and teacher from Hildebrand both recognize the roots of the loss of moral knowledge and both of them meet well as criteria of the good person there's very much agreement there. [00:35:06]

The return of the Soul and Spirit of persons is in an embodied self is a necessary precondition to the restoration of moral knowledge this involves the defense of the immaterial nature of the soul and mind and an account of the relation between the soul and the body no small task. [00:41:06]