Christian thought about the human creature, like Christian thought on creation, rejects hierarchical dualism. The human being is not a soul in hostile relationship with a body. The human being is always one thing, one creature, in life before God. We are both bodily and spiritual, and the bodily and the spiritual are united in us. Compare this with the dualist concept of the human being in which body and soul are antagonistically associated, with the body irrelevant to what it means to be truly human. Hierarchical dualism pits body against soul, and the body is understood as an obstacle or
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