PASTORAL ANTHROPOLOGY BEYOND THE PARADIGM OF MEDIEVAL THINKING: FROM 'CURA ANIMARUM' (THE ANTHROPOLOGYOF SUBSTANTIAL THINKING AND NOUS) TO 'CURA VITAE' (THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF SYSTEMS THINKING AND PHRONESIS)

Daniel Louw
2013 Scriptura  
The philosophy of the middle ages can be described as the period of scholasticism. Scholasticism is a technical term for the period wherein the Christian faith and doctrine started to merge with the paradigms of ancient, Hellenistic philosophy. The paradigms of Plato and Aristotle were transformed into the language of Christian spirituality. Within the tension between faith and reason, systematic reflection was predominantly determined by metaphysical and substantial thinking. Anthropology was
more » ... nfluenced by the so called 'object subject' split and the dualism between the spiritual realm and the material realm. The dominant methodological paradigm of 21 st century thinking is hermeneutics and its connectedness to the concept of systemic networking. It is argued that the implication of this paradigm shift for theory formation in pastoral anthropology and spiritual healing is the reframing of the classic formula of cura animarum (soul as substance). In order to introduce a holistic approach to 'wholeness' in spiritual healing, the notion of cura vitae (soul as habitus within a qualitative network of relationships: the living human web) is proposed. It was the philosopher CA van Peursen who divided the philosophical and cultural development of human thought into three periods. (a) The mythical period refers to the animistic worldview. In this worldview the human being is totally absolved by the social and natural environment and exposed to animistic powers. (b) In the ontological or metaphysical period the human being (animal rationale), is distanced from things. He/she is becoming a subject who can distance him/herself from the immediate environment. This rational process of critical distancing became the so called 'subject-object split'. The 'what-question' became predominant, as well as the essence of being or reality. In terms of metaphysical thinking substantial reality and the dimension of the transcendent became the object of critical reflection. (c) Within the functional period the substances were becoming unreal, far away and distant. Things no longer exist in themselves; they are no longer substances, but exist in and for the sake of what they do to us and what we do with them. One can say that the nouns of the ontological era become the verbs of the functional era. The fundamental ques-http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/
doi:10.7833/104-0-176 fatcat:x7tzsqiy6fbebfvjya7flzya7m