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REV. JAMES GOSSET-TANNER, M.A., ON 



Paper had not been free of this in the way he had interpreted 

 Heb. iv, 12, which hardly meant more than the penetrating 

 power of the Word of God. He thought Dr. Schofield's quotation 

 of Acts xvii, 28, was interesting, but he differed with his assignment 

 of the three verbs, and thought that " live " referred to the soul, 

 move " to the body, and " have our being " to the spirit, which 

 last he regarded as the ego. He did not think that in the un- 

 regenerate the spirit was either dormant or dead, and instanced the 

 spirit of Napoleon which controlled multitudes of men for mischief. 

 He thought the expression " Dead in trespasses and sins," meant 

 that man had forfeited his life and was, therefore, morally dead to 

 God. He endeavoured to reply to Prebendary Fox's question 

 with regard to the new birth in John iii, by distinguishing between 

 person and personality. He held that the person never changed, 

 but that the effect of the new birth was to produce an entire change 

 of personality, and that this ultimately affected the whole man, body, 

 soul and spirit, the body being the last to be changed on the 

 Resurrection morning. 



Dr. Anderson-Berry said : There are two theories as to the 

 nature of man — first, Dichotomy as set forth by a friend of my 

 youth, Professor Laidlaw, in his valuable work, The Biblical Doctrine 

 of Man ; secondly. Trichotomy, set forth so eloquently this afternoon 

 by the Lecturer. These, although apparently antagonistic and often 

 treated as such, seem to me to be both true. For structurally man's 

 nature is twofold, whilst functionally it is threefold. The philosophy 

 of the Bible is duahstic. There are two substances — matter and 

 spirit — and of these two man is made. Of the former is his body 

 formed ; of the latter are his soul and spirit constituted. " God 

 is spirit," and beings without a material frame are known from 

 their sole substance as " spirits," thus referring to their mode of 

 existence. So is man when he becomes disincarnate, for " a spirit 

 (or ghost) has not flesh and bones." 



Considered functionally, man's nature is tripartite. His body 

 functions as the organ of object or sense consciousness. His soul 

 is the organ of self-consciousness and so denotes " life in the 

 distinctness of individual existence " (Cremer). Whilst he is con- 

 scious of the realm of spirits, of spiritual things, of God Himself, 

 by means of his spirit. 



