Greg Allison, PhD: "Historical Theology:" Ch. 15-Creation & Humanity: Me...

Aquinas argued from/on earlier ideas, but seems to have hierarchized things—spirit/mind/intellect over emotions/desires, which by turns, are over the body (329), with the image being reason ruling the roost over the emotions and body. It might be said that he imported Aristotle to his Sitz em Leben and exegetical approach. This was a part of the ongoing disparagement of the body and elevation of the soul in the church of the middle ages, an effect from earlier views fostered by monasticism. The monasticists with their contentious dualism negatively impacted Christology (Christ's humanity), ecclesiology (clerics being superior), marriage (a lower form of being), clerical marriage (leading to sexual immoralities), and, even, anthropology itself. Luther uttered things known from the earlier period but with an appreciative, holist dualism that appreciated having both body and soul. However, the image was defaced by sin and was remade through the Gospel. Calvin’s views appeared in the Institutes as is well known to Reformed Churchmen. Reformed and Lutheran theologians noted that soul and spirit was used interchangeably in Scriptures, hence, dichotomism. The former tended to creationism and the latter towards traducianism. Soon we'll turn to the empiricists who lost their souls by exalting their minds and, by turns, darkened their minds with blinding smokes about metaphysics and epistemology, e.g. post-Kantian Poobahs.