the immortal human soul

This collection of six paintings is inspired by Pauline Anthropology,
and they explore the beauty, complexity, and holistic human person

they are permanently installed at the Iversen Center for Faith on the campus of the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in St. Paul, Minnesota

Photo courtesy of Marria Thompson, University of St. Thomas Aquinas

---

From 2018 to 2020, I worked on a body of work exploring mortality, mystery, and the body called Geheimnis. As a part of my research, I have listened to theologian Peter C. Phan’s collection of lectures entitled, “Living into Death, Dying into Life: A Theology of Life Eternal.”  Phan briefly lectured on the Pauline “complete human person” through an exploration of six Greek words that Saint Paul (and other New Testament authors) used to describe the complexity and unity of the whole human person:

1. Psuche: the human person, the soul or seat of inner life
2. Soma: the whole self as represented by the material body
3. Sarx: The natural, physical, earthbound flesh (often in opposition to God, or what is good)
4. Pneuma: The spirit (derived from breath, wind) – regarded as a kind of substance
5. Kardia: The heart, the seat of emotions and intellect, the center of our being
6. Nous: the understanding or ability of the mind to reason

​
As I listened to the lecture, I found myself arrested by his subject matter for several reasons. First, I was interested in considering the way this relates to the trinity. We are made by an infinitely complex God in three persons. If each soul carries within it the imago dei, then it makes sense that we, too, must be incredibly complex. Phan spends a bit of time exploring the way that neo-Platonism’s influence on early Christian church fathers like Origen and Tertullian led to an increasingly dualistic or separate view of the body and spirit, often elevating the spirit and shaming the body. St. Thomas Aquinas rejected this dualism and prominently reclaimed the view of the holistic human person. Could an embrace of our complexity help us to find peace with the unquantifiable complexities of God?

Second, I was interested in the effect that meditation upon a holistic view of humanity could have on our capacity to understand our own emotional complexity. Our lives are increasingly fractured by our interwoven virtual and physical experiences. As a society, we are more anxious than ever, often unsure how to explore the unseen intricacies of our soul beyond our achievements, our status, our views, or our circumstances. We struggle with shortsightedness, even spiritual blindness. I believe this contributes to the struggle to empathize with those who live on opposite sides of one of the many lines that divide us. We have often reduced ourselves, and it is easier still to reduce others.

It is very special to me that this work exists on a college campus. I believe that universities which exist as a part of global community of faith are uniquely positioned to speak holistically into the lives of the students whose gifts and journeys they steward. We are not just bodies, but souls. We are not just our minds, but also our spirits. We are innately tense, contradictory, and filled with beauty. We are designed, and we are not an accident. A university that embraces the spiritual embraces the complete human person. We are not less than our intellect, less than our souls, less than our bodies, but we are infinitely more.

Geheimnis had no more room for extra paintings, but I could clearly envision the idea of a body of work illuminating these six words. When a friend emailed me the Iversen Center for Faith call, I knew I had found the perfect place. 

My hope is that these six panels would press into the tensions and intricacies of personhood. It was a privilege to create a space for those who encounter them to contemplate their own designed spiritual beauty and complexity as image-bearers of the living God. 
​

---

The Paintings

Click images below for more information about each panel.

Mikros Kosmos: the celestial, immortal soul
Acrylic ink, marble dust, acrylic, and gold leaf on Belgian linen

From left to right:

1. Nous: The heights of humanity
2. Psuche: The core of humanity
3. Kardia: The depths of humanity​​

​
Psalm 8, “The Song of the Astronomer”

O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
    Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
you have established strength because of your foes,
    to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
    the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him,
    and the son of man that you care for him?

Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands;
    you have put all things under his feet,
all sheep and oxen,
    and also the beasts of the field,
the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
    whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Embodied: the earthly immortal soul and the battle of becoming
Acrylic ink, marble dust, acrylic, wood ash, and gold leaf on Belgian linen

1. Pneuma: The generative power in the temple of the body / Transformed in humility  
2. Soma: The embodied soul and the battleground 
3. Sarx: Remember you are dust / Breath-like

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness….”
So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them…
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 1:26-27 (excerpts)

“…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.”  Genesis 2:7
​
“The first life in a Christian, in order of time, is the old Adam nature. It is there from the first. It is born of and with the flesh and it remains in us after we are born of the Spirit, for the second birth does not destroy in us the products of the first birth. Regeneration brings into us a new and higher principle which is ultimately to destroy the sinful nature, but the old principle still remains and labors to retain its power… The old nature is of the earth, earthy, and must be crucified with Christ and buried with Him…. This old nature lives in our members, that is to say, its nest is the body and it works through the body.” -C.H. Spurgeon, No. 1459b

---

---

BEHIND THE SCENES GALLERY