Description
Book SynopsisDualism, unlike monism, is a system that allows for dynamic and dramatic possibilities. Just as it can explain change and imperfection in the natural world, as the two distance elements of matter and spirit or matter and form strive to accommodate themselves to one another, so in the little world of the human the two elements of body and soul generate conflict as well. Essential to one another and yet incompatible, they provide both an explanation of and a metaphor for the internal, psychological struggle that the individual feels going on within.
The body and soul dialogues portray this tradition of conflict in its most fundamental form. They bring together psychological concerns about the nature of humanity and theological concerns about the responsibility for sin. They provide the conceptual centre from which the multiple metaphors and analogies in the rest of the literature radiate.
Rosalie Osmond examines both literal and metaphorical aspects of the relationship between bod
