Chestless

I told my wife last night that I didn't have a chest. She just looked at me quizzically. I gave her a brief explanation of how Plato viewed the person. Plato thought that there were basically three parts to the self.

The first and lowest part was the passions. The passions were centered in the loins. The passions included most emotions and desires like hunger, lust, tiredness, etc. The passions were mostly associated with physical needs.

The third and highest part was the mind. The mind is centered in the head. The mind reasons and learns. The mind can make rational decisions and figure out what is best for the body as a whole.

The second part is the will which is centered in the heart or the chest. Plato thought that the mind should decide what's best for the body. It was the will's job to take what the mind had decided and enforce it on the passions. The will is an enforcer of sorts.

C.S. Lewis wrote an essay about men without chests. Plato's model was basically what Lewis was talking about. I think my chest is defective. I know that I'm defective by nature as a result of original sin. I'm not sure to what extent I'm depraved.

Perhaps I'm completely and utterly depraved, or at least I started out that way. Maybe my mind, will, and passions are all corrupt. I'm certain my passions are corrupt, and my will seems to fail me fairly often. I'm not sure about my mind.

I know sometimes my mind makes mistakes. My mind's mistakes could be explained by my mind being finite. I don't have an infinite mind so my mind can't do everything or do everything right because there's only so much mind to go around. A mistake wouldn't necessitate it being corrupt though. It could be finite but not corrupted.

Maybe God regenerated my mind completely and now my will and passions are slowly being sanctified. What I mean is that maybe God has restored my mind, but He's slowly restoring my will and passions. Or maybe my mind was never corrupted. Maybe everyone's mind is free of corruption, and God just has to begin to regenerate our wills and passions.

Any thoughts on the self or corruption?