The Interpretation of the Term "Psyche" in the Bible and in the Theology

Piotr Liszka

Faculty of Theology in Wroclaw , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4484-0768

Abstract

Among anthropological terms, the term psyche occupies a special place. After the movement away from metaphysics, in the situation of the organized drowning of Christian reflection, in the general awareness , and even in the humanities (psychology) remains the term psyche, although with no transcendental aspect any more. The object of this paper is the word, while the reality serves only to explain its sense. Another thing is a reflection on the reality, which requires the selection of a set of names, in order to be able to speak about it. A word in itself is conventional, neutral, it does not point to a concrete thing automatically. In the history of the human thought this term has played an important role, has been the object of multiple reflections and has served to express essential truths linked to the ontic structure of the human being and to its existence. Its semantic field used to be identified on one hand with the meaning scope of the terms corresponding to it in other languages as well s of other terms in the same language. A historical analysis, which in a paper can be only sketchy and general, permits to notice that a mingling thinking is not consistent with the actual state of affairs. We are facing a semantic richness, an isolation of characteristic features of individual terms. Each term has its own stem as well as nearer and further peripheries which to a smaller or higher degree have a common part with the neighborhood of the stem of the other terms. This is how the situation with the semantic field of the term psyche is.

Keywords:

psyche, ruah, nefesz, pneuma, nous, spiritus, intellectus