Biblijski pogledi, Vol. 33. No. 1., 2025.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Holistic Anthropology in Ellen G. Whiteʼs Education (1903)
Matija Kovačević
; Adventističko teološko visoko učilište u Maruševcu, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The anthropology of Ellen G. White has been largely neglected in academic literature, even within Adventist circles, despite the fact that anthropological concepts appear thousands of times throughout her corpus. This paper explores the foundations of holistic anthropology in the book Education (1903)—her programmatic and most influential work in the field of education. It contains clearly discernible and often explicit anthropological thought, which serves as the primary textual material for this research. It is evident from this work that Ellen White rejects dualism and adopts a specific non-reductive physicalist monism (based on Genesis 1:26, 2:7, and 3:19), according to which the living human being, ontologically physical in nature, is an indivisible unity of various aspects. Therefore, true education implies the harmonious development of physical, intellectual, and spiritual powers, with the ultimate goal of restoring the image of God in human beings. White asserts that “the brain nerves are the only medium through which Heaven communicates to man”—a distinctly monistic statement that precludes any possibility of dualism—and that, consequently, care of the body and mind is an indispensable factor in the development of spirituality, that is, character. In her anthropology, Ellen White neither subordinates nor separates natural laws from moral ones, as she considers them to have the same Lawgiver—God the Creator. In the concluding section, the paper connects her views with the contemporary debate between dualism and monism in the philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism, which increasingly questions the value of embodied existence in the digital era. Finally, this work considers the practical implications of Ellen G. White’s holistic anthropology for modern-day issues, such as overwork or the insufficient integration of physical activity in higher education.
Ključne riječi
Ellen G. White; Adventists; education; holistic anthropology; non-reductive physicalism
Hrčak ID:
342472
URI
Datum izdavanja:
28.12.2025.
Posjeta: 391 *