Terry Bell’s Blog

The hurting began with the events that led to the expulsion from the Garden. The recent history of philosophy has been consumed with the debate between essence (body) and existence (being). This seemingly erudite disagreement has many implications for the Christian faith. Are humans strictly an essence, that is, a material body with no spiritual dimension? Or is there perhaps a spiritual dimension to our humanness.
A 17th century French mathematician and philosopher, Rene DesCartes, set himself to the goal of doubting everything until he could obviously find something that he could not legitimately doubt. He could doubt the world around him because it might be an illusion or a dream. he could even doubt the existence of his own body because a demon may be deceiving him him.
But one thing he could not doubt was the fact that he was doubting… that he was thinking. Then came his famous saying, “I think therefore I am,” or in Latin, “cogito ergo sum.”
Hunter Guthrie has revised this statement in this fashion: Inquietus, ergo sum,” or I am “restless, therefore I am.” Restlessness is a kind of pain, a hurt. It is the human groan. And it has to do with the loss of Oneness that occurred as the first humans were driven out of the Garden.
(From the Love Ethic: Rediscovering Our Moral Compass,” by Terry Bell).