Consider this quote by Marc Cortez in EMBODIED SOULS, ENSOULED BODIES — AN EXERCISE IN CHRISTOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE MIND/BODY DEBATE:
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The thesis thus comprises two major sections. The first develops an understanding of Karl Barth’s theological anthropology focusing on three major facets: (1) the centrality of Jesus Christ for any real understanding of human persons; (2) the resources that such a christologically determined view of human nature has for engaging in interdisciplinary discourse; and (3) the ontological implications of this approach for understanding the mind/body relationship. The second part of the study then draws on this theological foundation to consider the implications that understanding human nature christologically has for analyzing and assessing several prominent ways of explaining the mind/body relationship.This study, then, is an exercise in understanding the nature of a christocentric anthropology and its implications for understanding human ontology.
This doesn’t deny that science and metaphysics and philosophy are autonomous and even narrower foci of human concern that get appropriated by theology as a broader focus of human concern, but it does illustrate how theology can inform some of our axiomatic commitments or presuppositions for these other foci, such as, for example, requiring moral and metaphysical realism, epistemological realism, fundamental human dignity and so on.
Cortez closes with:
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In this study, we have not attempted to resolve this theoretical conundrum. In fact, the approach developed in the course of this study suggests that theologians should resist the temptation to wed Christian theology to any particular theory of human ontology.
This is echoed by Alfredo Dinis, who is the Dean, Associate Professor, and Lecturer of Logic, Philosophy of Science and Cognitive Science, Faculty of Philosophy of Braga, Catholic University of Portugal, in this paper , which is entitled Body, Soul and God: Philosophy, Theology and the Cognitive Sciences. Dinis writes:
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The concept of a soul is not theological but rather philosophical. As a consequence, one may leave it out of the theological discourse. Concepts like ‘mind,’ ‘soul,’ ‘self,’ and ‘consciousness’ are not specifically theological concepts. They are rather philosophical concepts.Theology has over the centuries used such concepts to express some religious beliefs, but such beliefs do not have a necessary connection with those concepts and certainly not with the metaphysical meaning they have in some philosophical traditions. Today, however, it is the sciences, especially the cognitive sciences, that wish to clarify such concepts.
In this task, they are most of the time against religious beliefs because such beliefs seem to be necessarily connected with those concepts. I want to argue that this is a mistake, and that most authors in the cognitive sciences are basing their analysis on misleading presuppositions.
But it is also true that a new theology needs a new anthropology, one that is less dependent on the traditional metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas and more in line with a relational paradigm.
And in the spirit of those two papers cited above, I commend the following work of Nancey Murphy to all:
THEOLOGY IN A POSTMODERN AGE: which included three lectures: 1) BEYOND MODERN LIBERALISM AND FUNDAMENTALISM; 2) BEYOND MODERN DUALISM AND REDUCTIONISM; and 3) BEYOND MODERN INWARDNESS.
A more concise summary can be found here and also here at Counterbalance, entitled Neuroscience & the Person and Neuroscience, Religious Experience and the Self, respectively.
Finally, here are some interview transcripts of Nancey Murphy’s The Conscious Mind.
Alfredo Dinis amplifies this:
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The metaphysical mind-body dualism is now being systematically challenged by a growing number of Christian philosophers and theologians (Murphy 1998, Brown 1998, Clayton 1999, Gregersen 2000). Nancy Murphy, for example, argues philosophically in favour of a non-reductive physicalism, which she describes as “the view that the human nervous system, operating in concert with the rest of the body in its environment, is the seat of consciousness (and also of human spiritual and religious capacities).” (1998, 131) These Christian philosophers and theologians believe that we do not need either the concept of a metaphysical self or that of a metaphysical soul. A relational self seems more adequate to understand the nature of human beings than a metaphysical self. Indeed, every traditional metaphysical category appears increasingly to be inadequate and in need to be abandoned in our search for knowledge. A relational view of the person, and indeed of God, needs no immortal soul to assure immortality. Instead, immortality is a relational situation. Human relationships constitute the individuals as persons. For those who believe in God, it is God’s foundational relation with the whole creation that makes human immortality possible.
Now, let me say that the metaphysics of the human person remain an open question, especially vis a vis philosophy of mind issues and the hard problem of consciousness. And let me reassert that, on matters metaphysical, I am agnostic. I incline, however, to the more nondual approaches to the human person. And to the human person’s relationship to God as being only quasiautonomous. My panentheism is indifferent to metaphsyics, for the most part, and very much indifferent to whether or not any subjective aspect of human personhood is immortal.
Now, as to any teachings, dogmas or creedal elements, those are distinctly theological, necessarily vague, and certainly open to interpretation and rearticulation, metaphysically and philosophically. They certainly do not presuppose aristotelian or thomistic metaphysics, in general, or the soul, in particular. The “descent into hell” was possibly understood by the early church as an emphasis on Jesus’ death and the resurrection of the body is foundational for the doctrine of the Communion of Saints, the church militant, penitent and triumphant. For those in the church penitent (a state) and the church triumphant (heaven), we needn’t conceive of them as disembodied. With Kung, we can argue against the idea of a separated soul between particular judgment and the general resurrection as understood in either a platonic or aristotelian-thomist way, recognizing that, in Kung’s words, “man dies a whole, with body and soul, as a psychosomatic unity … into that eternity of the divine Now which, for those who have died, makes irrelevant the temporal distance of this world between personal death and the last judgement.”
While theology certainly does have implications for our metaphysical and philosophical presuppositions, our authors above affirm, one will note that all of the above-listed authors consider other anthropological approaches, other than the distinctly dualistic conception, to be live options for the inquiring theological anthropologists.
A reader wrote:
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Some of these teachings are dogmas, one is even in the Creed — all long before the rediscovery of Aristotle and the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, Scholasticism, etc.
and, in fact, many of the earliest Christian writers of both the 1st and 2nd centuries, and even later Athanasius, did not believe in human immortality. It came later with hellenization.
Nancey Murphy summarizes:
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Both Judaism and Christianity apparently began with a concept of human nature that comes closer to contemporary nonreductive physicalism than to Platonic dualism. But, both made accommodations to a prevailing dualistic philosophy, and combined a doctrine of the immortality of the soul with a doctrine of the resurrection of the body. The pressing question now, concerns whether to return to those earlier nonreductive physicalist accounts of human nature, as many Christian theologians have urged throughout this century.
As for any persistence of the soul after death, while Kung, in Eternal Life, finds a two-fold view of human nature unscientific and any life based thereon untenable, he allows for resurrection, as does John Hick, right after death. Kung has tried to rehabilitate the concept of purgatory, which is less problematical conceived as a state not a place (thanks JPII for clearing that up).
Alfredo Dinis also wrote:
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From this externalist point of view, it is possible to think about immortality within a non-dualistic framework – within a relational and dialogical framework. In his book Introduction to Christianity Joseph Ratzinger, the actual Pope, has put forward a relational view of the soul:
“ ‘having a spiritual soul’ means precisely being willed, known, and loved by God in a special way; it means being a creature called by God to an eternal dialogue and therefore for its own part capable of knowing God and of replying to him. What we call in substantialist language ‘having a soul’ we will describe in a more historical, actual language as ‘being God’s partner in a dialogue’.“ (2004, 355)
A dialogical concept of the human soul has for Ratzinger an immediate consequence: an equally dialogical concept of immortality: “man’s immortality is based on his dialogic relationship with and reliance upon God, whose love alone bestows eternity” (2004, 355). A dialogical concept of immortality needs no body-soul scheme, no natural-supernatural dualism. Thus, according to Ratzinger, “it is also perfectly possible to develop the idea [of immortality] out of the body-soul schema” (2004, 355), and so “it becomes evident once again at this point that in the last analysis one cannot make a neat distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’,” (2004, 355-6), since it is the dialogue of love between God and the human beings, and among the human beings themselves, that is truly the essence of every religious experience.
It is precisely Occam, who applied his razor to any philosophical demonstration of the immortality of the soul. Scotus, too, saw such arguments as inconclusive. Proper scriptural exegesis doesn’t allow proof-texting either on this metaphysical issue. While it remains, in my view, an open question, parsimony doesn’t needlessly multiply ontological layers for explanations that have ever increasing probabilities based on empirically falsifiable and verifiable observations regarding those faculties of the human brain once explained by those of the soul.
With Peirce, I’m all for the mattering of mind and the minding of matter. Against Kung, however, I’m not ready to toss out psychic phenomena and other paranormal evidence. It is too early to draw such conclusions. Neither, however, do I want to foreclose on physicalist and/or naturalist accounts of the soul.
I think we have a situation where revelation and theology can certainly help us with an account that elevates human nature and dignity via a Christocentric anthropology. But I also believe that theology has overstepped its bounds if it leaves anyone with the impression that the metaphysics of philosophy of mind are loaded with inescapable philosophical presuppositions.
This conversation continues at this link >>> (more…)
We must remain mindful of an important distinction re: so-called common views, does one mean a view commonly held by academics & theologians or that held by the majority of persons no matter their education. That will be in play, below. Another critical distinction is that between the Catholic hierarchy or magisterial teaching office (a/k/a Rome) versus mainstream theologians versus even what the faithful (sensus fidelium) actually believe and practice.
A question that begs, then, is what could one possibly mean by the qualifier REALLY core or peripheral. While it is true that, in addition to Scripture & Tradition, Faith & Reason, Mysticism & Experience, Catholics have another leg to our stool called the Magisterium or hierarchical teaching office, in THEORY the Magisterium is NOT structured as a TOP-DOWN reality, although IN PRACTICE, that dynamic does seem to be in effect, at least in part, because their’s is a “temporal” power of the purse and of juridical authority that very much controls the destiny of many people’s lives vis a vis their expression of and experience of church. Being less abstract: 1) women cannot be ordained 2) some priests must remain celibate 3) some politicians get visibly interdicted at the communion rail 4) some ex-priests cannot teach in a parochial school because they weren’t laicized via a formal dispensation 5) some divorced and remarried teachers, similarly, are turned away from church employment because they did not obtain a marriage annulment.
Catholic progressives, both Roman and Anglican, are more closely related hermeneutically to each other than they are to their coreligionists in their respective denominations. Same thing with our traditionalist brothers and sisters. Increasingly, I have found that progressive Roman and Anglican catholics have a GREAT deal in common with much of liberal Protestantism and the emerging church conversation(s). This is to say that we are in large agreement regarding essentials vs accidentals, core vs peripheral beliefs. I am in much more agreement with the Anglican approach to moral doctrine, church disciplines and church polity than I am with my own Roman tradition, but these are not essentials in my view, while our creeds, our sacraments, our liturgical traditions and incarnational outlooks are. Otherwise, out of personal integrity, I’d have to offer myself up in the recent prisoner swap (yes, that’s a euphemism for a recent impolitic event).
It’s not Greek metaphysics. Even the hierarchy is clear in that science and philosophy are autonomous from faith. While theological discourse will employ inculturated language in articulating beliefs, it is no more tied to this or that metaphysical concept than it is tied to a particular language. It simply translates the essentials of the faith into this or that idiom. I am heavily invested in the American pragmatist tradition (Peirce, less so James, much less so Dewey) and the best parts of our Transcendentalist tradition (Josiah Royce) and don’t do substance metaphysics or Thomism, so my (meta)metaphysical constructs are going to be nondual vis a vis a triadic semiotic. Rome doesn’t publish catechisms in this idiom, only a group of folks who belong to the John Courtney Murray Society at Berkeley find it engaging (best I can tell, anyway; I’m not an academic and I do not get around much).
Do people articulate anthropologies, epistemologies, metaphysics and philosophies that would be incompatible with faith? Of course, but that’s because they are doing bad anthropology, bad epistemology, bad metaphysics and bad philosophy, in ways that don’t employ philosophical rigor and can’t withstand philosophical scrutiny. Do believers articulate scientific and philosophical perspectives derived from their religious stances? Sure, but that’s because they’re doing bad science and bad philosophy. In other words, category errors are not uncommon.
