Does our philosophy of mind effect the way we view Christianity? Ask that question to about 99% of Christians and I think you'll get a negative response. But I'm convinced that it really does matter what we think about mind, body, soul, spirits. Our ontology (the study of what things exist) impacts our theology, or at least it should.
What do you think a 'soul' is? When Jesus says: “be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body”? or “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul?”, what is he speaking of. Ask the majority of people to define soul and I reckon the response would largely refer to an immaterial substance which inhabits our physical body, a 'thing' or an 'entity' which dwells in the human being. Whether or not they believe in such a substance is irrelevant.
This definition of the ontology of human existence is usually called 'Dualism'. Descartes famously argues for the existence of our ego 'I think, I exist' and that this was the only thing we could not doubt the existence of. He condenses the fundamental of human existence to a spirit, a mysterious, invisible, non physical thing which inhabits a broken, imperfect, physical body. Descartes makes a sharp divide between physical and non-physical, between mind and matter. Minds are the souls of human beings, they think, they believe, they have thoughts and memories and dreams, they exist in a non-physical sense. Souls inhabit physical, temporal, divisible matter. The problem with Substance Dualism as an interpretation of the word 'soul' in scripture, is that I don't think it is entirely coherent.
To do this subject real justice, I would need to spend years and years researching, studying and I could probably write pretty lengthy book on the subject. Maybe one day. But I just want to challenge you that the notion of soul & body that we often speak of is not very coherent and not actually all that biblical.
It's pretty obvious to me that I am a physical thing. Spear me through the brain, and chances are you will change my personality, my memories, my temperament. Whilst there might be still so much we don't know about neuroscience, it seems pretty obvious that I am being who is wholly physical. When I'm my physical body is tired, it effects my mood. When I ingest alcohol it seemingly makes changes in my 'soul'. The brain and the 'soul' might not be completely reducible into the same thing, but it seems pretty obvious that they're pretty intimately connected.
And this seems to fit with the Bible's dichotomy of man. It says in Genesis that God formed Adam from “the dust of the ground”. It says later when God kicks them out from the garden: “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return”. Human beings are made out of dust. I'm not convinced that this perfect creation that God made in his image was only the spiritual inhabitant of an imperfect body. He made man physical. He made man with physical hands, legs and brains. He didn't make man and then place him in a vessel.
This also seems to fit with the notion of the resurrection. Jesus walked the earth a physical man. He died a physical death. He rose again physical; he ate fish with his followers. To eat I'm pretty sure you need a physical mouth and a physical stomach. Granted, there was something 'beyond physical' about Jesus' resurrection; he seemed to appear different but recognisable, he could pass through walls. He was different, but he was still physical.
Why do we think that our destiny is any different. The New Testement teaches that we will one day be resurrected. It talks about Jesus being the 'first fruit' of the resurrection to come. And we know that Jesus was resurrected physically. In fact the whole of 1 Corinthians 15 is a chapter which is all about why the resurrection is a physical, real thing. Paul says “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.” It is essential we focus our hope on the hope of resurrection. But the whole concept of resurrection is about coming back, returning, it's not about departing physicality, but about perfecting it. Jesus became more than physical because he became a perfected version of God's creation. And we too, have the same hope of resurrection. Resurrection as a physical reality, the chance to enter into true physicality.
So what then do we mean by soul? Tom Wright argues that what the New Testament writers would have understood as the 'soul' is the concept of selfhood. Our identity, our personality, our character. Does this imply anything non-physical? Does this imply a sharp divide between 'physical' and 'mental'. I don't think it does. Actually those aspects of my being seem to be deeply routed in the physical.
Human beings are deeply spiritual beings. We love, we feel, we pray, we encounter God. We do all of these things in a very physical way. Spirituality is so tightly part of the physical, that it seems impossible to make any sort of divide between spiritual and 'physical'. We are dust creatures, breathed into by the breath of a God. But I don't think God calls us to hate the physical and embrace the non-physical at all. In fact we need to learn to embrace our physicality as a part of spirituality; if we are tired, this effects our faith. If we encounter God at all, we surely encounter him as a part of our physical being.
You might think this makes no difference to anything. A lot of technical nonsense that has no bearing on faith. I would sincerely beg to differ. We preach a hope which is centred on physical resurrection, we live in a beautiful physically created universe which the creator God made. And ultimately we are dust creatures, the physical is not a shell that we will one day shed. But something glorious which will one day be perfected. I could write so much more on this. But I think that will do for now.
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