This
Sunday, April 7th, I will continue with the second of my sermons in the series,
“What Happens to Me After I Die?” The
focus this week is the “Human Soul.”
The concept of a human soul is
integral to Christian thought and belief.
It is frequently referenced in the Bible and the term may be used in a
variety of different ways. For
Christians, our soul forms the connection and the continuity for individuals
between this earthly life that each of us lives now and the eternal life, which
we will live following our death and resurrection. So,
the soul is at the core of the Christian concept of life everlasting.
Yet, despite its importance, the
Bible and subsequent Christian thought have been vague about precisely what the
soul is – and where it is. This is not
unique to Christian thought. Other
writers have an equally difficult time explaining what the soul is. For instance, in a brilliant book, Care of the Soul, A Guide for Cultivating
Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, the psychiatrist Thomas Moore
writes: “It is impossible to define
precisely what the soul is. …We know intuitively that soul has to do with
genuineness and depth, as when we say certain music has soul or a remarkable
person is soulful. When you look closely
at the image of soulfulness, you see that it is tied to life in all its
particulars—good food, satisfying conversation, genuine friends, and experiences
that stay in the memory and touch the heart.
Soul is revealed in attachment, love, and community, as well as in
retreat on behalf of inner communing and intimacy.”[1] Moore’s description of the soul seems more
like the description of a good and happy lifestyle, rather than actually
defining the soul itself.
Whatever it is, the soul is
important for our understanding of what it means to be the unique human persons
that we actually are. Within the
scriptures there are two main theories of what it means to be a human person
with a soul:
1. Dualist. At a basic level, the Dualist theory holds
that as human persons, we are dually comprised of two different
quantities. On the one hand, we have a
physical body for this life in the physical, material world. On the other hand, we also have a spiritual
self, which is our true essence and who we really are. At death, our spiritual soul leaves our dead
physical body and it is through this spiritual soul that we experience the
resurrection. An example of the dualist
theory in the Bible would be what the Apostle Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:
1-10. This theory is sometimes called the Greek perspective because it is also
the viewpoint held by some Greek philosophers, such as Plato.
2. Monist or Physicalist. The alternative theory holds that the soul is
integrally part of the person’s physical body.
This view sees my soul as inseparable from my body and who I am as a person. Thus, according to this view, the soul cannot
simply detach from the physical body at death, in the same way that a space
probe may detach from the mother ship in a movie about space travel. This perspective would seem to require that
the resurrection be a physical resurrection of the whole body. An example of the Physicalist theory in the
Bible would again be provided by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:
42-58. This theory is sometimes called a
Hebraic perspective because it seems to follow the view presented in the Hebrew
Scriptures (Old Testament).
Based purely on anecdotal evidence
from talking with many people, I believe that most American Christians embrace
the first, dualist theory of what the human soul is. There are many good arguments for this
position and a strong scriptural case in support of this view may be made, as
well. Of course, I may be wrong on this
point. Nonetheless, in my sermon I will
claim that contrary to popular opinion, the second, Physicalist theory is
actually the more correct understanding of the human soul.
There are several reasons why I
find the Physicalist theory more persuasive than the Dualist theory. First, I believe that the scriptural evidence
supporting the Physicalist theory is stronger than scriptural evidence for the
Dualist perspective, even though I acknowledge that some passages of scripture
seem to support dualism. Second, I find
that the Physicalist theory fits better with my overarching view of God’s
relationship with Creation. Third, the
Physicalist theory is more consistent with the Resurrection of Jesus as a
bodily resurrection.
At the same time, I must
acknowledge that the Physicalist theory faces a major challenge from
contemporary neuroscience because there is no evidence of how a human soul
could be part of the human mind, as we are beginning to understand it. Recent advances in neuroscience have helped
us understand a great deal about the physical brain and how it operates,
including being able to see what parts of the brain are active during different
types of activities and experiences.
Based on these significant
advances, some have argued for a reductive materialist understanding
of the brain. They have argued that
despite the brain’s wonderful ability to think and reason creatively,
ultimately thinking and the mind are nothing more than the firing of physical
neurons in the physical brain. In this
argument, there is nothing there but the physical brain. Yet, despite the great advances in
neuroscience, human consciousness seems to require a greater explanation than
just the firing of neurons in the physical brain. When it comes to explaining human
consciousness, many find the explanation by reductive materialists to be incomplete. There seems to be something else going on.
Theologian Nancey Murphy has argued
persuasively for an alternative model to reductive materialism. She calls her approach nonreductive physicalism. This model takes seriously the physical dimensions
of the brain, but it also argues that there is more to the explanation than
simply the firing of neurons in the brain.
Murphy argues, “In brief, this is 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 or religious
capacities). Consciousness and religious
awareness are emergent properties and they have top-down causal influence on
the body.”[2] In other words, there might be an
explanation which takes seriously all of the neuroscience research into the
physical brain, yet also provides a reasonable explanation for the existence
and role of the human soul in our lives here on Earth.
Always feel free to post your comments on this
blog. If you live in the Meriden-area
and do not have a regular church home, please consider attending Meriden United
Methodist Church this Sunday. Meriden
UMC is located at the corner of Dawson and Main. Our worship service starts on Sundays at 10
am. Everyone is welcome and accepted
because God loves us all. Also, feel
free to check out my webpage at www.richardorandolph.com.)
[1]
Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, A Guide
for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Lie (New York: HarperCollins Books, 1994), 5.
[2]
Nancey Murphy, “Nonreductive Physicalism:
Philosophical Issues,” in Whatever
Happened to the Soul, edited by Warren S. Brown, Nancy Murphy, and H.
Newton Malony (Minneapolis: Fortress
Press, 1998), 130-131.
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