Being Human 6

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/06/14/being-human-6/

by RJS

June 14, 2011

The third chapter of Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible deals with the ideas of sin and freedom. In the last post we discussed a bit of the embodied nature of sin. We do not seem to possess a separable soul capable of overriding the impulses of our bodies. This was illustrated by an extreme example of a tumor that undermined the control mechanisms in the brain and rendered a patient unable to resist the lure of pornography and sexual pleasure. The limitations imposed by the fully embodied nature of human decision making are not confined to cases of disease and accident however.

Dr. Green summarizes the scientific data:

Among the implications of these data, two are of special interest to us in this chapter. The first is simply the embodied nature of decision-making, its manifestly somatic basis, involving predispositions and emotion alongside logical weighing of considerations. Second, decision-making cannot be characterized by the laws of neurobiology in simple bottom-up terms, since our neurobiological profile is itself in a state of ongoing formation and reformation on account of environmental, and especially relational, influences and through self-reflexive evaluation of the bases and futures of past and prospective behaviors. (p. 87)

That paragraph sounds a bit like “professor-speak,” but there are important ideas here.

(1) We are embodied creatures and our decisions are constrained by this fact. The idea of a libertarian free will to choose just doesn’t fit with the data.

(2) Our choices and behaviors today influence our future choices. Relationships and community play an important role.

In the remainder of the chapter Dr. Green looks at the biblical concept of sin in 1 Peter, James, and the letters of Paul, primarily Romans. The question is how the concept of sin according to Peter, James, and Paul, relates to the neurobiological ideas of decision making and human behavior.

What is the biblical concept of sin? How does this relate to human behavior and decision making?

1 Peter

In his letter Peter refers to the former way of life practiced by his audience, behaviors to be avoided, and labels for those who are antagonists. These concepts help to define his view of sin… sin is living outside of the way of God.

“Sin,” then, is inhabiting the muck and executing the ways of a religious and moral climate set against God; it is present as an ethos of unrestrained immorality and craving that cannot but shape persons in its likeness. (p. 89)

Because of Christ his followers can be done with this way of life. The capacity for transformation is a divine gift – both through the example of Christ and through the power of Christ’s life and death. The human family needed liberation from the bondage of a sinful past. Christians enter into a new community and a new way of life. This new way shapes all.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3)

Dr. Green summarizes his reading of 1 Peter:

For 1 Peter then, human life is life on the potter’s wheel, so to speak – being shaped one way or another, by the ancestral ways expressed in taken-for-granted social conventions, or by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and the formative influence of the people of God. Humans act out their formation, so the primary questions must be, Formed according to what pattern? Formed within what community? (p. 94)

James

In the book of James sin is the child of desire born through friendship with the world. Friendship with the world is a unity of heart and mind with the ways of the world. There is a strong emphasis on both the personal and the relational.

The very epitome of the sinful life is not an act but an allegiance, relationally delimited: “friendship with the world.” (p. 95)

Partiality, hypocrisy, bitter envy, selfish ambition, these characterize friendship with the world. Peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, absence of partiality and hypocrisy, these characterize the way of of God. As in 1 Peter there is an internal and a relational component – but the problem of human desire is internal to the human person and the solution must be internalized.

The challenges of exilic life provide an arena for the unbridled exercise of human passion, the result of which is sin and death. … Required is a transformation of human nature by means of divine wisdom, the divine word that must be received and fully embodied so that it imbues who one is and what one does. Theologically this is nothing less than a conversion of the imagination, those patterns of thinking, feeling, believing, and behavior that animate our lives. (p. 98)

Paul

According to Dr. Green Paul’s view of sin is universal – not because Adam sinned, but because all sinned.

Paul’s affirmation of the universality of sin derives from his understanding that Adam’s sin set in motion a chain of effects, one sin leading to the next, not because sin was an essential constituent of the human condition but because all humanity followed Adam in his sinfulness. (p. 100)

This isn’t sinfulness passed on as a contagion but sinfulness as an inescapable part of human community ever after. Reading beyond what Dr. Green has written – this is not necessarily a condition introduced by a unique act by a unique couple, but a statement of the rebellion of mankind and the condition of humanity as a consequence. Paul may see Adam and Eve as the progenitors, but his understanding of sin and human nature does not rest on this.

Moving on, Dr. Green sees six aspects of sin in Paul:

(1) The perspective is cosmological. Sin is a condition of the human family.

(2) Acts of wickedness are expressions of sin, they are not themselves the problem.

(3) The expressions of sin evidence the moral integrity of a God who takes sin seriously. God gives humanity over to its own desires. As Wisdom 12:23 puts it: God “torments” those who live unrighteously by allowing them their own atrocities. This idea fits with the Paul’s understanding of sin.

(4) The giving over to sinful desires means that humanity is now in a condition of slavery to sin.

(5) Sin is a rupture of the divine-human relationship, human relationships, and the relationship between humans and creation. Sin is not private, it is in relation to God, to others, and to the cosmos.

(6) Humanity embraces a lie and receives a corrupt mind. [T]he conceptual patterns by which humanity perceives the world and orders its behavior is out of touch with the way things are. (p. 102)

Paul talks very little about the forgiveness of sins. Dr. Green identifies only two places (Eph 1:7, Col 1:14). Rather humanity requires a liberation from enslavement. We are liberated from the enslavement to sin and death and brought into a new community of the people of God. This new community was inaugurated and enabled through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Pulling this together. Dr. Green suggests that the following three ideas are coherent with both neurobiology and New Testament perspectives on human nature, human sin and human freedom.

1) We do what we are. That is, our behaviors are generated out of, and so reflect, our characters and dispositions.

2) Who we are is both formed and continually being formed socioculturally, and especially relationally.

3) “Choice” is contextually determined.

Biblical faith pushes beyond the inherited human nature to a broader view of the people of God. Dr. Green doesn’t quite go here in this chapter, but the conclusion seems inescapable. Sin is not the specific acts or behaviors of an individual but the condition of humanity. The acts, bitterness envy, sexual immorality, and so forth characterize a life shaped by a community apart from God or rebelling against God.

We are called and enabled to join the people of God and to re-form ourselves along biblical theological lines in the community of the people of God. This is not an instantaneous change, but an ongoing formation for which community is absolutely indispensable. There is no transformation without the church (being in relationship with the community of the people of God).

This chapter ends rather abruptly and leaves many ideas dangling. The next chapter, Being Human, Being Saved, may bring more of this together.

For now…

What do you think of Dr. Green’s identification of the nature of sin according to Peter, James, and Paul? Is this in accord with your understanding?

Does the emphasis on the communal nature of sin and sinfulness make sense?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Being Human 5

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/31/being-human-5-rjs/

 

by RJS

posted May 31, 2011

Chapter 3 of Joel Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible deals with the topic of sin and freedom. I am going to devote a few posts to this topic because it is one that troubles me far more than the debates over heaven and hell. What is the nature of sin? How can we view ourselves as, in any sense, free to act? Dr.Green outlines a common view, perhaps predominate view, especially within Christian circles:

“For many, a distinguishing characteristic of humanity is the capacity to decide. Earthworms, goldfish, and jaguars do not leaf through a register of options before acting; they simply do what they are genetically programmed and hardwired to do. They act on instinct. They are possessed by “animal desires.” Humans, on the other hand, possess the capacity to step back from the precipice of innate desires or inborn patterns of behavior in order to elect for or against them, so that even when a human action follows the path of instinct this is nonetheless the product of a decidedly human reasonableness. Those who prove incapable of controlling there animal desires are beastly, brutish, somehow subhuman, irrational.” ( p. 75)

There are aspects of this sketch though, that are seriously flawed. It is not that the sketch is completely wrong, but that human control of behavior is far more subtle and complex.

Is the moral compass and the ability to evaluate and control behavior a distinguishing characteristic of humanity?

Is this capacity something attributed to the human soul?

Dr. Green starts this chapter with the sketch of a case study of a man who was convicted of child molestation (p. 73-74). The antisocial behavior started suddenly without any indication that it would, he was an upstanding married school teacher. He began to collect child pornography and made subtle advances toward his step daughter. He solicited a prostitute and could not keep himself from making advances after he was convicted toward the staff at a facility where he was being evaluated for treatment vs. Imprisonment.

As he was to appear for sentencing he complained of headaches and suicidal thoughts. He was taken to a hospital and evaluated by MRI. an egg-sized tumor was found and removed. After recovery his behavior and uncontrollable urges went away. Within a year headaches resumed and an urge for pornography resurfaced. An MRI revealed tumor regrowth and surgery to remove the tumor again returned to him the ability to control his ” animal desires.”

The issue in this case was not so much the “natural” desires themselves but the ability to exercise impulse control. The man still had a moral compass and he knew that what he was doing was wrong. When the tumor was present he could not control those urges.

There is an inseparable connection between what we think, feel, and do and the bodies within which or as which we exist. We all know this on one level. No matter how much my friend and I loved baseball as 12-year old kids, checked out books on pitching and catching and practiced in the basement and outdoors, we would never play at a high level. As girls it would never happen, and even the boys from our gene pool wouldn’t make it. Some things are “gifts.” But we don’t expect this to be the case with moral decision making.

I will go into this topic more deeply in future posts. Dr. Green looks at both science and scripture for an understanding of the nature of human freedom. Philosophy has to play a role here as well alongside science and theology. Scot’s posts on the book by Keith Ward More Than Matter?: Is There More to Life Than Molecules? are a welcome complement to the discussion in Green’s book.

Today I would like to stop here and put up a question for consideration.

First, does this example change anything in your view of human nature and the nature of the soul?

Second, how should an appreciation for the embodiedness of human behavior change our approach to Christian faith, life, and gathering as the church?

The second question will come up in later posts as well as we continue through this series. The fully embodied nature of human persons, whether this includes a soul in a wholistic dualism or some form of Christian monism, is an important concept as we consider the Christian life and the role that the gathering, the church, plays in the Christian life.

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Being Human 4

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/24/being-human-4-rjs/

by RJS

posted May 24, 2011

Chapter 2 of Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible is entitled “What does it mean to be human?” In this chapter he addresses the title question from two directions, scientific and biblical. In the post last Tuesday I considered the scientific evidence for the connection of human life with the rest of animal life including a consideration of the material features that may, or may not, make us distinctly human. In this post I would like to put up for conversation some of the biblical perspective on human uniqueness.

Moving from science to the bible, Dr. Green starts by describing several problems or pitfalls in the consideration of a biblical view of the nature of humanity. He proceeds to consider a few passages of scripture and wraps up with an sketch of what he finds as the biblical basis for human distinctiveness.

The evidence for the nature of humanity found in the bible is implicit not explicit. We are not told “this is the nature of humanity” rather we have texts that assume a view, counter other views though to be errant, or project ideas about the nature of humanity into a discussion of the future new heavens and new earth.

There is a problem of method. There is no simple method, be it appeal to culture, word study, or appeal to the afterlife, which, when applied to the scripture, will permit easy discovery and understanding of the biblical view of the nature of humans.

Most importantly, there is an ever present danger of imposing our current ideas about the human person on the text rather than listening to what the text has to say. This is really the big problem. The approach of substance dualism is something that Dr. Green claims we project into the text rather than extract from the text. Here he looks specifically at the healings by Jesus to provide an example. Physical blemish kept a person from access to God and the community of God’s people. Cleansing a leper restored him to God and to community (Mt 8:1-4). In another example healing is connected with the forgiveness of sin, in fact healing is tantamount to the forgiveness of sin (Mt 9:2-8). Humans are unified wholes.

Here we find no room for segregating the human person into discrete, constitutive “parts,” whether “bodily” or “spiritual” or “communal.” (p. 49)

Is the dualist view of human persons as body and soul something we read from the text or we read into the text?

Humans as individuals vs human in community. The problems that arise from imposing modern assumptions on the text go beyond dualism though. The notion of community and the importance of place in community was more significant in the ancient culture where the bible was shaped and written. We tend to define identity in terms of self-sufficiency, self-determination, self-autonomy, self-legislation, and the individual inner person – taking ideas from Charles Taylor Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. This modern view of human identity is in contrast with the view of human persons implicit in the biblical text.

The point is that constructions of personal identity that pervade the world of the interpreter are easily read back into the texts under scrutiny, and yet, in the case of the human self discerned by Taylor, can stand at odds with biblical anthropology at almost every turn. … These include such emphases as the construction of the self as deeply embedded in social relationships and thus the importance of dependence/interdependence for human identity; a premium on the integrity of the community and thus the contribution of individuals to that integrity; the assumption that a person is one’s behavior – that is, that one’s dispositions are on display in one’s practices; an emphasis on external authority – that is the call to holiness is a call to human vocation drawn from a vision of Yahweh’s “difference”; and the reality of dualism vis-a-vis good/evil, resident in and manifest both outside and inside a person. (p. 50)

So what is found in scripture? Dr. Green looks specifically at Genesis 1-2 and concludes that humans are fundamentally relational – with God, with each other, and with the world. To bear the divine image is to have a distinct role and vocation in creation. The vocation is part of the covenantal relationship with God.

What is this quality that distinguishes humanity? God’s words affirm the creation of the human family in its relation to himself, as his counterpart, so that the nature of humanity derives from the human family’s relatedness to God. The concept of the imago Dei, then, is fundamentally relational, or covenantal, and takes as its ground and focus the graciousness of God’s own covenantal relations with humanity and the rest of creation. The distinguishing mark of human existence when compared with other creatures is thus the whole of human existence (and not some part of the individual). (p. 63)

Turning to the Psalms and then New Testament Dr. Green finds the same theme of covenant, relationship, and vocation in community as the defining nature of the human person. After looking at the terms image and glory, especially in relationship to the place of Christ as the image of God, and a brief comment on the nature of salvation (more of that in a later chapter), he concludes that both science and scripture paint a view of human persons as characterized by embodiedness and relationality. But the bible gives us a more complete view in two ways:

First, In presenting the physical embeddedness of the human family, they [the biblical materials] highlight the vocation of humanity in relation to the created order – not only in relation to other humans, but also in relation to the cosmos. Second, the biblical materials urge the view that a biblical theology of humanity must have as its primary point of beginning and orientation the human in a partnering relationship with God. (p. 71)

The biblical view of human persons, according to Dr. Green, is centered on community and relationship, not on individuals. The question of body, soul, and personal identity from a modern perspective distorts our understanding of scripture, our appreciation for the story of Israel in the Old Testament (including the issues raised in the posts on God Behaving Badly), and our understanding of salvation in the New Testament.

What do you think? Is the nature of humanity in the Bible primarily relational, covenantal, and vocational?

Do we over value the nature of humanity as individual identity?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Being Human 3

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/17/being-human-3-rjs/

by RJS

May 17, 2011

Chapter 2 of Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible is entitled “What does it mean to be human?” In this chapter he addresses the title question from two directions. First he discusses the scientific evidence for the connection of human life with the rest of animal life. This includes a consideration of the material features that may, or may not, make us distinctly human. After laying this foundation, Dr. Green then moves on to consider the nature of human uniqueness from a biblical perspective. In the post today I would like to put forth the scientific data and ask how this influences our understanding of what it means for our understanding of the human soul. In the next post I will consider the biblical perspective.

In asking what makes us distinctly human Dr. Green considers three categories or phenomena relating to the material nature of humans: the human genome, consciousness, and mind reading (a fourth category, moral agency, is left for a later chapter).

The development of genome sequencing has led to the discovery that the human genome is smaller than that of many less complex forms of life (common rice has ca. 50,000 genes, a primitive worm, c. elegans, has ca. 20,000 genes, while humans have only ca. 25,000 genes. Clearly the complexity of human life is not reflected by a mere counting of the number of genes coding for proteins. Rather, there is a more intricate, and not fully understood, process of activation effecting the connection between the simple genes and the end result. It is not the number of genes, but when, where, why, and how, the genes are expressed.

Dr. Green also notes that the chimpanzee and human genomes differ in rather small ways (a good summary table can be found in this post). Ignoring insertion and deletion segments the homology is ~98.8%, looking at protein encoding genes the homology is >99% and over all the homology is ca. 95%. The differences between humans and chimpanzees are subtle on this level.

These numbers – either the number of genes or the gene homology between humans and chimpanzees – prove little in terms of human distinctiveness, except to eliminate some possible sources. We are created from “the dust of the earth” as are plants and animals. The features that make us distinctively human arise from something else.

What aspects of our nature make us distinctively human?

Is “humanness” connected to the physical and material form of our bodies? If so, How?

Does “humanness” result from the possession of a soul?

More significant than gene counts and gene homology are considerations of consciousness and the theory of mind.

In discussion of Christian anthropology generally, appeal is often made to baseline human experience that I am more than my body – that is, to my experience of a subjective inner life, the perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and awareness of my experiences, including what it is like to be a cognitive agent. This subjective, first-hand quality of experience goes by the shorthand “consciousness,” and for most of us it is difficult to believe that our first-person experiences of embarrassment or fulfillment, love or hate, smells or color are nothing more than brain states. (p.39)

However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw a sharp line between humans and the other animals in the realm of consciousness. Some animals, especially primates, are more similar to humans than previously imagined. This is a nascent science – and one deserving of skepticism and caution. But it appears that many of the characteristics of human consciousness, including the ability to problem solve, hypothesize, and think about one’s own thinking, can be identified in other nonhuman species. This is evidence, some will say, that consciousness is simply a material, physical phenomenon. It does not separate us from the beasts. In any case it appears that the difference between human and animal consciousness is a matter of gradation or degree rather than a sharp line with the presence of consciousness in humans and the absence of consciousness in animals.

The theory of mind is another characteristic sometimes thought to be uniquely human and nonmaterial. The theory of mind refers to “the cognitive ability to understand others as intentional agents with their own beliefs and desires.” This may seem to be a purely human, abstract concept. Recent research however, has suggested that there are nerve cells that fire when others are observed engaging in an activity. These mirror neurons are not unique to humans, they were first discovered in monkeys, and play a role in language acquisition, music, and more. Again the difference between humans and other animals appears to be a difference of degree rather than kind.

Embodied mind and consciousness. Not only is it difficult to draw a line separating distinctively human traits and characteristics from those of animals, it is also increasingly clear that all of these human characteristics are rooted in our physical, material, bodies. Everything, including thoughts, perceptions, decision making ability, empathy and more, is traceable to biological responses characterized by physics and chemistry. Dr. Green summarizes this embodiment, and asks what it means for the concept of the soul.

If the capacities traditionally allocated to the “soul” – for example, consistency of memory, consciousness, spiritual experience, the capacity to make decisions on the basis of self-deliberation, planning and action on the basis of that decision, and taking responsibility for these decisions and actions – have neural basis, then the concept of “soul,” as traditionally understood in theology as a person’s “authentic self,” seems redundant. (p. 45)

The realization of the material embodiedness of human existence does not mean that humans are nothing but chemistry and physics; a carefully balanced set of reactions. Nor does it mean that scientists are forming a united front intent on reducing human existence to nothing but materialism. Dr. Green summarizes:

This does not mean that neuroscientists ans neurophilosophers are unanimous in their reducing humanity to their brains or bodies; rather, many, in urging that humans are more than their physicality, simply refuse to identify that “something more” with an ontologically distinctive entity such as a “soul” or “spirit.” (p. 46)

In the next post we will look at the biblical material that touches on the nature of what it means to be human and how this relates to the concept of the soul.

If everything we think and do can be traced to physical and chemical processes in biology – the electrical signals of neurons in response to sight, sound, taste, smell, touch – what is the role for, or essence of, the human soul?

**********

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Being Human 2

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/12/being-human-2-rjs/

by RJS

May 12, 2011

On Tuesday I began a series on Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. Over the course of the next few months, once or twice a week, I will work through the questions raised by Green on the nature of humanity in the context of scripture, theology, and modern neuroscience.

The view that humans are composed of a physical material body and a separate immaterial soul is the default position for most Christians. This dualist view is increasingly difficult to reconcile with improved understanding of biology, biochemistry, and neuroscience. I’ve posted on some of this before. The posts can be found through the Science and Faith Archive on the sidebar – scroll down to the heading Science, Faith, and Being Human. Dr. Green gives definitions for some of the important concepts and terms at play in the discussion of the nature of humanity. The two extreme positions are:

Reductive Materialism has it that the human person is a physical (or material) organism, whose emotional, moral, and religious experiences will ultimately and decisively be explained by the natural sciences. People are nothing but the product of organic chemistry. (p. 30)

and

Radical Dualism advocates the view that the soul (or mind) is separable from the body, having no necessary relation to the body, with the human person identified with the soul. … in this view the soul acts apart from bodily processes and the body is nothing more than a temporary and disposable holding tank (or shell) for the soul. (p. 31)

I’ll give some intermediate options after the jump.

Where would you put your position on the continuum between these two poles? Closer to reductive materialism or radical dualism?

There are a number of positions between the extremes of reductive materialism and radical dualism.

Wholistic dualism … a form of substance dualism, but posits that the human person, though composed of discrete elements, is nonetheless to be identified with the whole which, then, constitutes a functional unity. (p. 31)

Various forms of monism are also defended from a Christian perspective.

…the monists with whom I am concerned argue that the phenomenological experiences that we label “soul” are neither reducible to brain activity nor evidence of a substantial, ontological entity such as a “soul,” but rather represent essential aspects or capacities of the self. (p. 31)

These four terms form a basis for the discussion that will come in future posts. There is another important aspect of human existence that we should consider before moving on though.

Individual vs Community. The witness of the bible in both the Old and New Testaments is to an embodied existence of humans, humans always considered as in relationship to God, and humans who are always considered in the context of human community. The cultural blinders like those that impact interpretation of body and soul in scripture also impact interpretation of the communal nature of personhood.

Given the strength of Cartesian categories and the experience of many since the Enlightenment, it is perhaps not surprising to see the degree to which humanity has come to be understood “one person at a time,” so to speak. This is not biblical faith however. Although biblical faith would naturally resist any suggestion that our humanity can be reduced to our physicality, it also challenges those, past and present, who insist that the human person can ever be understood on individual terms.

Thus a consideration of the nature of humanity in the bible in the context of modern neuroscience must deal with both the embodied nature of humans and the relational nature of humans. This impacts the understanding of eschatology, salvation, and mission. As a people we are much more than a collection of individuals.

Dr. Green considers poses several questions that highlight the relational nature of humanity and this impact this may have on our understanding of the biblical view of humanity. These questions can help shape the discussion today.

How should we understand salvation? Does salvation entail a focus on the inner state of individual human souls?

To what extent should the mission of the church focus on the soulish needs of persons, on society-at-large, or on the cosmos?

*********

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Being Human 1

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/10/being-human-1-rjs/

by RJS

May 10, 2011

About a year ago I promised (and intended) to read and post on Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. Other topics and time constraints interfered and this book was pushed further down the line. This summer, however, provides a good opportunity for digging into the book. Over the course of the next few months, once or twice a week, I will work through the questions raised by Green on the nature of humanity in the context of scripture, theology, and modern neuroscience.

The view that humans are composed of a physical material body and a separate immaterial soul is the default position for most Christians. This dualist view is increasingly difficult to reconcile with improved understanding of biology, biochemistry, and neuroscience. I’ve posted on some of this before. The posts can be found through the Science and Faith Archive on the sidebar – scroll down to the heading Science, Faith, and Being Human. The challenge to the dualist view is not simply scientific though. Study of the context of the old and new testaments suggests that the dualist view of humanity is foreign to the text, coming in large part from the Greek context of early Christians.

Joel B. Green is Professor of New Testament interpretation and Associate Dean for the Center for Advanced Theological Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. Before that he served on the faculty and administration of Asbury Theological Seminary. When Joel Green became interested in the questions of body and soul he responded by pursuing the topic from biblical, theological, philosophical, and scientific directions. Although trained in New Testament, he began graduate work in neuroscience at the University of Kentucky. While I don’t believe he completed a degree before moving to Fuller, he has a more complete perspective on the topic than many theologians or philosophers. In order to engage the topic fully it is necessary to understand the arguments from a variety of different perspectives.

From the product description:

Exploring what Scripture and theology teach about issues such as being in the divine image, the importance of community, sin, free will, salvation, and the afterlife, Joel Green argues that a dualistic view of the human person is inconsistent with both science and Scripture. This wide-ranging discussion is sure to provoke much thought and debate.

The question here is not does science undermine the Christian understanding of persons? but rather what is the biblical view of persons? This leads to a corollary question: how do we integrate the biblical understanding of persons with the scientific understanding of persons? Dr. Green’s book provides an excellent starting point for this discussion.

What is the biblical view of persons?

Do humans consist of a separable material body and immaterial soul? What does this mean?

The first chapter of Body, Soul, and Human Life lays the ground work for engagement with the questions involving the nature of humanity.

Dr. Green begins with a sketch of recent developments in theological thinking about body and soul, the use of the Greek words soma and psyche in the NT, and traditional theologies of the soul beginning with the early church fathers. In the late second century, ca. 200 AD, there is clear evidence for a theology which separates body and soul. Green gives evidence for the early understanding of the church by citing the The Epistle to Diognetus (late second century) which contains statements like “the soul lives in the body, but it does not belong to the body” and “the soul is imprisoned in the body, but it sustains the body” and Tertullian in his Treatise on the Soul (ca. 203 AD).

On the other hand, it is not clear that this idea of a duality to human substance is present in the New Testament and it seems virtually certain that it is not an Old Testament concept. As a result modern theologians and biblical scholars have been moving away from the traditional dualist position. It is necessary to carefully consider the biblical texts to determine what is taught and what is presumed about the nature of human persons.

Why Science Matters.

Dr. Green then moves into a discussion of the relevance of science to the discussion of body and soul. Some Christians will deny that science has anything to contribute to our understanding of the soul and the nature of persons. If science is opposed to the existence of a soul, then science must simply be wrong. Christian understanding trumps science. Many bristle at the idea that modern science could or should have a place at the table serving as a source for development of a Christian theology of persons (or creation, or anything else). Dr. Green suggests that this results from a poor understanding of the development of Christian thought in the first place. “Science” or more precisely cultural understandings of the nature of persons has always shaped Jewish and Christian thinking about the body and the soul.

The most simple reply is that science already informs exegesis; it is only a question on which science or whose, good science or bad. (p. 21)

And a little later he lays this out quite clearly:

Epistemologically, we cannot bypass the reality that, whether acknowledged or not, natural science is and has always been part of our worldview – recognizing, of course, that “natural science” takes forms and follows protocols today that in many of its particulars would hardly be recognizable to Babylonian, Egyptian, or Greek scientists and natural philosophers. The question is not whether science will influence exegesis (or vice versa) since the two, science and religion, have interacted and continue to interact in a far more organic way than is typically acknowledged. As a consequence, from a historical perspective, it is virtually impossible to extricate one influence from the other, or chronologically to prioritize on vis-à-vis the other. This is true in regard to the science presumed of the biblical writers. It is also true of the science presumed of biblical interpreters and theologians from the second century onward. We have before us a long history of interpreters of biblical texts who have engaged those texts on the basis of "scientific views" of the human person pervasive in the worlds of those interpreters (irrespective of their currency in antiquity or today). (pp. 24-25)

We cannot separate bible from culture.

It is not possible to separate extrabiblical and biblical sources for understanding and teaching in the church. These are always intertwined. There is also no reason to assume that God’s revelation, in relationship with his creatures, reflects a more perfect or a less perfect understanding of the material nature of human persons localized at any one ancient point in time. Rather, to return to a framework that came up in our discussion of Denis Lamoureux’s book Evolutionary Creation, many aspects of the cultural context, including the understanding of “natural science”, is incidental to the purpose of the text. We err when we allow a particular scientific rendering of the text, whether that of the original human authors or that of later interpreters, to, as Dr. Green puts it, masquerade as “timeless truth”.

Awareness of the situation of both biblical texts and biblical interpretations in time and place, cultural context, provides an important insight into the message found in the text.

Hermeneutically, then, my point is that deliberately locating our interpretive work in relation to science does not necessitate our reading contemporary science back into the ancient texts in a gross form of anachronism, nor that it subject biblical interpretation to the ebb and flow of scientific discovery. We have no need to imagine that the ancients, even the biblical writers, had it right with respect to the role of cerebral spinal fluid or the ventricular cavities. (They were wrong on both accounts.) Rather, doing exegesis in an age of science increases our awareness of the scientific assumptions of the third or fourth or even eighteenth centuries that have already shaped the history of interpretation – and that have the potential to set artificial parameters for our own reading of the biblical texts. (p. 28)

Dr. Green suggests that reading the text with an eye toward science, particularly in the case relevant to this book the neurosciences, as with reading from other specific perspectives (poverty, injustice, persecution, suffering, calvinism, sovereignty of God, freedom, etc.) can allow questions to surface that would have otherwise remained unasked and unanswered. We must take care not to allow some pet perspective to dictate all we find in scripture, but looking at the text through new eyes, from a different perspective, can be illuminating.

In this context Dr. Green poses the question:

What is the effect of studying biblical anthropology in today’s context of scientific inquiry?

This is a good place to stop and start a conversation.

What do you think? Should science inform our understanding of the nature of human life?

How do we distinguish the role played by presumptions of culture – either ancient near eastern culture or the culture of later interpreters – from the revelation of God in scripture?

*********

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.