Many things we have learned contradicts much of what we previously thought about the mind.  For example, it is quite common and sensible to believe that we come into the world with minds that are essentially “blank slates,” and that what we know is written on those slates by experience alone.  But that view appears to be wrong.

The human mind consists of a variety of distinct and interacting mental tools, each of which comes pre-loaded with some quite specific content and some processing algorithms.  For example, it is now clearly demonstrated that human beings are naturally endowed with what we might reasonably describe as innate beliefs and innate cognitive processors.

On the belief side, developmental psychologists have identified numerous domains of understanding that are native to us, such as folk physics, folk biology, folk psychology, agency detection tendencies, and so on. What these discoveries seem to show is that our minds are pre-disposed to come to think about the world in very specific ways—ways that are determined by the kinds of minds we have.

So it looks like from birth, or rather through a regular and maturationally natural process, we have dispositions for form beliefs in the following domains.

“Folks Physics”:

• Objects move on inertial paths
• Objects cannot move through other objects
• Objects must move through space
• Objects must be supported

“Folk Psychology”:

• Agents act to satisfy desires
• Agents have beliefs

“Folk Biology”:

• Animals bear young similar to themselves
• Living things need nutrients

In addition to these innate dispositions toward certain kinds of beliefs, we also seem to have cognitive mechanisms that dispose us to crunch sensory inputs in specific ways. We might call these “innate cognitive processors.” Examples of these would include things like contagion avoidance and agency detection.

Contagion avoidance is a natural aversion human beings share to things like dead bodies, animal waste and vomit, rotting food, etc. These things “gross us out” from a very early age.  Indeed, the aversions we have towards them pre-date any data we might come to possess that would lead us to judge them dangerous.  We are also repelled by them in ways that are independent of other aversive stimuli like smell (that is, you can’t explain this aversion by noting that people are scared off because of an unpleasant odor since studies show that the aversions are independent of that).

A second processor is our Agency Detection Device. Here, psychologists have identified a cognitive processor that seems to pre-dispose us to form beliefs in the reality and presence of (sometimes invisible!) agents under certain conditions. In these cases, when we look for the cause of certain events, motions, sounds, or structures, we are disposed to think that it was caused by a someone rather than by a something. Our ADD appears to be hypersensitive.  It is very good at detecting agency, and in fact is more likely to generate false positives than false negatives.  This is often referred to as our hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD), and may be reflected in manifold attributions of ghosts, fairies, forest spirits, and even personalities of machines!

In sum, psychologists have shown that our initial presumption about the contents of our mind was wrong. Our minds are not blank slates, but processing devices that come endowed with a complex operating system.

Many are quick to point out that this should not be surprising.  When we look across times and cultures and find very similar beliefs concerning the nature of physical, biological, and psychological reality, those similarities cry out for some explanation. Since these diverse individuals have a very wide range of experience, something other than, or in addition to, common experience would seem to account for the similarities of belief. And so it is natural to conclude that there is some fundamental similarity among human minds that explains it. And recent empirical evidence has in fact confirmed this conclusion.

One type of belief that is pervasive across times and cultures is religious belief.  One is thus led to wonder whether those sorts of beliefs are among those that we are naturally disposed to believe.  One New Zealand religion scholar, Joseph Bulbulia, argues that the emerging consensus is yes: “The view of mind expressed by Descartes as composed of innate understandings given in advance of any experience has been thoroughly vindicated after sixty years of cognitive psychology. It may be that Descartes will be shown correct on another score, namely that knowledge of the Divinity is imprinted on every mind [as well]”

Bulbulia’s remark invites us to entertain three key questions:

• Is there any evidence that we are naturally disposed to religion?
• How do we explain the origin of these dispositions?
• What are the implications of such explanations for belief itself?

These will be explored in the next post.

“This is 2,300 year old wisdom from the Book of Ecclesiastes that seems to very concisely understand the water cycle. That water evaporates from the ocean, gets stored in the atmosphere via clouds, comes down as snow or rain, and when it comes down on the mountain it’s often stored there, as snow is gathered via groundwater, streams, and rivers, and then through the river, returns to the ocean, again. What a beautiful, complex, interdependent, wonderfully mysterious way of providing water, life to the land … But what does this beautiful system teach us, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, about who we are? What is your word, God, about this river, that runs through the center of where we live?”

In this sermon, Pastor Jon Van Sloten of New Hope Church in Calgary, Alberta, describes how he set out to learn where the water from the Bow River, near their home in the Rocky Mountains, actually comes from. He interviewed scientists who study hydrology and have learned a curious truth about how this particular river keeps a steady flow the full year round. This modulating geophysical “safeguard,” which allows the Rocky Mountains to hold water and let it out at a slow trickle rather than a deluge during the annual snowmelt, speaks to Van Sloten of God’s grace at work in the world—grace we can’t see with the naked eye, but is there all the same.

Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Caroll

Theology once held a seat of high regard among the sciences. During the Middle Ages theology was the Queen of the Sciences, and it sat enthroned at the core of academic studies throughout Europe. Many of the great European universities developed from the cathedral schools where theology was the nucleus around which all other study revolved and found its meaning.

The reason for this position of favor was that theology was discussion about – or the study of – God himself. In God, believers found their purpose and very existence. Therefore, God was not a position to be reasoned to; rather, reason flowed from one’s understanding of who God is and his relationship to humanity.

As Queen, theology’s function was not to discover all the answers herself but rather to encourage the other subjects – her subjects – to pursue truth. Math should discover that 2+2=4; biology should discover the mechanism of creation; psychology should discover the role of parent bonding in childhood development; but it was the role of the Queen to give meaning to the truths of her subjects.

In other words, 2+2=4 neither proves nor disproves the Creator, but theology – a profound belief in the Creator – sees the beauty in the ordered world around us. Theology and math are not the same. They answer different questions. But they are not completely separate answers; together they form a more complete answer to each of their individual questions. To quote Stephen Jay Gould, they are “nonoverlapping magesteria” to be certain, but they are also “interdigitating in wondrously complex ways along their joint border. Many of our deepest questions call upon aspects of both for different parts of a full answer” (Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria,” Natural History 106 (March 1997).

It is unfortunate that Gould’s later explanation of these nonoverlapping magesteria left so little room for theology; in a sense, banishing the Queen almost completely to the hinterlands of the academic kingdom. The image of these nonoverlapping magesteria “interdigitating in wondrously complex ways,” however, is still worth considering. This image serves as a reminder that one should not reason from God or theological perspectives to mathematical principles or scientific theories anymore than one should reason from mathematical principles or scientific theories to the existence of God or the non-existence of God. In their “interdigitating,” however, in the beautiful harmonies between theology and the other sciences a fuller answer is given – an answer that provides not only facts but also meaning.

Unfortunately, the history of theology’s reign through the ages is questionable at best. The Queen far too often hampered instead of encouraged the pursuit of truth by her subjects. Today, many put the Queen at direct odds with her subjects, and this has led to a comical and tragic caricature of theology in our current society – a Queen who settles all difficulties, great or small, with the same solution, without bothering to look around, and by yelling, “Off with their heads.”

As Christians, who care deeply for the pursuit of truth, we cannot – and must not – attempt to restore theology to a place of prestige by destroying the work of her subjects or by belittling the work of those who practice them. We must not attempt to settle every difficulty between theology and the other sciences by calling for the heads of others to roll while we bury our own heads in the sand.

Rather, as theologians, whether professional or lay, we must assist theology to ascend to her throne as Queen of the Sciences by encouraging the pursuit of truth in all fields wherever they lead, by humbly entering into discussion with her subjects concerning the truth they discover, and by proclaiming the Truth that gives meaning to all truth – Jesus Christ, our Lord.

George Murphy notes that while the science and theology dialogue has grown considerably in the past 30 years, much of it remains at an academic level. While it provides an important foundation, that alone is not going to do the job that the church needs it to do—to come out in Christian education in parishes, in preaching, in pastoral care, in the social action of the church.

During his seminary education, Dr. Murphy also gained a deeper understanding of Luther’s theology of the cross, and he realized that it’s really the best way to approach the science and theology dialogue. The theology of the cross helps us deal not only with an issue like evolution, and but more generally with the whole question of how God acts in the world and how we know God.

Most science and theology dialogue is restricted to discussion of creation and origins. But at the core of the Gospel of is not simply the doctrine of creation—it’s salvation, it’s the work of Christ in saving humanity and in saving the whole creation.

First posted April 29, 2012

1. We are a world that longs for goodness and beauty, whether we are believers or not.

2. The data from emerging neuroscience and attachment research points us to a world of goodness and beauty.

3. This same data reflects and energizes the biblical narrative. Creation itself points us to the very story God is telling.

4. One of the most integral processes—that helps us get to truth and beauty—involves the changing (and renewal) of our minds. The renewal of our minds is a subset of the renewal of everything. God is on a mission of complete renewal, albeit on his timetable.

In this mission for renewal, one of the most important aspects is the interpersonal experience of being known. We change primarily not by what we know, but by how we are known. We live in a culture that is really good at knowing things, but not so good at being known.

5. Our first reaction is likely to be, “How will knowing this stuff change me?” But the biblical narrative is not just about us as individuals, it is about a world of mercy and justice. In order for us to have mercy and justice, we don’t do it primarily as individuals, we do it as institutions. God’s renewal is not just about changing us, it is about changing everything.

See part 2 for the second half of Dr. Thompson's presentation

Is it possible to fully understand and practice Scripture without connecting with science? If science reveals God’s attributes, how can we fully relate to Him without some ongoing reference to the information revealed in scientific inquiry? Even more specifically, as preaching pastors, how many are we excluding if we ignore important facets of our congregations’ worldviews?

Now in a collaborative environment like this, it is easy to stay on an intellectual level. But we are pastors who are practitioners, so let me speak personally to get the discussion into the realm of the church world and what may or may not work for you. Some 27 years ago, while exploring whether or not to go to pastor Northland Church, I sensed I’d found kindred spirits when reading in its philosophy of ministry:

People are not just to be understood as sinners but as beings greatly affected by the bodies and physical world they inhabit.

How then would I best address that physical world in the context of understanding its value to our spiritual formation?

Different Approaches to Scripture and Science

Since the sermon is the main component used to build the congregation’s collective approach to understanding how the church relates to the world, I want to take a few moments to lay out what has worked in my preaching and what has not when it comes to science and more specifically the subject of evolution:

1. I decided on a hermeneutical approach. How would God’s patterns in creation published in scientific findings inform my understanding of Scripture?

• I would not use the “Science and Faith are in conflict” (J.W. Draper/A.D. White¹) approach, since I am neither a fundamentalist nor someone whom would wish to violate the spirit of those who penned Scripture who understood God to be over all the world, both hill and Temple (Psalm 24:1-10).
• I would not use S.J. Gould’s² “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” approach, which “ghettoizes” both science and faith. To say one only answers “how” and the other only answers “why” is to miss the richness of both.
• I would not use Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s³ or Ian Barbour’s³ “Integration / Unity” approach, since such an approach requires extensive knowledge of both science and theology and almost inevitably leads to process theology.
• I would use the “Dialogue” (W.G. Pollard⁵) approach, since it emphasizes insight and investigation rather than answers, thereby leading to a sense of wonder and worship. Such an approach minimizes the hubris of knowledge (that will almost certainly pass away) and the hostility toward different perspectives.

2. I decided on a related-referential model rather than an issue-oriented one.

• Any model chosen must fit the personal style of the preacher or it will become uncomfortable and soon unused. I am more the Columbo/sloppy trench coat, “Oh that reminds me…one more thing…” investigator rather than a “light bulb hanging over the head breaking down your resistance” kind of confronter. So I use science as “now what do you make of that?” kind of illustration rather than an argument for my perspective.
• The model must also fit the personality of the church. In our church issue-oriented subjects must be taught in classes or small groups where people have the chance to question/comment in ways not usually done in response to sermons.

3. Our church has decided that being a witness of the incarnate Christ means engaging, and learning from, the world as it is presently.

• Following God’s example in Christ is entering into the world and serving in all its realms: spiritual, emotional, physical, and social.
• Christ used the common knowledge people already had (much of it from nature) to reveal God.

Recognizing Cultural Perspectives

Having laid out what seems like a tidy approach, I will now recognize the difficulties I have experienced, as a pastor, pertaining to evolution, for understandable but remediable reasons. The church has a particular culture that prevents fully engaging science.

1. Most in a congregation do not decouple or differentiate the belief in a philosophy of random and purposeless evolution from the instances of incremental improvements that may point ultimately to an Organizing Principal.
2. Most have not been taught the literary genre distinctions between the writings of Genesis 1 and a science textbook.
3. Most have not considered the possibility that Adam and Eve may not have been uniquely and separately physically created for their sole role in the beginning of human kind. They need alternatives involving figures that do not contradict the point of the narrative.
4. Most have not considered the complementary nature of the Biblical narrative of redemption out of death and the evolutionary one.

To be sure, when a pastor addresses the alternatives, or even makes an explanatory reference using evolution, that pastor can expect a variation of this conversation I had with a parishioner (who walked out during a sermon) a little over a year ago:

____________, I know I upset you with the reference I made to evolution. You have been listening to my teaching for many years. I hope you know by now how the high view of Scripture as the final source of truth and authority I hold and this church holds. 'Well, I thought I did but now I am not so sure,' answered this lady who has been trying to get Ken Hamm to our church for some years. You know I would never do anything to lessen the importance of Scripture. 'Pastor, when you confess evolution, you not only make a liar out of Scripture, you become the reason young people are not following God and are living lives without regard to the Bible, and are in some cases committing suicide.'

This woman is not an unintelligent person. She is a professional nurse and is leading in a mission organization. She was just scared. Happily, she is still in the church and has decided after some more reflection that maybe I do not want to lead young people into orgies and death after all.

Summary Thoughts

In 1632 Galileo warned his fellow believers of a trap they were walking into by resisting the conclusions of a scientific investigation:

Take note, theologians, that in your desire to make matters of faith out of propositions relating to the fixity of sun and earth you run the risk of eventually having to condemn as heretics those who would declare the earth to stand still and the sun to change position--eventually, I say, at such a time as it might be physically or logically proved that the earth moves and the sun stands still.⁶

We would do well to be the church learning God’s truth as discovered by scientists, not resisting its discomfort or its perceived threat to our traditional interpretations of Scripture.

We worship a God of history, and references to our physical world fit well, given some time, into our metaphysical journey. One only has to look at the Old and New Testaments to see how central the elements of creation are to understanding the activity, and thus the “nature” of God. The references are not simply meant to be objective facts; they are to open the door to vistas beyond. If postmodernism has made us aware of the illusion of pure objectivity, then it has also taught us something of the value of pre-modernism, where the lines between the physical and spiritual are connecting points.

Of course nature is not prescriptive, nor does it present comprehensive pictures of God’s personality. One of the most intellectually capable scientists I know does not believe in God because of his observations of ants organizing slave colonies. It offends his sense of egalitarianism. Talk about making a mountain out of an anthill! Theologizing from particular scientific observations is hyper-interpretive.

Yet, as all creation was made by and for Him (Colossians 1:16-17), when it comes to the insights that may be offered by scientific information (especially evolution) it is difficult for those who have been given a modicum of faith not to see the possibility of:

• An Organizing Principle
• An Orchestrated Similarity among the physical, personal, social, and spiritual realms
• An increased ability and likelihood to respond to the outside world in ways that benefit all
• Redeeming relationships involving sacrifice, not all of which are initially positive or intentional (Romans 8:28)
• Problematic instances that would seem to negate the idea of a loving kind Creator may be a part of a more positive trend.
• Greater confidence, as a result of faith, in uncontrollable circumstances being used for good eventually

My goal as a pastor is to equip the saints in my sphere of influence to see Christ and to worship Him. If those in my influence only can see God in Scripture, then they are half blind. But if we together can help each other see the unfolding redemptive purposes of every realm - of scientific inquiry, of business practice, of artistic expression, of church/family support for every individual in every field of endeavor – then we will be not only 20-20 but 3-D in every direction!

Of course, such a result will require a more comprehensive approach in preaching. And such comprehension will require a continuing dialogue with those who can help us see the truth from different perspectives.

Notes

1. John William Draper, A History of Conflict Between Religion and Science, 1874; Andrew Dickson White, History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1894.
2. Stephen Jay Gould, Rock of Ages, 1999.
3. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, 1959.
4. Ian Barbour, Religion and Science, 1997.
5. William G. Pollard, Physicist and Christian: a dialogue between the communities, 1961.
6. Galileo Galilei, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 1632.

Let me be clear. I do not reject dualism on account of any kind of philosophical or other kind of argument. In fact, I find many arguments against dualism—philosophical and otherwise—to be pretty weak specimens. I’m what a friend calls an antecedent materialist. In other words, I come to the discussion assuming I am a physical object, since that is what I have always seemed to myself to be for as long as I can remember. A non-physical soul doesn’t explain anything about consciousness that cannot be explained without it, and it is furthermore a wholly unnecessary hypothesis for many religious doctrines, despite intuitions to the contrary by many religious believers. For example, belief in an afterlife, belief in the peculiarly Christian idea of the incarnation of Christ, as well as the belief that we human beings bear the image of God—none requires belief in a non-physical soul in order to be made sense of. So until I am confronted with some knock-down, drag-out argument to the contrary, or until I am presented with some phenomena that cannot be accounted for in naturalistic terms or, yet again, until I have something resembling a conversion experience that forces me to renounce my physicalism, I'm sticking with it.

To go a bit further, let’s consider several theological doctrines that seem to cut against a physicalist conception of human personhood. These constitute perhaps the three most common objections Christian physicalists receive to their physicalism. After I address these objections, I will say a little more about the content of my own physicalist conception of human persons, The Constitution View. Perhaps in a future post I can say a little bit about the science of consciousness itself and address some of the most common objections to physicalism based on that mysterious phenomenon.

Theological Objections to Physicalism about Humans

The Incarnation of Christ

The doctrine of the incarnation of Christ is a central tenet of Christianity, and it may seem that the doctrine is inconsistent with a physicalist conception of human personhood. Yet I believe a physicalist view of human persons—like my own—actually makes better sense of the incarnation than does dualism. Let me explain.

The putative problem for the physicalist is this: if God (or the second person of the Trinity in particular) is essentially a non-physical being, then how could such a being become purely physical without losing an essential property? And if the second person of the Trinity loses an essential property, then wouldn’t he not simply cease to be fully God but simply cease to exist? (An essential property is a property a thing has and can’t lack without ceasing to exist. For example, my dog has the property of being a canine. He can’t lose that property without ceasing to exist—he is essentially a canine.)

Well, according to the Chalcedonian formulation, the incarnate Christ is one Person with two natures, a fully divine nature (that of the Second Person of the Trinity) and a fully human nature (that of Jesus from Nazareth). The Constitution View I hold divides things just where one would expect—between the human nature and the divine nature of the single person. And keep in mind, by the way, that the person of Christ is not human; he is divine, being the second person of the Trinity. But this one person, in the incarnation, had two natures--human and divine. In this understanding of the dual natures, Christ is wholly non-physical in his divine nature and wholly physical in his human nature. Now consider the somewhat-awkward cleavage Substance Dualists must offer. According to Substance Dualism, Christ is wholly non-physical in his divine nature and partly physical and partly non-physical in his human nature. Not especially elegant. To my mind, far from being unable to accommodate the doctrine of the incarnation, my physicalist view of human persons is actually better able to explain the doctrine than is dualism.

Notice that if what I said above is true, the way this objection is often put contains an important mistake in assuming that the second person of the Trinity ceased to be something he was apart from the incarnation. Indeed, the second person of the Trinity did not become purely physical (or even partly physical!). The second person of the Trinity did not give up non-physicality in the incarnation. Remember: one person (Divine and non-physical) with not one but (in the incarnation) two natures—one non-physical, the other physical. How can that be? I don’t have the slightest idea; but, the mystery of the incarnation is not explained away by any account, be it dualist or physicalist.

The Imago Dei

Now, what of the imago Dei or image of God? If it’s true that we human persons are wholly physical beings—as any version of physicalism must claim—then what does it now mean to say that we have been created in God’s image? Doesn’t having been created in the image of God just mean having a non-physical soul and the features of intellect, will and emotion that characterize soul? I do not believe that our having been created in the image of God means that we are non-physical as God is non-physical. What then does it mean?

Well, there are many ways of understanding the claim that we human beings image God. One might mean that we image God when we care for Creation and contribute to the terrestrial flourishing of the Created order. This, after all, is what the Bible means when it speaks of our having been given “dominion”. We are God’s vice-regents, as it were. To have dominion is to care for others, including non-human “others” like oceans and streams, octopus and salamander; in other words to have dominion is tend to the well being of all the earth. Second, one might mean that we image God when we live in loving relation to other human beings and invest ourselves in their flourishing and well being. For we are essentially persons-in-relation. Since God is a Trinity, it is not surprising that we should image God in virtue of our essentially social nature. The tenor of the relation between the three persons of the trinity is one of a harmonious and free exchange of love and joy. So engaging in acts of mercy, hospitality, love, kindness, etc. is to act like God. In fact, we image God when we image Jesus, who welcomed the outcast, fed the hungry, clothed the naked, hated evil and delighted in doing the work of the Father. Finally, one might claim that we image God in our suffering. God is love. To love is to open oneself up to suffering. And suffering love is God-love.

Now of course none of these ways that I have mentioned that we image God rules out the possibility that we are wholly or partly non-physical beings; but it doesn’t imply it either. The fact that we have been created in the image of God is perfectly compatible with the claim that we are wholly physical beings. Indeed, there is nothing in the doctrine of the imago Dei, rightly understood, that entails a dualist view of human nature.

But even if neither the doctrine of the incarnation nor the doctrine of humanity as reflecting the imago Dei require that we be at least partially non-physical beings, what about the issue of life after death? I’ll address that third challenge to a Christian physicalism tomorrow.

Yet it doesn’t follow that we are mere animals, and our rationality is what sets us apart from the rest of the genus. Indeed, for Aristotle, and for Aquinas after him, rationality is unlike our other capacities in having an essentially immaterial and non-bodily aspect. The reason has to do with our capacity to form abstract concepts, which underlies all our other distinctively rational activities. It is because you can grasp what it is to be a man -- not just this particular man or that one, but any possible man, man as a universal -- that you can go on to form judgments like the judgment that all men are mortal, can reason from that judgment together with the judgment that Socrates is a man to the conclusion that Socrates is mortal, and so forth.

There are several arguments that establish that this capacity for abstract thought cannot in principle be reduced to or otherwise entirely explained in terms of brain activity, even if brain activity is part of the story. The arguments have their roots in Plato and Aristotle and have been defended in recent years by Aristotelian philosophers like Mortimer Adler, John Haldane, David Oderberg, and James Ross.¹ Answering the various objections to (and misunderstandings of) these arguments takes some work, but the basic idea can be set out fairly simply.²

Let us take as an example the thought that triangles have three sides. For that thought (or any other) plausibly to be material, it would have to be identifiable with something like a symbol or set of symbols encoded in the brain -- something analogous to the symbols encoded in the electronic circuitry of a computer. But there is no way a thought could be entirely reducible to that sort of thing. For no material symbol could possibly have the determinate or unambiguous content that at least many of our concepts have; and no material symbol could possibly have the universal reference that our concepts have.

Consider the most unambiguous symbol of triangularity there could be -- a picture of a triangle, such as the one to the right. Now, does this picture represent triangles in general? Or only isosceles triangles? Or only small isosceles triangles drawn in black ink? Or does it really even represent triangles in the first place? Why not take it instead to represent a dinner bell, or an arrowhead? There is nothing in the picture itself that can possibly tell you. Nor would any other picture be any better. Any picture would be susceptible of various interpretations, and so too would anything you might add to the picture in order to explain what the original picture was supposed to represent. In particular, there is nothing in the picture in question or in any other picture that entails any determinate, unambiguous content. And even in the best case there is nothing that could make it a representation of triangles in general as opposed to a representation merely of small, black, isosceles triangles specifically. For the picture, like all pictures, has certain particularizing features -- a specific size and location, black lines as opposed to blue or green ones, an isosceles as opposed to scalene or equilateral shape -- that other things do not have.

Now what is true of this “best case” sort of symbol is even more true of linguistic symbols. There is nothing in the word “triangle” that determines that it refers to all triangles or to any triangles at all. Its meaning is entirely conventional; that that particular set of shapes (or the sounds we associate with them) have the significance they do is an accident of the history of the English language. But something similar could be said of any material symbols whatever. Even if we regarded them as somehow having a built-in meaning or content, they would not have the universality or determinate content of our concepts, any more than the physical marks making up the word “triangle” or a picture of a triangle do. But then the having of a concept cannot merely be a matter of having a certain material symbol encoded in the brain, even if that is part of what it involves. Nor can it merely be a matter of having a set of material symbols, or a set of material symbols together with certain causal relations to objects and events in the world beyond the brain. For just as with any picture or set of pictures, any set of material elements will be susceptible in principle of alternative interpretations; while at least in many case, our thoughts are not indeterminate in this way.

We might understand the point by analogy with sentences. If you are going to use the English sentence “Snow is white,” you are typically going to have to express it via some material medium -- ink marks, pixels, sound waves, or what have you. All the same, the meaning of that sentence cannot be accounted for in terms of any of the physical properties of those media. There is nothing in the shapes of the letters that make up the words of the sentence, or the chemistry of the ink in which they are written, or the physics of the compression waves in the air that you generate when uttering them, that makes them refer to snow or to whiteness or indeed to anything at all. A sentence is a seamless unity of the material and the immaterial, and it is created by another seamless unity of the material and immaterial -- a human being.

At this point there will no doubt be those who object that positing ectoplasm or spook stuff is hardly a better explanation of thought than an appeal to brain activity is. And that is quite true. But then, I said nothing about ectoplasm or spook stuff in the first place. When a mathematician points out that it is just muddleheaded to speak of the square root of 25 as if it were a kind of physical object, it would be silly to accuse him of believing that the square root of 25 is made out of ectoplasm or spook stuff. If your picture of reality cannot accommodate numbers alongside physical objects, that is your problem, not his. Mathematics simply provides a powerful example of a body of truths that cannot be captured in the language of physics, chemistry, neuroscience, and the like.

Similarly, to point out that whatever a thought is, it cannot in principle be reduced to the physical properties of brain activity, is simply to provide another example of an aspect of reality that cannot be entirely captured in such language. Only if we assume that all of reality must be so captured will this sound odd, but that we should not assume this is, of course, precisely the point. And if we do assume it, we are doing so in the face of the evidence, and not on the basis of the evidence. For it is precisely what we know about thought from our everyday familiarity with it -- such as the fact that it sometimes has a determinate content, and a universal reference -- that tells us that it cannot be entirely material, just as it is what we know about numbers from our everyday familiarity with them that tells us that they cannot be physical objects.

But doesn’t neuroscience show that there is a tight correlation between our thoughts and brain activity? It does indeed. So what? If you smudge the ink you’ve used to write out a sentence or muffle the sounds you make when you speak it, it may be difficult or impossible for the reader or listener to grasp its meaning. It does not follow that the meaning is reducible to the physical or chemical properties of the sentence. Similarly, the fact that brain damage will seriously impair a person’s capacity for thought does not entail that his thoughts are entirely explicable in terms of brain activity.

Aristotle and Aquinas, though they regarded the human intellect as immaterial, would not have been surprised in the least by the findings of modern neuroscience. Indeed, they would have been surprised had neuroscience not turned up the correlations it has. This will sound surprising if you take Descartes as your paradigm of a philosopher who affirms the immateriality of the human mind. But defending Descartes is exactly the reverse of what I have been doing. For it was Descartes who substituted the real, concrete human being -- a seamless unity of the physical and the mental, the bodily and the immaterial -- with a bizarre patchwork of abstractions of his own devising. Materialists have followed him ever since. Materialism is just a riff on Cartesianism, not its opposite. Tomorrow, I’ll explain exactly what I mean.

Notes

1. See Mortimer Adler, Intellect: Mind Over Matter (New York: Collier Books, 1990); J. J. C. Smart and J. J. Haldane, Atheism and Theism, Second edition (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 96-109; David S. Oderberg, “Hylemorphic Dualism,” Social Philosophy and Policy 22 (2005); and James Ross, “Immaterial Aspects of Thought,” Journal of Philosophy 89 (1992).
2. I provide an exposition and defense of such arguments in chapter 7 of my book Philosophy of Mind and chapter 4 of my book Aquinas. An especially detailed exposition and defense can be found in my article “Kripke, Ross, and the Immaterial Aspects of Thought,” forthcoming in the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.

What Is at Stake?

What does it mean to be human? In what ways, if any, is our essential humanity tied to body and soul, mind and brain? This is not the stuff of mere curiosity. A host of pressing issues are at stake:

• Is there anything about humans that our mechanical creations, our innovations in Artificial Intelligence, will be unable to duplicate?
• What view of the human person helps us to find what we want to know about ourselves theologically — about sin, for example, as well as moral responsibility, repentance, and growth in grace?
• Am I free to do what I want? Given what we have learned about brain functioning, how might we understand the “free” in “free will”?
• What portrait of the human person is capable of casting a canopy of sacred worth over human beings, so that we have what is necessary for discourse concerning morality and for ethical practices?
• If humans, like sheep, can be cloned, will the resulting life form be a “person”?
• How should we understand “salvation”? Does salvation entail a denial of the world and embodied life, focusing instead on my “inner person” and on the life to come?
• How ought the church to be extending itself in mission? Mission to what? The spiritual or soulish needs of persons? Society-at-large? The cosmos?
• What happens when we die? What view(s) of the human person is consistent with Christian belief in life-after-death?

For many, and not least for many Christians, what makes a human genuinely human is the identification of the human person with his or her soul. From the second century on, theologians debated the origin of the soul: Are souls created by God ex nihilo at the moment of their infusion into the body? Are body and soul formed together? Are souls preexistent? Indeed, in the late-second century it was clear to many, as the Letter to Diognetus puts it, that “the soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body” (1.27). Traditionally, systematic theology has discussed the uniqueness of humanity in two theological loci: human creation in the divine image and the human possession of a soul. Often these two are reduced to one, with the soul understood as the particular consequence of creation in God’s image.

For persons of faith — Christians included, but many others besides — the idea of a soul separable from the body is not only intuitive but necessary. We have regularly appealed to the soul as proof that humans are not mere animals, and so as a foundation for our views of the sacredness of human life. Moreover, Christians generally have derived from belief in the existence of the soul their affirmation of the human capacity to choose between good and ill. Further, the existence of a nonphysical soul, distinct and separable from the body, is typically regarded as the means by which human identity can cross over the bridge from this life to the next. Indeed, traditional Christian thought has tended to regard the body as frail and finite, the soul as immortal.

But it is the human possession of a “soul” that science now questions. When, as neurobiology and evolutionary psychology increasingly urge, the attributes and capacities traditionally allocated to the human soul are conditioned at point after point by biological processes, on what basis can belief in a soul be maintained? If science is generating “a radically new understanding of what it means to be human,”³ then those of us in the church must prepare ourselves for searching questions about the propriety of Scripture and traditional Christian thought in our talk about humanity, salvation, the end time, and more.

Before we engage too much in worried hand-wringing, however, we should ask whether our situation is so dire. Do these innovations in our understanding of personhood in fact call into question our deepest beliefs as Christians? Interdisciplinary study — with contributions from neuroscience, but also from biblical studies, theological studies, ethics, and philosophy (see “Further Reading,” below) — are demonstrating that emerging scientific portraits of the human person are neither as novel as we might imagine, nor as threatening to the essential tenets of Christian faith.

Biblical Contributions

In the context of current discussion on the nature of the human person, the Christian Scriptures have two primary contributions. First, taken as a whole, the biblical witness is fully congruent with a view of the person that affirms the human being as bio-psycho-spiritual unity. Neurobiological evidence and/or philosophical arguments favoring some form of monism are not at all hostile to the witness of Scripture. Second, we must recognize that the Old and New Testaments do not define the human person in essentialist but above all in relational terms. Put differently, the Bible’s witness to the nature of human life is at once naive and profound. It is naive not in the sense of gullibility or primitiveness, but because it has not worked out in what we may regard as a philosophically satisfying way the nature of embodied existence in life, death, and afterlife. It is profound in its presentation of the human person fundamentally in relational terms, and its assessment of the human being as genuinely human and alive only within the family of humans brought into being by Yahweh and in relation to the God who gives life-giving breath. This non-negotiable biblical insight is being recovered by some scientists today — e.g., by J. Polkinghorne and W.S. Brown, each of whom has urged that the notion of “soul” be recast in relational terms.⁴

We can press further. First, Scripture outlines a series of qualities of the human person that contrast sharply with the “modern self” derived from dualistic portraits. In his Sources of the Self, C. Taylor finds that, for modern folk, personal identity has come to be shaped by such assumptions as self-sufficiency, self-determination, and self-referentiality (“I am who I am”); that persons have an inner self, which is the authentic self; and that self-autonomy and self-legislation are basic to authentic personhood (Harvard University Press, 1989). Without majoring on the notion of a metaphysical entity of the “soul,” Taylor’s analysis nonetheless intimates how modern, personal identity has been cultivated in the garden of anthropological dualism.

In Scripture, however, we find such emphases as the following: 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; an emphasis on external authority — that is, the call to holiness is a call to a human vocation drawn from a vision of Yahweh’s “difference”; and the reality of dualism vis-à-vis good/evil, resident in and manifest both outside and inside a person. The line from a substance dualism that locates personal essence in the “soul” to this vision of personal identity is not easily drawn.

The point is that the construction of personal identity that pervades modernity is at odds with biblical anthropology at almost every turn, while the witness of Scripture and the findings of neuroscience are converging at significant points.

Second, negatively, we err when we imagine that it is the “soul” that distinguishes humanity from non-human creatures. Aristotle is closer to the biblical tradition in his view that the soul is that in virtue of which an organism is alive (On the Soul 2.1 §§412a-413a10). Given this conceptualization, there is no particular reason to limit the idea of “soul” to the human person. Within the Old Testament, “soul” (Hebrew: nepheš) refers to life and vitality — not life in general, but life as instantiated in human persons and animals. Nepheš is not a thing to have but a way to be. To speak of loving God with all of one’s “soul,” then, is to elevate the intensity of involvement of one’s whole being. Accordingly, the Common English Bible gets it right when it translates “the first and greatest commandment” in this way: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37). Morever, in the creation accounts of Genesis 1-2, the Hebrew term used of human beings in 2:7, nepheš, is also used with reference to all sorts of wildlife, to everything “in which there is life (nepheš)” (1:30). This demonstrates incontrovertibly that “soul” (nepheš) is not, under this accounting, a unique characteristic of the human person. Accordingly, one might better translate Genesis 2:7 with reference to the divine gift of life: “the human being became a living person” — or, to quote again from the Common English Bible: “The human came to life.”

Third, thinking still of Genesis 2, it is instructive that the same texts that are silent on the infusion of a human soul into a dust-created body nevertheless distinguish by their use of the term nepheš between a being that has life and lifelessness. This speaks against any dualism that deprecates the body in favor of the soul and against any conceptualization of disembodied human existence in this life or the next. It also contravenes the widely held view that the quality of human life is vested in some thing or quality intrinsic to the individual person and that, in order to speak meaningfully of an afterlife, this “thing” must survive death. The soul does not distinguish human life as human or of particular value, but the graciousness of God does. Scripture situates the human family within the grand narrative of God’s doing; this narrative places a premium on human relatedness to God, humanity, and the cosmos because it is determined by God’s own character; and it is precisely within this narrative that the human creature draws both its value and its reason for being.

Hence, from a vantage point within the biblical narrative, avenues determined by autonomous individualism, interior psychic and/or mental processes, or the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells are mistaken, however well-worn they may have become. Although each of these accounts might appear to support a workable portrait of the human person and of human health, none of these carry us far in our concern to address our deepest human questions about what it means to be fully human.

What does it mean to be human? From a perspective within the biblical narrative, the way forward is marked by an account that rejects the necessity of a separate, metaphysical entity such as a soul to account for human capacities and distinctives; that underscores the material location of the human person in relation to the created order; that refuses to reduce personal identity to our neural equipment but rather emphasizes the personal contribution and relatedness of human beings to the human family and the cosmos; and thus that has as its primary point of beginning and orientation the human in a partnering relationship with God.

Further Reading

• W.S. Brown et al., eds., Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature (Fortress, 1998)
• J.B. Green, Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible (Baker Academic, 2008)
• J.B. Green, ed., What about the Soul? Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology (Abingdon, 2004)
• M.A. Jeeves, ed., Rethinking Human Nature: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Eerdmans, 2011).

Notes

1. P. Churchland, Brain-Wise. MIT Press, 2002: 2
2. S. Blakeselee, “Humanity? Maybe It’s All in the Wiring,” New York Times, 9 December 2003, F1
3. T. Metzinger, “Consciousness Research at the End of the Twentieth Century,” in Neural Correlates of Consciousness: Empirical and Conceptual Questions. ed. T. Metzinger; MIT Press, 2000: p. 6
4. See J. Polkinghorne, “Eschatology: Some Questions and Some Insights from Science,” in The End of the World and the Ends of God. ed. J. Polkinghorne and M. Welker. Trinity Press International, 2000: 29-41 and W. S. Brown, “Cognitive Contributions to Soul,” in Whatever Happened to the Soul? ed. W.S. Brown et al.; Fortress, 1998: 99-125.

I am glad to have the opportunity to dialogue with Dr. John Hammett. In addition to our shared Christian faith and our shared lack of expertise in evolutionary science, we have in common one of our teaching and scholarly foci: the nature of human persons. Dr. Hammett approaches this topic as a trained theologian, whereas I approach it as a philosopher. However, on a topic such as this one, those disciplinary boundaries can get smudged a bit when the discussants approach the matter from the standpoint of a biblically-rooted Christian faith. Indeed the issue is of such importance and complexity that I would welcome continued conversation with Dr. Hammett beyond this initial exchange.

The Christian Scriptures teach that we human beings have been created in God’s image. What does that mean? I am in substantial agreement with Dr. Hammett on this question. While I think that bearing God’s image involves our having or having a potentiality for certain basic psychological capacities that we associate with the term “person”, it has to do even more profoundly with our specific capacity for relationship with God. Indeed, I would go further and say that it is not just our having this capacity that makes us divine ikons, it is also the fact that God has activated this capacity—He has given the precious gift of His self-disclosure to us. Further still, it has an eschatological dimension, based on the revealed promise of a future development and perfection of each of us, and so by implication, of human nature itself, by almighty God. We are in the process of becoming fully human: beyond a descriptive biological or even psychological notion of human nature lies a teleological one—not a telos of nature but of God's loving purposes for us. Despite our unequally born deficits—physical, cognitive, emotional, and moral/spiritual—we are destined for a fuller, supernatural realization of our common nature.

That we are in these ways God’s image bearers is a (wonderful!) teaching of our faith. The Scriptures also speak in various places of the human “soul.” The idea of the soul seems clearly connected to the idea that we are divine ikons. But here we should tread carefully. It is of course not unique to the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures to use some such singular term to refer to that which is most distinctively human and that by virtue of which we are able to survive the death and decay of our bodies. But it is one thing to use the term as a kind of placeholder for whatever it is about us that enables us to be, feel, and act in distinctively human ways in this life and to survive death into the next; it is another thing to link the term to a specific metaphysical account of the matter, such as might say whether the soul is a kind of thing or substance, what kind of thing it is, and exactly how “it” relates to the human “body.”

It is (and always has been) very common for Christians to invest the term “soul” as it used in Scripture with such a metaphysical account. As these fellow Christians understand it, when the Bible speaks of my soul, it is referring to an immaterial substance that is, in the final analysis, the thing that I am. I have my body (by interacting directly with it and only with it among physical objects), but I am my soul. Many will add that, after my death and prior to the resurrection of the dead, I will exist in a completely disembodied state—a naked soul, as it were.

However, I believe it is a mistake to interpret Scripture as teaching or implying any such metaphysical account of the underpinnings of our distinctively human personal attributes or our capacity for surviving death. Now, after reflecting on the matter, we might conclude that the only way these Scriptural teachings could be true is for such a metaphysical account to be true, as well—an account in which we are immaterial substances, entirely separate from our bodies. Indeed, many have thought hard about it and have drawn just such a conclusion, and it is not hard to see why they find it tempting to do so. But to do so is to make a disputable philosophical inference; it is not a teaching of the faith.

The general perspective of BioLogos, which I embrace, is that theorizing about the underlying nature of the soul is best done by trying to read God’s Two Books (His Word and His Works) in tandem. Both Books have a great deal to say about us, and, as common products of an infinitely wise and loving Creator, what they say must ultimately be in harmony. As with any attempt to understand something deep and wondrous in God’s Creation, we should proceed with humility and carefulness and be prepared to rethink familiar and received ideas.

Spelling it out just a bit, the common Christian understanding of what it is to have a soul involves the yoking of two radically different things, a functioning human (wholly material) body and an immaterial mental thing that is the direct bearer of psychological properties such as self-awareness, emotions, and thoughts, and is that which chooses in accordance with desires and purposes. In short, a complex biological machine and a pure subject/purposive agent which interface in the brain. I want to acknowledge that this is a very natural perspective to have, quite apart from Christian revelation (hence its popularity among humans generally). It is very natural because our psychological abilities seem, introspectively, to be plainly something more than mere resultants of impersonal physical particle interactions, however numerous and complex these are within the human brain.

We can design highly sophisticated computers that process complex bodies of information with extraordinary speed, but no computer is a subject, or has a point of view. As philosophers of mind like to say, there is nothing “it is like” to be a computer in the way that there is something “it is like” to be a conscious subject. Put another way, no mere computer is a conscious, experiencing subject, having a point of view from which it regards and interacts with its environment. Neither do computers make autonomous choices in the face of competing moral and self-interested motivations, and so on. It seems but a short step from this observation to the conclusion that human persons (and thinking/desiring/choosing things more generally) must be fundamentally different sorts of things: fundamentally distinct capacities must reside in fundamentally distinct kinds of substances (mental and spiritual substances as opposed to physical substances, however complex).

I have just described how matters appear from the ‘first-person perspective’ of conscious experience and self-awareness. Let me be clear that I take such evidence very seriously: I know my own conscious thoughts and experiences better than I know any scientific theory,—even a very well-attested one—as all of our theories are at bottom built on information we derive from our experiences. So awareness of the distinctive character of conscious experience is part of what is given to us in the Book of God’s Works, since we are a part of that Book.

But alongside that ‘first-person’ data, we have had an explosion of relevant information coming from the ‘third-person’ perspective of the natural sciences, specifically evolutionary and developmental biology and cognitive neuroscience. This information, while still incomplete and only imperfectly understood, sheds light on the deep natural history of humans and present-day animals; the processes by which individual organisms of any species develop from inception to maturity; function-specific neural structures and processes that sustain and help regulate the unfolding first-person perspective of conscious agents; and finally, observed correlations between increasing complexity of neural structures and increased psychological complexity. This last correlation between structural and cognitive complexity is evident both when examining individuals as they develop, and when making comparisons across sentient species.

I suggest that this third-personal scientific information does not comport well with the two-substance or dualist metaphysical account of human persons. The fundamental problem is that our sciences point to continuous processes of increasing complexity, but the two-substance account requires the supposition of abrupt discontinuity. The “coming to be” at a particular point in time of a new substance with a suite of novel psychological capacities would seem to be a highly discontinuous development, both in large-scale bio-geological time and within the development of individual organisms.

Since souls as purely immaterial things would lack parts, we cannot make sense of the accumulation or diminishment of capacities by proposing increased or decreased structural complexity within the bearer of such capacities. And it just seems implausible to suppose that all the necessary basic capacities for, say, calculus problem-solving are there in the soul from the beginning, awaiting only physical maturation in the body in order to become activated, but still not directly dependent on that maturation. It seems rather that psychological capacities arise and develop in tandem with the development of the brain and nervous system.

Of course, it is possible for the soul-body dualist to retrench: we might offload to the brain ‘side’ of the divide some of the psychological functioning that, prior to the advent of neuroscience, we might have mistakenly thought belonged to the soul. But that tack risks (as neuroscience progresses) reducing the soul to a simple, immaterial object that is radically incomplete, merely a “bearer of consciousness” that enables personal identity over time and through death.

Despite the fact that such future retrenchment would seem to be required, this kind of dualism remains tempting for the Christian thinker. Why? The obvious answer is that it can seem to be the only way to accommodate our specifically Christian data that human beings are not mere machines: our thoughts, emotions, goals, and intentions are deep, not superficial features of ourselves; they confer a dignity upon us that makes us suitable bearers of the divine image such that human beings, after our skin has been destroyed, will yet see God. (Job 19:26). But is it true that the coherence of Christian theology requires this account? And if coherence of Christian theology does not require this account, which account might be the best one?

Tomorrow, in Part 2, I will address this question.

What's the Problem?

Many secular and many evangelical voices agree on one ‘truism’—that if you are an orthodox Christian with a high view of the authority of the Bible, you cannot believe in evolution in any form at all. New Atheist authors such as Richard Dawkins and creationist writers such as Ken Ham seem to have arrived at consensus on this, and so more and more in the general population are treating it as given. If you believe in God, you can’t believe in evolution. If you believe in evolution, you can’t believe in God.

This creates a problem for both doubters and believers. Many believers in western culture see the medical and technological advances achieved through science and are grateful for them. They have a very positive view of science. How then, can they reconcile what science seems to tell them about evolution with their traditional theological beliefs? Seekers and inquirers about Christianity can be even more perplexed. They may be drawn to many things about the Christian faith, but, they say, “I don’t see how I can believe the Bible if that means I have to reject science.”

However, there are many who question the premise that science and faith are irreconcilable. Many believe that a high view of the Bible does not demand belief in just one account of origins. They argue that we do not have to choose between an anti-science religion or an anti-religious science.¹ They think that there are a variety of ways in which God could have brought about the creation of life forms and human life using evolutionary processes, and that the picture of incompatibility between orthodox faith and evolutionary biology is greatly overdrawn.²

For example, there have been a number of efforts to argue that there may be evolutionary reasons for religious belief. That is, it may be that capacity for religious belief is ‘adaptive’ or is connected to other adaptive traits, passed down from our ancestors because they supported survival and reproduction. There is no consensus about this among evolutionary biologists. Nevertheless, its very proposal seems to be completely antithetical to any belief that God is objectively real. However, Christian philosopher Peter van Inwagen asks:

Suppose that God exists and wants supernaturalistic belief to be a human universal, and sees (he would see this if it were true) that certain features would be useful for human beings to have— useful from an evolutionary point of view: conducive to survival and reproduction—would naturally have the consequence that supernaturalistic belief would be in due course a human universal. Why shouldn’t he allow those features to be the cause of the thing he wants?—rather as the human designer of a vehicle might use the waste heat from its engine to keep its passengers warm.³

Van Inwagen’s argument is sound. Even if science could prove that religious belief has a genetic component that we inherit from our ancestors, that finding is not incompatible with belief in the reality of God or even the truth of the Christian faith. There is no logical reason to preclude that God could have used evolution to predispose people to believe in God in general so that people would be able to consider true belief when they hear the gospel preached. This is just one of many places where the supposed incompatibility of orthodox faith with evolution begins to fade away under more sustained reflection.

However, many Christian laypeople remain confused because the voices arguing that Biblical orthodoxy and evolution are mutually exclusive are louder and more prominent than any others. What will it take to help Christian laypeople see greater coherence between what science tells us about creation and what the Bible teaches us about it?

Pastors and People

In my estimation what current science tells us about evolution presents four main difficulties for orthodox Protestants. The first is in the area of Biblical authority. To account for evolution we must see at least Genesis 1 as non-literal. The questions come along these lines: what does that mean for the idea that the Bible has final authority? If we refuse to take one part of the Bible literally, why take any parts of it literally? Aren’t we really allowing science to sit in judgment on our understanding of the Bible rather than vica versa?

The second difficulty is the confusion of biology and philosophy. Many of the strongest proponents for evolution as a biological process (such as Dawkins) also see it as a ‘Grand Theory of Everything.’ They look to natural selection to explain not only all human behavior but even to give the only answers to the great philosophical questions, such as why we exist, what life is about, and why human nature is what it is. Doesn’t belief in the one idea—that life is the product of evolution—entail the adoption of this whole ‘world -view’?

The third difficulty is the historicity of Adam and Eve. One way to reconcile what current science says about evolution is to propose that the account of Adam and Eve is symbolic, not literal, but what does this do to the New Testament teaching of Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 that our sinfulness comes from our relationship with Adam? If we don’t believe in an historical fall, how did we become what the Bible says we are—sinful and condemned?

The fourth difficulty is the problem of violence and evil. One of the greatest barriers to belief in God is the problem of suffering and evil in the world. Why, people ask, did God create a world in which violence, pain, and death are endemic? The answer of traditional theology is—he didn’t. He created a good world but also gave human beings free will, and through their disobedience and ‘Fall’, death and suffering came into the world. The process of evolution, however, understands violence, predation, and death to be the very engine of how life develops. If God brings about life through evolution, how do we reconcile that with the idea of a good God? The problem of evil seems to be worse for the believer in theistic evolution.

I have been a pastor for almost 35 years, and during that time I’ve spoken to many laypeople who struggle with the relationship of modern science to orthodox belief. In the minds of most laypeople, it is the first three difficulties that loom largest. The fourth difficulty—the problem of suffering and death—has not been posed to me as often by parishioners. Yet in some ways the problem of suffering goes along with the third question regarding the historicity of the Fall. Without the traditional view of the historicity of the Fall, the question of evil would seem to become more acute.

Therefore, below I will lay out three basic problems that Christian laypeople have with the scientific account of biological evolution. Nothing here should be seen as meeting the need for rigorous, scholarly arguments in answer to these questions. These are popular-level pastoral answers and guidance. As a pastor I have had to draw heavily on the work of experts. The first question, about Biblical authority, requires that I draw on the best work of exegetes and Biblical scholars. To answer the second question, about evolution as a ‘Grand Theory of Everything,’ I need to draw on the work of philosophers. When we come to the third question regarding Adam and Eve, I must look to theologians.

In short, if I as a pastor want to help both believers and inquirers to relate science and faith coherently, I must read the works of scientists, exegetes, philosophers, and theologians and then interpret them for my people. Someone might counter that this is too great a burden to put on pastors, that instead they should simply refer their laypeople to the works of scholars. But if pastors are not ‘up to the job’ of distilling and understanding the writings of scholars in various disciplines, how will our laypeople do it? This is one of the things that parishioners want from their pastors. We are to be a bridge between the world of scholarship and the world of the street and the pew. I’m aware of what a burden this is. I don’t know that there has ever been a culture in which the job of the pastor has been more challenging. Nevertheless, I believe this is our calling.

Next week, Keller begins to unpack the individual questions, beginning with how we can understand evolution in relation to a literal reading of the Bible.

Notes

1. A good popular level book by a scientist is Denis Alexander, aptly titled: Creation or Evolution-do we have to choose? (Oxford: Monarch Books, 2008.)
2. See Christian Smith, ed. The Secular Revolution: Power, Interests, and Conflict in the Secularization of American Public Life (University of California Press, 2003.) and Rodney Stark For the Glory of God : how monotheism led to reformations, science, witch-hunts, and the end of slavery (Princeton: 2003.)
3. Peter van Inwagen, “Explaining Belief in the Supernatural”, in J.Schloss and M.Murray, ed. The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion. (Oxford, 2009) p.136.

Today's video features Michael Ramsden of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics and is courtesy of filmmaker Ryan Pettey, director/editor of Satellite Pictures.

In today’s video, Michael Ramsden discusses the importance and meaning of mystery in the Bible. It does not come from ignorance, as the word is often used in modern times, but rather it is mystery born out of insight and wonder, one that is informed by understanding the world around us. As Ramsden notes, Jesus’ use of children to describe the nature of faith isn’t meant to emphasize their ignorance, but rather their sense of trust for those who love them. Likewise, we should not be afraid to search out answers, as if knowledge will lessen our faith in God. Rather we should trust that our explorations will only strengthen our understanding in Him.

Humanity is marked by the biological capacity for musicality. Every known culture has something like music. Understanding how we experience and create music in the present gives us clues to why and how music emerged as one of the defining features of human culture (and, therefore, of humanness itself) in the past. But thinking carefully about music and evolution can also help us reassess how we use music now: in the wider culture, collectively as the church, and even within our own homes. In a nutshell, then, this essay will examine how views on evolution impact how one assesses music’s effects and meaning. In many cases, problematic views about evolution and artistic creativity result in problematic views about music, but my argument is that an appropriate evolutionary view of music—one that looks at how music becomes meaningful within social relationships—is a view that actually enriches our appreciation of this most human endeavor, rather than trivializing it. In this first part I explore common discourses about the meaning of music and their relationship to ideas of creation. In part two next week, I suggest that understanding the role that music played in our biocultural evolution helps correct some of the myths that have made their way into popular discourse, especially with the growing popularity of trying to understand music via neuroscience.

Let’s begin by looking at a couple of popular ways of answering the question, “Where does musical meaning come from?” beginning with the idea that “music is in the ear of the beholder.” One thing that is clear from years of teaching classes of first-year university students is that they are musical relativists. They have ‘their’ music that they enjoy and even use to demark their identities, but are perfectly willing to allow others to like other music. After all, music is all about enjoyment, right? Historically, this cultural trope developed out of the post-Kantian argument of musical autonomy, the often-fashionable argument that music’s meaning is strictly musical and does not relate to other parts of the world. It is also reflected in Steven Pinker’s argument that music is ‘auditory cheesecake’. For Pinker, music used to be useful for things like attracting mates, but now we have evolved out of needing music: it’s not necessary, but is a nice extra. I might like cheesecake, but you might prefer ice cream. Either way, it won’t change the survival of the species, so we can enjoy what we like. This argument may have a harder time standing up when music is used as a means of torture at Guantanamo Bay, but it remains popular none-the-less. Like many ideas of creation and the arts, the idea of music as primarily pleasure (determined by individual taste) is a post-Enlightenment development.

This musical relativism takes a slightly more exacting form in another popular idea, that meaning is embedded within the ‘music itself’ not in the taste of the listener. This view of meaning is the starting point of Plato and Aristotle’s disagreement about the effect of certain modes, the disagreements in the early church about the usage of certain musical instruments, and the arguments of the detrimental moral impact of certain forms of popular music (which, by the way, is an argument not just limited to the 20th or now 21st centuries). It is also the foundation of the statement from one of my former conductors that if we played well enough, we would summon up the ‘spirit of Haydn’. In other words, ‘proper’ participation can reveal the meaning of the work—be that the composer’s meaning or another idealized meaning.

Musical autonomy in this case refers to the view that music stands apart and has no relations or meaning outside of itself. Many philosophers and musicologists rely on this view in an unreflective way, represented by Peter Kivy’s statement that music “is a quasi-syntactical structure of sound understandable solely in musical terms and having no semantic or representational content, no meaning, and making no reference to anything beyond itself”¹. For Kivy, the heart of the autonomy argument is that music is completely self-contained. Such a view is possible because of the historical development of ‘absolute music’, referring to music without a text or narrative, typified by the development of the symphonic form in the late 18th century. It is no accident that between 1750-1850, the form of the symphony developed, Kant theorized the idea of genius, and Schopenhauer claimed music to be “pure will.” In the 19th century, music came to be considered the highest of the arts, and even at the turn of the 20th century Kandinsky claimed that all art should try to achieve the autonomy and abstraction of music.

The idea of musical meaning somehow residing within the musical work is based on an assumption that the more one can isolate and analyze something, the more can be known about it. We can certainly learn much about a rock or plant by isolating it and putting it under a microscope, and those who take music to be autonomous believe that music can also be known most thoroughly by placing it ‘under the microscope’ through close analysis of a score or recording, or through close listening. It is through such pseudo-scientific analytical acts that knowledge about music is thought to be accessed. This is also the guiding ideology of ‘music appreciation.’ But while much can be gained by close examination of rocks or music, much more can be gained by studying how a rock or (especially) music is used by people—a central point to which we will return.

It is more than a little ironic, then, that a further example of the belief in an intrinsic musical meaning is the argument that music is ‘universal’; that is, that at least some music can cross cultural barriers and mean the same thing to all people. Often this view assumes a primacy of the Western canon, as it is believed that Mozart has a universal meaning but Chinese qin (zither) music does not. In a globalized world where many cultures listen to and value Mozart, people who do not share a common language or view of the world may find Mozart a common point of contact. But finding Mozart a point of contact is not caused by the music having a universal meaning. Rather, it is an example of the way music can become a shared space where people enter into a relationship via art. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra (a project of Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said) is an example of music being a common ground where people from different views of the world can connect, not an example of universalized meanings of music.

Indeed, there are many situations when music’s meanings are not shared, showing that meaning is most definitely not universal. Martin Lodge recounts the encounter of Dutch explorers and the Maori people of New Zealand in 1642. When the parties got close enough to see (and hear) each other, each group signalled with trumpets. The Dutch, thinking they were successful in making contact, sent a boat of unarmed sailors to shore. The boat was met by Maori warriors who killed more than half of the sailors. This misunderstanding was caused by not sharing a musical meaning: “The Maori trumpeting in this case was the music of war, an invitation to fight. On the other hand the Dutch trumpets played a variety of tunes intended to be welcoming.”² Musical meanings are often shared, but are not universal or ‘in the music’.

As we have begun to see, considering music as culturally embedded lets us recognize something quite different from the arguments that musical meaning is either subjective or encoded within the music itself. Music does allow for subjective response, but not truly autonomous response—our experience of music occurs within the bounds of cultural norms. Since music’s significance cannot be abstracted from it’s embeddedness within social relationships, an attention to culture and human intentionality (not just a reductionist sense of biology) must inform the ways that music is studied, whether in contemporary culture, in neuroscience, and with reference to human evolution. Unfortunately even many Christian views of music have relied upon some of these problematic views of musical meaning, aligning ideas like individual artistic genius and the “meaning in the music” concept with theologies of creation ex nihilo. As Bruce Ellis Benson discusses in an essay in the journal Verge (and in a shortened version here at BioLogos), this combination or paralleling of genius and ex nihilo creation complicates the church’s understanding not only of music, but also about the Creator God, downplaying the essential element of community and interpersonal relationship inherent to both.

Next week, we’ll look at a similar tendency to abstract and quantify the way music makes meaning in the burgeoning field of neuroscience (from the “Mozart Effect” to fMRI scans), and return to the way that thinking about music within the evolution of human culture might give us a deeper appreciation of music—even of worship—within the church. In the meantime, here are some questions to consider:

How do my own assumptions of the way music is meaningful affect the ways I conceive of and use music?

Are there negative consequences stemming from these assumptions?

How have problematic views of musical meaning affected the use of music as personal identity? Or in the church? Or in the media? Or in popularized science?

Notes

1. Kivy, Peter (1990) Music Alone (Cornell University Press: Ithica, NY): p. 202.

2. Lodge, Martin (2009) 'Music Historiography in New Zealand' in ed. Zdravko Blazekovic, Music's Intellectual History (RILM: New York): p. 627.

Though some may believe that moving the science/faith dialogue forward is best left to scientists, scholars, and theologians, we at BioLogos recognize that our pastors play an invaluable role in the conversation. Across the globe, pastors are helping their congregations work through difficult issues of science and faith with honesty, insight, and a gentle spirit. To this end we present an ongoing series recognizing sermons (and the pastors who give them) that are helping to promote the harmony of science and faith. Today's sermon comes from Rev. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Click above to hear an excerpt. Below, is a brief summary written by BioLogos editorial staff. The full sermon can be downloaded here.

In tracing the story of the Bible, Dr. Keller’s previous sermons examined the early chapters of Genesis, which relate the events that lead to humanity’s fall from right relationship with God. Currently, he is exploring God’s redemption of the human brokenness in Paul’s epistle to the Romans. This particular message focuses on chapter two where the Apostle Paul exposes the hypocrisy of Law-observing Jews: while they judged Gentiles by the standard of the Law, they themselves failed to fulfill its requirements. He also asserts that outward performance of the Law by no means exempts them from God’s judgment or from the disease of Sin, which entered the human heart at the Fall. Keller affirms, therefore, that all are in need of a “regenerate new heart” through Jesus Christ, who perfectly fulfilled the requirements of the Law and who alone is able to accomplish this transformation through the power of his cross.

Paul’s message first illuminates what Keller identifies as the failure of religion. The church in Rome no doubt consisted of both Gentiles and Jews. With this in mind, Paul speaks to both groups. Up to this point, Paul has been highlighting the idolatry of the Gentiles. He then reorients his focus in Romans 2 to address the Jews, who were likely to stand in judgment of their gentile brothers and sisters because of the Jewish Law. He declares in verse one, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” Keller explains that this statement exposes the hypocrisy of the religious who look to observance of an outward behavioral code for justification rather than to grace through Jesus, which leads to an inward observance of the Law. For example, although Law observers did not bow before physical graven images as the Gentiles did before faith in Christ, idols occupied their hearts. These inner idols, for both the religious Jews and present Christians, could take the form of power, career, achievement, etc. All in all, Paul demonstrates that religion fails since neither the moral nor the immoral person is perfect by God’s standards. Dr. Keller sums up this point nicely with this statement: “I’m not okay, you’re not ok.” There is not one person who measures up to the standard of the Law of God, and not one person, therefore, has a right to pass judgment according to it.

Dr. Keller then discusses why no one can measure up to the terrible beauty of God’s Law “no matter how good” one’s actions may be. Primarily, it is because the standard is not focused on performing the right deeds. Rather, the major sins described by Paul in Romans 1 include greed, insolence, heartlessness, etc. Although actions accompany such characteristics, they begin as inner attitudes of the heart. Often people read God’s ordinances at the behavioral level, as the religious Jewish people did, in an attempt to justify themselves as a moral person, but God’s requirements are much more demanding. This is revealed in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, for example, when he examines the Ten Commandments. He says in Matthew 5: 21-22 (NIV), “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that…anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court.” In using the Hebrew word ‘raca’ meaning ‘nobody,’ Jesus is revealing that the sin of murder is birthed from a heart that devalues another person who is infinitely valuable in God’s eyes. Simply put, the Law of God is after a certain type of person whose right actions flow from a right heart. For example, the Law points to a person so filled with God’s love that they not only refrain from murder, but rather treat others as royalty. Keller continues as he explains the impossibility of such a standard for a human being, yet the Law demands it. What is more, people will demand a similar standard of others. Keller also emphasizes the Day of Judgment. Because God is just, he will hold a person accountable to either the standard of grace or to the standard that one person required of another. No person is perfect, and therefore, none will be able to stand in either God’s judgment or the judgment of their own heart. This creates the need for a transformed heart as Dr. Keller expounds in the final point of this passage.

In the last verses of Romans 2, the Apostle Paul relates the “failure of religion because of the terrible beauty of the Law” to the need for a regenerate heart. This is only possible through the circumcision of the heart in Christ by the Holy Spirit. Keller first explains the significance of circumcision. Circumcision was a physical distinction between the pagan cultures and the Jewish people who were in covenant with the God of Israel. On a deeper level, this act symbolized the consequence of disobedience to the covenant first established between Abraham and God: one would be cut off from the covenantal relationship with God. As Dr. Keller explains, all people have fallen short of the Law. For this reason, God sent Jesus, his son, to fulfill the requirements of the Law. He then died on the cross to receive upon himself the consequence of death that all deserved. Therefore, Paul argues that it is no longer one who receives physical circumcision who is saved, but one who receives the circumcision of the Spirit in Christ. Romans 2:28 (NIV) establishes this point saying, “A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.” Finally, Dr. Keller explains the significance of the Old Testament Law: the perfect standard describes not a moral code, but our Savior Jesus Christ. Ultimately, one seeks to obey the beautiful Law which Jesus embodied, yet one receives grace in the times of failure, confident that Christ has indeed paid it all.

In today’s video, Pastor Brian McClaren discusses the idea of the “slippery slope”. As he notes, the metaphor itself is problematic, because we often assume that we are on the top of the slope to begin with, when in fact changing our views may help us ascend the slope, or to reach a new peak of understanding on the other side.

He also notes two dangers that face the science and faith dialogue. On one side is excessive confidence, when we are so sure of being right that we refuse to consider other ideas. But being too afraid of excessive confidence can lead to an insufficient confidence, where we feel incapable of knowing anything for sure. McClaren proposes that what Christians need, rather, is proper confidence, the confidence that we are moving ahead yet still willing to learn. This, he says, is what it means to be a disciple: to be interested in the truth and always learning, but always willing to be pensive again rather than set in our current knowledge.

Though some may believe that moving the science/faith dialogue forward is best left to scientists, scholars, and theologians, we at BioLogos recognize that our pastors play an invaluable role in the conversation. Across the globe, pastors are helping their congregations work through difficult issues of science and faith with honesty, insight, and a gentle spirit. To this end we present an ongoing series recognizing sermons (and the pastors who give them) that are helping to promote the harmony of science and faith. Today's sermon comes from Rev. Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Click above to hear an excerpt. Below, is a brief summary written by BioLogos editorial staff. The full sermon, which we highly recommend can be purchased from Redeemer’s sermon store. Finally, if you know a sermon or podcast related to science and faith that has especially spoken to you, please let us know.

In the Garden of Eden, Eve is tempted to put her own desires ahead of God’s call for her life. The serpent tells her that if she eats of the fruit she can become like God: she, in essence, can become the master of her own fate. Similarly, as the New Testament begins, Satan comes to Jesus and tempts him in three different ways to become centered in self, rather than centered in the Father. Finally, Paul begins his great treatise, his letter to the Christians in Rome, with the same thought. We all, like Eve, but not like Jesus, have tasted of the fruit, and Dr. Keller in his penetrating style expounds.

This week’s sermon continues to evaluate the heart of humanity, which first is revealed in Genesis, and later is expounded upon in Romans 1: 18-32. The Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome presents a clear picture of both God’s revelation in the world, and humankind’s suppression of the truth. Exploring the message of Paul, Dr. Keller reveals that within each heart is the knowledge of our God, the factory of our idols, the hardening of our humanity, and the capacity for endless praise.

Foremost, the knowledge of God resides deep in the soul, but humans continually suppress this truth. It is the knowledge that God is Creator to whom all are completely accountable and on whom all are forever reliant. However, as Paul reflects on humanity in Romans 1: 21 (NASB), he claims that “though they [people] knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks…” Dr. Keller explains that an unthankful heart is not merely bad etiquette; it generates the false reality of self-sufficiency and fails to recognize utter dependence on God for all things. Our sinful nature desires to maintain control, but true acknowledgment of God demands that we submit to his will rather than our own. Keller further makes the point that many people can believe in an impersonal God who gives all a free pass into heaven, but very few people wish to believe in the relational God of the Bible who demands all of their soul. For this reason, people suppress the truth about God and withhold his praise.

Inevitably, this act of turning away from the truth of God leads to the manufacturing of idols within the heart as one begins to worship a created thing rather than the Creator. Dr. Keller explains that people are “telic,” which means that they “need to live for something.” There is something in every person’s life that holds their worth, hope, and allegiance. If this something or someone is not the living person of Jesus Christ, one will be enslaved to idols. From wealth to marriage to morality, the Apostle Paul makes it clear throughout all his letters that these idols may take numerous forms. For example, he says in Romans 1:23 (NASB) that they “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures..” The stark reality is this: God deserves all of our love and all else is futile worship of idols.

Next, the sermon explores how the worship of idols causes the heart to harden. Dr. Keller explains how idolization will ultimately strip a person of his or her humanity. In speaking about this very thing, the writer proclaims the truth in Psalm 135 (NASB) that idols are “the work of man’s hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; they have eyes, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear…Those who make them will be like them, Yes, everyone who trusts in them.” It is apparent from this verse that an idol will consume the heart’s desire. In this place, the person’s will becomes utterly subject to the object and conformed to its dead image, rather than conformed to the image of the living God.

Lastly, Dr. Keller illuminates the remedy for all the perpetual idols in our hearts. He affirms that in order to stop worshipping these idols, one must do as the angels do in heaven: endlessly praise and worship God. He then references 1 Peter 1: 10- 12, which describes how angels long to look into the things concerning the gospel of Jesus Christ. In other words, Dr. Keller explains, the angels deeply desire to gaze upon the beauty of what Christ has done for all humanity by his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave. When we too see Jesus and glorify him as the One who gave it all for us, we will finally be saved from the destructive power of idols.

In 1975, Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson created a firestorm when, in his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, he argued that human nature might be explainable in evolutionary terms. Centuries earlier, however, a leading Christian scholar was already applying many key evolutionary principles to the understanding of man.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) was the foremost Christian scholar of the High Middle Ages and is today regarded as a "doctor" of the Catholic Church. Working six centuries before Darwin, he obviously was not an evolutionist. His major project was the Christianizing of Aristotelian philosophy. As an ardent Aristotelian (enough so that some of his teachings were condemned by the Bishop of Paris in 1277), Aquinas assumed that species were fixed and unchangeable, an idea incompatible with evolution. But Aquinas was the star student of Albert the Great, an enthusiastic Medieval naturalist. Albert assiduously observed the Dominican Order's policy of walking, not riding, when traveling. Ostensibly this was to emphasize the Order's commitment to poverty, but for Albert it was an opportunity to more closely observe nature's minutiae. Under Albert and Aristotle's mentorship, Aquinas acquired a deep appreciation for nature's continuity, which he understood as reflecting purposeful design rather than common descent.

Aquinas had no doubt that humans were specially created by God. However, he was also convinced that they were created out of the same basic materials used for all creatures and were therefore connected to all of nature. In his Summa Theologica he writes:

"But it was fitting that the human body should be made of the four elements, that man might have something in common with the inferior bodies, as being something between spiritual and corporeal substances." (ST P1 Q91 A1)

Aquinas had no qualms about calling humans animals:

"Socrates and Plato ... have the same human species; others differ specifically but are generically the same, as man and ass have the same genus animal." (De Principiis Naturae 45)

Following Aristotle, Aquinas rejected the strict dualism of the Augustinian/neo-Platonic philosophy dominant at the time. No, Aquinas was not a materialist neuroscientist, but he understood the intimate interdependence of mind and body. For Aquinas, different bodies meant different levels of intelligence: "...because some men have bodies of better disposition, their souls have greater power of understanding." (ST P1 Q85 A7)

Aquinas is most famous for his Summa Theologica, much of which is considered authoritative in Catholic theology. Less known is another great summa, Summa Contra Gentiles, where he sought to persuade non-believers using purely rational arguments for Christian doctrine. It is here that we find a naturalistic discussion of marriage.

"We observe that in those animals, dogs for instance, in which the female by herself suffices for the rearing of the offspring, the male and female stay no time together after the performance of the sexual act. But in all animals in which the female by herself does not suffice for the rearing of the offspring, male and female dwell together after the sexual act so long as is necessary for the rearing and training of the offspring. This appears in birds, whose young are incapable of finding their own food immediately after they are hatched. ... Hence, whereas it is necessary in all animals for the male to stand by the female for such a time as the father's concurrence is requisite for bringing up the progeny, it is natural for man to be tied to the society of one fixed woman for a long period, not a short one." (SCG B3 Q122)

The ideas expressed above are familiar to evolutionists as part of parental investment theory -- male/female pair-bonding is more likely to emerge where offspring are highly dependent.

Aquinas also anticipated another core evolutionary concept: paternity certainty. Males find an evolutionary advantage in long-term pair bonding because it helps to insure that offspring possess their genes. Without this assurance, males are unlikely to provision or protect the offspring. Thus, monogamy serves the genetic interests of both males and females. Females and their offspring receive resources and protection from the male (paternal investment), while males gain assurance of a genetic legacy (paternity certainty).

"...every animal desires free enjoyment of pleasure of sexual union as of eating: which freedom is impeded by there being either several males to one female, or the other way about ... But in men there is a special reason, inasmuch as man naturally desires to be sure of his own offspring ... The reason why a wife is not allowed more than one husband at a time is because otherwise paternity would be uncertain." (SCG B3 Q124)

Note how Aquinas' discussion also alludes to another important evolutionary precept: male mate competition. Aquinas goes on to describe how monogamy benefits women by reducing the female competition inherent in polygynous households, thereby insuring the concentration of emotional and material resources on a single female mate.

"For among men that keep many wives the wives are counted as menial. For one man having several wives there arises discord at the domestic hearth..." (SCG B3 Q124)

Along with anticipating many key concepts in evolutionary psychology, Aquinas also understood that humans possessed a natural moral sense. Some believers today foolishly try to argue that without religion there is no morality. Aquinas would have scoffed at such simple-mindedness. Synderesis, as Aquinas called it, was the natural human inclination toward right behavior.

"Wherefore the first practical principles, bestowed on us by nature, do not belong to special power, but to a special natural habit which we call synderesis. Whence 'synderesis' is said to incite the good, and to murmur at evil, inasmuch as through first principles we proceed to discover, and judge of what we have discovered. It is therefore clear that 'synderesis' is not a power, but a natural habit." (ST P1 Q79 A12)

In contrast to Augustine, Aquinas did not see human nature as inherently depraved. Instead, his view was generally more positive. We are, as Aristotle had argued, naturally social animals who seek to get along in society. Divine grace did not radically alter human nature, it perfected it.

If he were alive today would Aquinas be an evolutionist? His writings suggest a mind already resonating with many evolutionary concepts. My sense is that Aquinas, like Aristotle and Albert before him, was just too curious and too smart not be at the intellectual vanguard wrestling with exciting new knowledge.

The ordained and blessed tradition of marriage is established in Genesis 2: 18-25. This passage communicates important ideas, Dr. Keller affirms, about both marriage seeking and marriage executing. When considered, these concepts will allow one to be successful in both areas.

Foremost, Adam’s response to his wife highlights marriage’s potential to be idolatrous. When God presents all other creatures before Adam in the garden, not one is considered to be a suitable helper. Therefore, the Lord creates Eve from the rib of Adam and brings her to him. Upon seeing the woman, Adam exclaims in verse 23, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Adam is expressing, in effect, that he has found at last the helpmate he longed for—by discovering Eve, he is finding himself. Marriage, then, is so fulfilling that there is a danger of idolization of one’s partner. Often, the temptation is to receive love, affirmation, respect, and even a foundation in life from their spouse, rather than from God—the very source of all these things. However, no human relationship “can bear the weight of those expectations,” and the marriage will be crushed. In addition, there is a tendency for unmarried persons to commit idolatry when they either yearn for marriage to complete them or search for that “perfect” marriage partner. God alone can meet these desires for perfection and wholeness. The problem, then, is not in loving one’s spouse too much or in wanting a blissful marriage, but in the smallness of one’s love for God in proportion to the other.

Next, God’s identification of Eve as Adam’s helper reveals the long-enduring patience that marriage requires. This word helper is often used to refer to military reinforcements throughout the Bible. The man and the woman as a couple bring to each other a strength that is not had by either of them as individuals. However, they are not just helpers, but suitable helpers. The word suitable in the Hebrew, Dr. Keller explains, is closely translated to mean ‘like opposite.’ In other words, the woman is like him, yet not him. Like two puzzle pieces, Dr. Keller says, God designed male and female as perfect complements to one another. Thus, marriage involves two people coming together with equal, but distinct strengths, and they enter into a tight relationship. So close is this communion that it is described as becoming “one flesh” in Scripture. In this closeness, necessary “head-butting” occurs as the spouses are challenged by one another to become the persons God made them to be. For this reason, it is essential to have the patience to bear with one another throughout this long journey of growth in life.

Then, there is a supernatural humility in the idea of marriage as conveyed by Genesis 2: 18(NASB) when God says, “‘It is not good for the man to be alone.’” Although Adam is in Paradise with God himself, God seems to indicate that Adam is lonely. According to Dr. Keller, the only explanation is that God specifically made Adam to need someone else in addition to himself. This is the most humble, unselfish act one could imagine—that the God of the universe would make people to need others as well.

As Dr. Keller concludes his sermon, he discusses how marriage portrays the relationship God seeks with his people—God as the bridegroom and his people as the bride. It is essential to understand that God desires to be the intimate helpmate to every person, even their spouse who is faithfully committed to their growth. Without God, one will never become who he or she was created to be. In claiming to be his people’s husband, as in Isaiah and Jeremiah, God is saying, “I have given you my heart.” For this reason, God sent his only son, Jesus Christ: to win back the heart of his wayward bride. Therefore, those who accept his love and put on the wedding ring of faith inherit all that is found in Christ. Ultimately, the Bible begins with a wedding, and it ends with a wedding—the marriage supper of the Lamb that will fill the world with the children of God.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Written and directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss.

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, was an idea that the late great director Stanley Kubrick had been collaborating on with Steven Spielberg before Kubrick died. After his death, Spielberg was inspired to try to bring this original vision to the screen in honor of Kubrick. The result is a sci-fi fairy tale journey, a visually stunning, philosophically thoughtful examination of what it means to be human. But it is also a story that becomes an analogy for mankind’s quest for meaning and significance in transcendent notions like religion that demythologizes that quest into a materialistic enterprise of symbol creation rather than true spiritual reality.

The story begins with the not too distant future as a world that has flooded many coastal cities because of the polar ice caps melting due to greenhouse gases. Thus mankind has fewer resources which leads to population control. Robots are created to take the place of many more “mouths to feed” because somehow they’ve discovered a way to energize these robots with less resources than humans consume. Laws regulate the amount of humans that are allowed to be birthed, making us all a little bit more lonely.

We are then treated to a literal academic exposition of scientist, professor Hobby (William Hurt) for the Cybertronics corporation which spells out clearly for us just what the ethical issues are that the movie is going to attempt to solve. Professor Hobby explains that the pursuit of creating artificial beings has been a perpetual hunger for mankind. They may have achieved artificial intelligence, but he concludes that it all amounts to “toys” of mere physical stimulus response. What they need to do is to create a robot that can love, with genuine emotional reaction to other human beings. It is through this accomplishment of creating a “mecha” (robot) that loves “orgas” (humans) that they might transcend mere physical existence. He suggests that “love will be the key by which they acquire a kind of subconscious, never before achieved -- An inner world of metaphor, of intuition, of self-motivated reasoning, of dreams.” The corporation’s goal is to create a child robot that could fulfill the parents’ needs to be loved. But then the question is put to the professor, “If a robot could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that mecha in return? It’s a moral question.” “The oldest one of all,” says the Professor. “But in the beginning, didn’t God create Adam to love him?”

And so the questions are set that the film will explore: What makes a “real” person? Is our consciousness transcendent of our brains and neuronic impulses? Can a complex machine whose identity is reducible to physical and chemical properties transcend that identity by achieving metaphor, intuition and love? By referencing the Bible the storytellers also reveal that these are questions that reach into the very heart of our most cherished religious beliefs, questions of the value and dignity of human persons.

Twenty-two months later, the company has created their first child robot, and they have chosen one of the company’s employees to test it on, the perfect guinea pigs. Henry and Monica Swinton (Francis O’Connor) are a couple who have suffered the loss of their little boy to a permanent vegetative state in a comatose chamber where Monica reads to him daily and never is able to grieve her loss as science can keep him alive, but cannot bring him back. So the company offers a robot child, David (Haley Joel Osment), as a substitute for Monica’s child Martin. At first, Monica has a hard time accepting the offer, but he is so lifelike and “present” that she chooses to initiate the imprinting sequence that will bind the robot to her forever in “love.” She suddenly becomes “mommy” to David, and they enter into a simulacrum of a real mother and child union.

When a miracle occurs and their son Martin comes out of his coma and back into their lives, a new rivalry is born between brothers (well, sort of brothers). Martin gives his mother a children’s book to read to them: Pinocchio, the story of a puppet who wanted to be a real boy. This becomes the obvious central metaphor throughout the film in David’s own quest to become a human being. The original Pinocchio was a morality tale about ethically good behavior and choices being the defining characteristics of a child worthy of love to their parents. In this reimagining, the Pinocchio quest is no longer merely an ethical question but an ontological one: Can a complex machine transcend its materiality to become a person of equal worth to a human? What makes human beings any different from highly complex mechanical devices? If we can create artificial intelligence, is our human intelligence any less “artificial”?

The human Martin and his friends, devious and mischievous as most young human boys are, play tricks on David that put them in trouble and even danger, causing Monica to bring back David to the manufacturer. The only problem is, she can’t do it because she has grown fond of David, and she knows they will destroy him as defective product. So she leaves him in the woods and tells him to never come back but to run away. So David concludes from his Pinocchio story that he too wants to become a “real live boy” so that Monica will love him. He reasons that if he can just find the Blue Fairy like the wooden puppet did in the story, she will make him into a real boy. Because he is a robot incapable of understanding the metaphor, he seeks it as literally true, which sets him on his quest.

In the next post, we will continue to follow David’s journey and look more at what A.I. has to say about religion and what it means to be human.

A theological belief can grow in our minds unobserved for years, the results of many imperceptible influences, until the full flower bursts into conscious thought. Just so, the idea that our bodies are saved as well as our souls had taken root in my approach to the arts, worship, literature, and fashion long before I articulated it in conscious thought or language. The idea is radical, bordering on monism, and I hope it’s not heretical. I have come to believe that a person’s form—his or her physical organism—is inseparable from his or her content—mind, soul, spirit, psyche, personality, behavior…

Where did this idea originate, for me? While I could traces its sources through my reading, or discuss its permutations in Church history, I think it began with poetry.

Coleridge wrote in his Biographia Literaria about poetry: “whatever lines can be translated into other words of the same language, without diminution of their significance, either in sense, or association, or in any worthy feeling, are so far vicious in their diction.” In other words (although he is condemning exactly other words), there is no such thing as a synonym. In other words again: the vocabulary, rhymes, meter, line length, stanza shape, figures of speech, images, and other technical aspects of the poem—its form—are inseparable from its content: WHAT is says is constituted by HOW it says it.

Take this tiny example. There is a beautiful Puritan classic by Jeremiah Burroughs entitled The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. That’s a weighty, poetic title, heavy with the seventeenth century, implying the value and grace of a seriously pious life. Now, in 1988 a contemporary adaptation was released, entitled Learning to be Happy. Look what has happened in four hundred years. From The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment to Learning to Be Happy is dumbing-down indeed. But what’s worse, the content of Burrough’s title has been altered by the alteration of its form. Indicating a mechanistic program for how to be happy is worlds away from the Christian concept that contentment is a priceless, precious gift. The English civil war; the American, French, and Russian revolutions; Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche; two world wars; and capitalistic health-and-wealth, name-it-and-claim-it gospels stand between Burroughs and his Christianity-for-dummies descendant.

Because the words matter. Words have both denotation and connotation, sound and sense, and they resonate with our minds and our bodies. It is impossible to say the same thing in other words, because once it is in other words, it is not the same thing.

To get back to Coleridge: that is why a paraphrase, though an indispensable pedagogical tool, must never be confused with the poem. Students must never read “No Fear Shakespeare” as a substitute for the play itself. Every musical setting of a poem turns the poem into something other than its original self. Every movie adaptation of a book disappoints. The movie must be evaluated on its own merits, not simply compared to the book. Words and images are not interchangeable: the Deconstructionists showed us that when they pointed out that the phonetics of “T-R-E-E” are not the tree.

And what about that tree? Are the color, shape, size, and texture of the tree something apart from the tree itself? Is the oak something separate from those particular leaves, that regal height, those glorious shades of bronze and rust in autumn? If I took away a rose’s petals in their Fibonacci whorl, the inimitable scent, the tiny pain of thorns, and the reddish-green of its woody stem, what would be left of the rose? Would a rose by any other form still be a rose? Of course it wouldn’t. The question is absurd.

But then again, the smartest folks have always been asking that question. It’s the Plato-vs-Aristotle debate all over again, about whether everything exists only here in its particulars, or in the sum total of all its physical examples, or out there somewhere in an eternal extraction from which all instances are copied. If there were a metaphysical form of “ROSE,” I suppose it would still be itself without its petal, smell, and shape. Or would it? Wouldn’t the metaphysical prototype dictate exactly those blossoms on precisely that stem? Isn’t that how it copies its eternal form: by expressing itself in those particulars?

It seems, then, that asking Plato to weigh in hasn’t changed a thing. In the natural world, “form”—like having a certain shape and scent, or like having fourteen lines of iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abba abba cde cde—is inseparable from “content”—the rose-ness of the rose, or a longing for the unattainable Laura. The rose is the aggregate of its essential and accidental characteristics, just as the line “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” is itself in just those words.

Then leap to the idea that each rose, each oak tree, and each poet is a work of art carefully crafted by the great Creative Artist. Picture God making a tree (either the original Platonic tree or one specific instance in your backyard) with care, defining the path each branch will follow from the trunk. Compare His concentrated artistry to that of a poet bending over a piece of paper, carefully weighing each word and balancing the lines. Perhaps the natural world serves as analogy for the unity of form and content in the art world, or perhaps it is actually the original after which every artistic work is patterned.

This natural analogy, then, is theologically useful. If the true nature of the oak tree is inseparable from the actual material stuff, the atomic matter, from which it is made, why (or how) should I be any different? How can I abstract (in both senses) ME from the-stuff-of-which-I-am-made? This goes beyond “you are what you eat.” My body is inseparable from my personality, just as if my height and weight shape a sonnet or sestina, while my redemption is the volta after the eighth line.

That last is essential. Each human embodied story needs that turn: the about-face of repentance into the narrative trajectory of redemption. If the soul is saved, the body is too. The old faith vs. works debate is moot: either without the other is dead. The soul without the body is a ghost; the body without the soul is a corpse. A saved person must be saved all through that embodied union—in a word, INCARNATION. In flesh. Me in my body, living in grace, living towards heaven. Salvation, to be itself, must be of both form and content. No paraphrases accepted on earth or in heaven.