50 Key Concepts in Theology
Download 0.85 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
50 Key Concepts in Theology - Rayment-Pickard
The Soul
An inner spiritual dimension within each human being. Concepts of an inner spirit, soul, self or consciousness have been crucial to the Christian understanding of what it means to be human. And although most theologians would confidently say that we do possess an inner spiritual identity, fewer would be able to explain satisfactorily exactly what this inner person is, and how it relates to our physical bodies. In Jewish and early Christian thought, the soul was not regarded as a distinctively spiritual substance. Genesis refers to God blowing the breath of life (ruah) into the physical body to create a living human being, and this concept of ‘breath’ continues into the New Testament, where the ‘spirit’ is called pneuma – a life force acting like wind or breath. But pneuma is physical stuff and not fundamentally different from the physical substance of the body. The dualistic view of humans as body and spirit has its roots in the thinking of Plato, who regarded the soul as immortal and the body as a temporary physical container for use during the earthly phase of our existence. The Platonic soul is composed of three parts: reason (nous); noble desire (thymos) and appetite (epithemia). In the Phaedrus, Plato compares the soul to a chariot with two horses. The first horse is focused and full of noble desire, the second is skittish and is pulled this way and that by its appetites. The charioteer represents reason (nous), which must ensure that the horses pull in the same direction, towards a worthy goal such as truth, or justice, or love. Aristotle took Plato’s basic concept, but tried to show how the soul relates to the body, arguing that the soul is the ‘form’ or ‘idea’ of the body. Like Plato, Aristotle believed that the soul was best governed by reason. The dominant Platonic–Christian dualistic view was given new vigour in the seventeenth century by Descartes, who argued that the world is made up of two kinds of substance: ‘thought’ and ‘extension’ (i.e. ‘physical form’). Descartes was unable to demonstrate how the soul and its thoughts are connected with the body, and subsequent philosophers tried to address this problem. In particular, the Jewish theologian Baruch Spinoza developed Aristotle’s thinking in order to overcome Descartes’ dualism. Spinoza argued that the soul and the body are flip-sides (different ‘modes’) of the human person, and not separate substances. The soul is the person considered from the point of view of ‘thought’, and the body is the same person considered from the point of view of ‘extension’. Some scientists and philosophers of consciousness argue that there is no reason to posit the existence of an inner human spirit or self. David Hume argued that the self is just the sum of its sensual perceptions, and a similar view is held today by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett, who sees no special ‘problem’ with consciousness: consciousness is simply the brain’s response to stimuli. Even a thermometer has a conscious ‘self’, says Dennett, because it is aware of different thermal states. Evolutionary biology (and not God) explains how our complex human consciousness has developed. Dennett’s emphasis on biology is significant, even if we do not reach his atheistic conclusions. Western Christianity has vastly over-emphasised the spiritual dimension of the relationship with the divine: the individual soul connecting with God’s spiritual reality. The physical world is too often regarded as the mere clothing for our spiritual existence, a regrettable necessity rather than something with equal religious significance. After all, we human beings do not merely have bodies, we are bodies. As a corrective, modern theologians are now paying attention to theologies of the body. Pope John Paul II, for example, published The Theology of the Body, affirming the integrated view of the human person as mind, soul and body. Although a welcome move towards the Christian affirmation of physical human existence, John Paul’s theology was still dominated by conservative ideas about sexuality. More radically, some theologians (see James Nelson below) have affirmed the physical body as the primary means by which we relate to God and each other. That we are embodied creatures can hardly be denied, but we do also have the experience of an inner identity and personhood which is not manifest in our bodies. We all experience an inner life – of thoughts, feelings and perceptions – which is crucial to what we mean by our ‘self’. We believe that this inner person can exercise freedom and make choices about how our bodies will behave. We also believe that the identity of this inner person remains continuous even as our bodies change radically from birth to old age. Although the theology of the body is an important development, the puzzle of the human soul, self or spirit will surely persist as one of the basic questions of human existence. THINKERS Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1995) emphasised the materiality of creation: ‘The prevailing view has been that the body … is a fragment of the Universe, a piece completely detached from the rest and handed over to a spirit that informs it. In the future we shall have to say that the Body is the very Universality of things … My matter is not a part of the Universe that I possess totaliter: it is the totality of the Universe possessed by me partialiter’ (Science and Christ, Harper & Row, 1968). James B. Nelson (1930– ) has argued that bodily experience must be the starting point for theology: ‘Christian faith at its core is about the embodiment of God in our own daily flesh-and-blood encounters’ (Between Two Gardens, Pilgrim Press, 1983). Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976) argued in The Concept of Mind (1949) that consciousness can be explained without having to posit the existence of a ‘ghost in the machine’. IDEAS Anima: the Latin word for ‘soul’. Bundle theory: from David Hume, the idea that the self is not an entity but ‘a bundle or collection of different perceptions’. Mind–body identity: the idea that the mind is a physical part of the body. Mind–body problem: the difficulty of explaining how an immaterial world of thought can connect with the material world of physical objects. Monad: a concept most closely associated with Leibniz, who argued that the world is made up of basic spiritual entities (monads). Pre-existence of souls: the Platonic concept (supported by the Christian theologian Origen) that the soul exists before being incarnated into a body. Problem of other minds: the difficulty of knowing whether other people really have minds like ours, when we can only observe their bodies. Psyche: the Greek word for the ‘spirit’ or the spark of life. Traducianism: the idea that one’s soul, like one’s body, is derived through natural generation from one’s parents. Transcendental ego: a term used by Kant and others to describe the inner self which synthesises all our conscious experiences. BOOKS James B. Nelson, Body Theology (Westminster/John Knox, 1992) Anthony Kenny, The Anatomy of the Soul: Historical Essays in the |
Ma'lumotlar bazasi mualliflik huquqi bilan himoyalangan ©fayllar.org 2024
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling