A reflection on altruism and an alleged clash between evolution and Christianity

Faith & Science Conversation
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@Eddie

Thank you for you response.

Not a big problem, but a small problem. The Image of God means that humans are in some very important ways like God, not that they are God. Clearly if humans were omnipotent and omniscient, they would be God, not be like God. Humans are created in the Image of God, they are not God.

However if you simplify that statement by saying God is powerful, instead of all powerful, that God is knowing, instead of all knowing, and that God is good, instead of perfectly good, then you do have an Image of God that corresponds to humanity. Sadly our Image of God has been corrupted by sin, but humans are still powerful and thinking beings with the ability to do good when saved by God. We still have the God given abilities to act, to think, and to love, the triune Image of God, however imperfect.

The Bible is not a book of science, but at times theology impinges on science and here it impinges on anthropology, our understanding of humanity and ourselves. The problem is not the triune model, the problem really is the dualistic model.

Just think, if the mind/body Image of God were true, humans would not have a spirit. Salvation would be through Knowledge of God and not through Loving God. Just think if the body/soul Image of God were true, humans would not have a mind. Salvation would mean that we would become robots mindlessly obeying God through the Spirit.

See Eddie that was not so difficult. God is Good all the time!

@fmiddel

If God through the Bible says something as important as the Creation of humans in the Image of God is true, we need to thoroughly investigate that assertion before we dismiss it and say that the Bible is seriously flawed.

@Eddie wrote: Fact: God created humans in the image of God. Fact: God does not have a body. Conclusion: Therefore human beings do not have bodies.

Or since human beings do have bodies, God did not create human beings in the Image of God.

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Who said the Bible is seriously flawed? Are you suggesting that if it is not triune it is specifically flawed? You seem to established in your own mind these criteria and seem upset that others might not agree.

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But the Bible is not dualistic. Your playing with a false dichotomy–“dualistic” vs. “triune.”

My experience is that this model is exceptionally flawed. And yet I have seen resolution that doesn’t really look “triune.”

Before I go further, I wonder if you could briefly elaborate on triune nature of a triune model–what are the characteristics of “body, soul, spirit,” in a human being, and in what way do they interrelate?

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@fmiddel

Please, The current western model of a person is dualistic, body/mind. The implicit NT Biblical model of a human being created in the Image of God, is Triune, body, mind, and spirit (not body, soul, and spirit.)

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You’re quibbling about language. What is the distinction between “mind” and “soul”? The language is fuzzy, especially when filtered through translation.

I think Watchman Nee’s explanation of the interrelationship between the material and immaterial “parts” of the individual is far more compelling, convincing, and, frankly, more biblically accurate.

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@fmiddel

The traditional model is the dualistic one, while the new model is monistic. Most people, including Christians, still use the traditional model.

You’re quibbling about language. What is the distinction between “mind” and “soul”? The language is fuzzy, especially when filtered through translation._

Please do not pontificate as if I am a novice who doesn’t know what he is doing. I am not quibbling and I am well aware of the translation problems.

Thank you for the reference to Watchman Nee. His understanding of humanity is triune, body, soul, and spirit, as opposed to dualistic, body/mind or monistic, body. It is not reflect my understanding of how the body, mind, and spirit interact, or how the Trinity works.

If you really are interested in this problem I will send you a copy of my book, The GOD Who RELATES.

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But Nee is hardly classically “triune.” He asserts that the soul is not distinct from spirit and body; it is the combination of spirit and body. (Note that “mind” is part of the soul).

This does not in any way reflect the triunity of God. For example, Jesus is not “created” by the “union of Father and Spirit.”

A classical triune perspective cannot adequately explain how the soul (or mind) can be affected positively or negatively by directly (and only) affecting the physical body–e.g., through caffeine, cocaine, heroin, sleep deprivation, sugar imbalance, etc.

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@fmiddel

The diagram which is on the cover of his book depicting three distinct circles of body, soul, and spirit indicate a three part aspect of the human being.

As I said that is not how I see the human person, but it is a step forward from body/mind dualism. If you think that soul is a combination of the spirit and body and the mind is part of the soul, that is fine. I see no evidence for this. I also do not see how this vision can be called the Image of God in any way, shape, or form.

50

There is scriptural evidence…which was Watchman Nee’s starting point. He outlines it quite clearly in the beginning of The Spiritual Man.

From my perspective, it lines up quite neatly with some of my own experiences and what I have observed of people close to me. More so than, say, a traditional “tri-partite” view.

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@fmiddel

Thank you for your response.

I must say that I am not sure what you mean by the “traditional tri-partite view.” Maybe I was not exposed to it through my tradition. If so and it is mistaken, thank God.

I was able to read mush of the beginning of The Spiritual Self, so I am able to respond to what he says. He used 1Thess 5:23 as the basis of his model, which does say, body, soul, and spirit. The word translated soul here is “psyche.”

Sadly this word has been grossly abused over time since the writing of the NT. That is why I had to write a chapter in my book advising people to stop using this term, because it brings false Greek ideas into Christianity. Nee does not seem to understand this.

However, the word psyche can be translated as mind. For instance the science of psychology uses psyche to mean the science of the mind. This is what the phrase in 2 Thes means, body, mind, and spirit. When people refer to the body/mind problem, they are talking about the body/psyche problem, not a body/spirit problem.

Soul has often used to also refer to the spirit, because it is ambiguous in its usage. There is good evidence of this in Luke 1:46-47, where Mary uses soul, psyche, and spirit, pneuma, interchangeably.

Nee uses the story of the creation of Adam to develop his thinking of how the body and the spirit together create the soul, so the mind does not have any independent existence. This is interesting speculation, but it is no more than this. There is much better evidence in the NT, where there is stronger Greek influence and thus the mind is given more importance.

In the end this point of view leaves humans as Spiritual beings, because the body alone is unable to challenge the spirit and the mind is downgraded.

The real triune model of humanity realizes that body, mind, and spirit are important. When one dies, they all die. When one is exalted over the others, the Image of God is distorted. Body, mind, and spirit are interdependent, not independent, or dependent. They are both one and many, they are triune.

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Actually, it reconciles quite nicely with the dependency of the mind on the brain; affect the brain and the mind is affected.

Well, and his view also reconciles quite nicely with the necessity for and expectation of an uncorrupted, resurrected body.

Actually, I think scripture says that the reverse is true–without Christ, our spirit is already dead, but is brought to life in Christ. It doesn’t say that when we die, our spirits die again…

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@fmiddel

Ok, you are equating the brain with the body, however the brain/mind controls and regulates the body and in that way is superior to the body. The issue concerning the brain/mind is not whether it is physical or not, but its function which is thinking which is not physical, but rational. The body is interdependent with the mind/brain connected by the nerves.

Other creatures have brains, but do not have minds as we do. Howeve3r they can think put to a point and to this extent they are rational beings.

Our uncorrupted resurrected is based on God’s love for us as whole human beings. Nee says that the spirit and soul are superior to the body. God’s resurrection of the body indicates otherwise.

The wages of sin is death. We are all sinners, and we will all die, body, mind, and spirit. We will also be raised again as a gift of God, not because we are by nature immortal as some people say.

54

I’m pretty sure that scripture does not say that the spirit dies when the body dies but you’re welcome to disillusion me.

55

Isn’t the real problem the nature of both the spirit and the mind. Nee and others seem to depict the spirit as supernatural, what God breathed into Adam. Most scholars disagree that this was intended in Genesis 2. Are humans both supernatural and natural? If bodies are physical and natural, and minds and/or spirits are not physical, then they must be either sub-natural or supernatural with supernatural the clear choice.

This being the case I suggest that the human, body, mind, and spirit, is a natural being created by God through the process of evolution to be a physical, rational, and spiritual being. The body is the physical aspect of our being made of flesh and blood, while the mind is the thinking aspect of our being composed of the nervous system.

Even though we live in the age of computers, we seem to have missed the fact that computers, and the internet are thinking machines which are very different from the machines of the past. Computers do not manufacture anything. They record and communicate ideas, facts, and images. These are not physical, just as our thoughts are not physical. They are mental or rational.

The spiritual is a third kind of reality. The spiritual involved purpose and meaning. Without purpose and meaning there is no time or history and without time and history there is no reality.

It has been noted as part of the Anthropic Principle that the creation of life on earth seems to presuppose that there will also be an observer of this life and the natural history involved. I questioned this thought because it seems to suggest that life and history are only subjective, but thinking about time this does make sense.

Time it would seem “exists” only in the present, but that is not true. Time exists as the past, present, and the future. It is all interdependent and another important trinity. Now to be sure God is the Prime Observer, but in terms of our world time, history, natural reality requires an observer or knower to make sense and to be “real” and not imaginary.

What makes these three realities, the physical, the rational, and the spiritual, real and one is that they are all relational. We live as triune beings in a triune world under the guidance of the Triune God.

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