Jane Goodall wins Templeton prize, says that all creatures are sentient must have a spirit or soul

Faith & Science Conversation
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Also for the record I don’t eat animals. I don’t even swat mosquitoes. I literally blow them off of me or gentle poke them away. Since I’m aware that they will try to bite me I try to eliminate that problem by wearing long sleeves, brimmed hats, and I will routinely crush things like sweetbay magnolia, spicebush and dogweed and rub it on my skin to deter them.

Morality is not defined by science. Morality, as in righteousness versus sin, is defined by God through his scriptures.

Romans 12 mentions that if eating a animal bothers your conscience then it’s as in for you to do so. Scriptures shows us three types of laws.

  1. The law of what are must do.
  2. The law of what we must not do.
  3. The law of our conscience.

It says mankind was not permitted to eat animals until after the flood. Why? It’s just part of the narrative to showcase how fallen the world was. That we was no longer in harmony. Obviously it’s fictional but that’s the story nonetheless. Z

What Jane says concerning souls don’t really matter to me. She has no bearing on my interpretation of scripture. She’s not a Christian influence in my life and I don’t even know what her beliefs are. My reason for believing living things have souls is because of theology.

I presume just like with slavery, God allowed the esting of flesh because of the hardness of our hearts. Not all the laws make sense to me. Such as why a sabbath on Sunday instead of Tuesday.

Many scholars have shown how in revelation it’s not saying creating a new heaven and earth, but restoring ours. It also says all of creation eagerly awaits restoration. That’s animals as well.

This will answer many questions more in depth than I’m willing to go at the moment.

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I am not a vegetarian and I have not endorsed any of those claims about animals.

  1. Conscious? yes. Sentient? no. Sentience requires language and mind not just consciousness.
  2. Inserted rational/supernatural souls? no. Spirits created by the choices they make, yes.
  3. The phenomenon of life as an image of God (infinite potentiality)? Yes. But most individual organisms? No. Even with human beings it requires us to be without sin, because those self-destructive habits destroy our potentiality and freedom of will.

This is a contradiction in terms. That which is designed are tools and machines. Life is a self-organizing process.

This is only one of an overwhelming number of contradictions between the idea of design and the idea of a loving God, most of which denying sentience and image of God to animals will not help with at all.

I think the black and white treatment of the issue is problematic. Just because we cannot exist without doing harm to other living things doesn’t mean there is no morality involved. And I do not think that a sharp line between human beings and animals is terribly helpful either. I think a debt is incurred with obligations to do what we can – for indeed we can do so much more than other living organisms. And thus by our capability we have an obligation for stewardship.

I certainly see the limitations of language in the communication of meaning, although that is hardly a static thing for language and our skills in using it is constantly evolving to better suit our needs. And I don’t know why language shouldn’t have as much of a “shadow side” as DNA, both in the propagation of error and in the use for evil intent.

I find this a little amusing for you have used language to express these concerns, thus demonstrating that language is capable of making these distinctions.

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Agreed. Humane treatment of stock animals and avoidance of waste at the very least. What we’ve always called primitive cultures would treat the hunted animal with the utmost respect and thank it for the nourishment it would bring … advanced mindfulness from those we call backward.

Yes and here I think we absolutely must face the need to rethink the tried and true wisdom that tells us to go forth and be fruitful. We’ve done that almost to the limits of the planet to sustain us, and where we haven’t yet claimed a parcel of land to make it produce for ourselves alone we need to recognize we are not alone here. Other animals have a right to exist also. They may not be able to claim that right for themselves but those of us who see their extermination taking place have a duty to act on their behalf. Whatever we might prefer, we must recognize the need to be good stewards.

The most important thing we can do is promote a childless life style for many. We cannot save the greatly reduced web of life we still have and not lower our numbers.

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Indeed… if for no other reason than how their loss diminishes our own lives. Even a very good portion of our technology comes from things we get from other species. We cannot even imagine all of what we are losing when another species passes from existence on our planet.

This is ultimately a self-correcting problem. And that should be a reason for considerable alarm rather than complacency, for this correction implies enormous human tragedy. So if we can ever overcome our tendency to live in a state of permanent expediency, we would do well to make some effort to avoid such tragedy. I cannot help but wonder if this COVID-19 pandemic is just the beginning of the kind of problems which are symptomatic of an excessive population.

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All that experience suffering transcend.

After all, what does God do with all those sparrows He watches fall?

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Only based on your definition of life and picture of God. You can dismiss a soul but there is no real evidence one way or another.

You know my views on Genesis 1-11 and if early Genesis is going to teach us ANYTHING at all, it’s that God created life and is sovereign over it. Whenever you talk about life and creation, maybe I misunderstand you because it always sounds like deism to me.

Self-organizing processes are created by God who sets the constants and physical parameters of the universe so life could evolve. In addition, what is disordered to us my not be disordered to God. I would not extend even our quantum struggles to God. Do you think He does not both know a “particles” position and momentum?

When I say God created life I don’t mean a 30 year old Adam. I mean evolution and when he “planned” our universe this is what he wanted. Unless you think the constants of our universe self-organized as well. God seems superfluous to you as an explanation.

Vinnie

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That is like asking if God knows the color of the invisible dragon in your garage. No, God does not know things which do exist. Electrons and photons are not classical particles with a simultaneous position and momentum. Position and momentum are eigenvalues of incompatible measurement operators (possible results of measurements which change the state of what they measure).

I certainly think God designed the laws of nature in order to promote the self-organizing phenomenon of life so that everything is not a product of design, but so there are living organisms making their own choices which God can have a relationship with.

Whenever you talk about God, maybe I misunderstand you because it always sounds like Deism to me. That is what you get when you force God into the role of designer where the only thing He can create are machines, to sit back and simply watch the machines go. But the Biblical role of God is a shepherd with a relationship to living organisms as a participant in their lives.

There is a difference between planning a family and planning a novel, unless you are a control freak, making your family miserable. Some of the constants of the universe may indeed be a product of processes like spontaneous symmetry breaking while others are not. That is an open question for the science of physics. But I certainly tend to believe that God designed much of the laws of nature to make life possible in the universe.

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I see it as a symptom of aviation. Still, pandemics had no problems spreading way before plane travel(think Black Death) AND population was a lot lower than now.
I get slightly uncomfortable when people talk about overpopulation, like it’s a problem in 3rd world countries, all the while forgetting that a “rich white person” produces incomparable amount of pollution and waste whilst going trough incredible amounts of resources(meat is just one of them)to that of someone in a poor, undeveloped country.
But perhaps that’s not what you meant, therefore I’m not accusing you of such views.

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  1. If what precipitated this was the dismissal of soul, then there is nothing but evidence that there’s no such thing, that there is no need of such a thing. It explains nothing at all. There is no need for a non-physical component of the human mind. There is no need to go there only to come back.

  2. What constants and physical parameters did God have to set? c? G? h? Any more gaps for God to only ever temporarily fill?

  3. God cannot know the unknowable. Heisenberg indeterminacy is a simple second order partial differential equation even I was able to follow thirty years ago that is prevenient of God. God knows His limitations.

  4. God didn’t create evolution=life in any of the infinite universes from eternity. It happens in what He, if anyone, grounds. If no one then the non-derivable fundamental physical constants are certainly self tuned, self set. Nature can only exist one way for every quantum of something rather than nothing, God or no. God certainly is superfluous as an explanation, which doesn’t obviate Him in the slightest, thanks to the Church testimony of Him in Christ. The speed of light doesn’t prove God in the first place.

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I get uncomfortable about talk of ecological measures which effectively amount to denying all those things enjoyed by the rich white person to all those people in 3rd world countries. That is why in the other thread I tried shifting the focus from cutting back on CO2 emission to the use of technology to boost the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere – moving forward instead of backwards.

My persistent warning has been that nature will correct these problems at the cost of human tragedy, so we need to make adjustments to prevent them. In the same vein we ought to be dealing with the problem of human population by slowing down the increase of population before nature solves the problem for us with something causing a lot of death and suffering. It is a strange fact that the higher the standard of living people have the less children they have – as irrational as that may seem. My father explained it as coming from the fact that when you are poor then children is the only wealth you can reach for. It does suggest that the last thing we should be doing is denying a higher standard of living to those in third world countries.

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For number two, every constant and proportion there is. I was thinking of Hugh Ross type arguments. I have this book: A "Just Right" Universe: Chapter Fourteen, The Creator and the Cosmos It talks about how small changes to fundamental constants will produce wild swings in the extant universe. Not saying I subscribe to all of it but some of this is compelling even if tautological.

For point 3 fair enough. I dabble with open view panentheism. God only knows that which can be known.

For point #4, I do not think God is superfluous as an explanation. In my experience, material things do not last forever and material effects need a prior succession of causes. God fills this in for me. I don’t call it proof but to say we can explain existence or reality without God is just plain silly. No one possesses that type of knowledge.

For number 1:
You may accept it or deny it but I take it for granted that we are created in God’s image. This does not mean God has a penis or vagina or is a sack of meat with electricity running through it. Clearly this pertains to some sort of spirit or conscious realm of humans. I have not dismissed the soul nor found any compelling scientific evidence souls do not exist. I certainly cannot prove they do exist anymore than I can prove that free will is real. If you know of any actual evidence against the concept of a soul, feel free to present it.

I don’t pretend to know exactly what a soul is but I am also not convinced it is just the product of chemical reactions in the brain or that it can be explained, defined, proved or falsified by empirical methods.

A cursory search of the NRSV on BibleGateway reveals the world “soul” comes up in 30 different Biblical works. Jesus mentioned souls several times. Its found in Isaiah and the apostle Paul as well. Hebrews, James, 1 Peter etc.

Jesus on the Greatest Commandment: He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul , and with all your mind.’ (Matt 22:37)

Paul: 1 These 5:23-24 May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound[f] and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do this.

So your argument is that this is all incorrect and prescientific background knowledge of the time? Divine accommodation? On what grounds have you completely ruled out what is found throughout scripture from Genesis to Revelation? That a soul is not needed to explain human behavior is a non sequitur. What you need to explain is why I should reject Biblical teaching on this or maybe offer a fresh interpretation of the Biblical concept.

Vinnie

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The problem is that this gets mixed up with the Greek notion of an otherworldly rational entity which is not supported by the Bible. The word in the translated as “soul” here, psyche, is translated as life elsewhere and where soul obviously wouldn’t work at all. For example Matthew 10:39 “he who has lost his psyche for my sake will find it.” Obviously this means life not the Neoplatonist notion of a soul. Or Matthew 20:28 where it says Jesus will give his psyche as a ransom for many. And then there is Revelation 16:3 where it talks of all the psyches dying in the oceans. Thus the usage of the word is not to refer to some otherworldly rational entity at all but only life, and that is it. If you reverse this and look at all the places where it is translated as “soul,” the translation as “life” works just fine.

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your life , and with all your mind.’ (Matt 22:37)

This is not to say that the Bible does not support the existence of something which continues after the body dies. That is not my argument at all. On the contrary, Paul nails this down quite precisely in 1Cor 15 in his talk of a spiritual body. It may require resurrection, but there is in the teachings of Jesus and Paul something which continues to exist after the physical body has passed away.

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It seems to me that “soul”, “salvation” and “God” all get at something irreducible to cold hard facts. Our brains which are able to do so much more than what survival requires are yet not up to the task. Stories are better at conveying a glimmer of what is meant since any effort to pin it down will more likely result in distortion than clarity. Whatever we may understand by terms such as these should be held humbly as the best we can do within our limitations.

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Yes, that there is something distinct from our physical body that survives death is clearly Biblical. And I am content in calling this our spirit or our soul. I don’t need to understand it or even be able to fully define it to believe in it.

Matthew 10:28: Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul ; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

The Old Testament not having this concept is also not definitive of anything. Belief in an afterlife is also not prevalent there. This doesn’t mean later Jews and Christians are/were wrong about life after death. Also, Jesus does not need to be bound by traditional interpretations of the Old Testament. Matthew 5 makes this clear, though admittedly, that is the proper historical context to understand Him in. Jesus could have been Hellenized to a degree and accepted some Graeco-Roman thought.

I can’t comment fully on translation issues. I don’t have the education required but I am not finding your interpretive principle persuasive. Is there not another word for life that could have been used? For example, bios in Luke 8:14 which means physical life? Why do most modern translations have soul vs life? Is it soul-life?

The notion of the soul has a long history in the Church and clearly Jesus and Paul speak of something that survives the body after death. There is no need to cling to Jewish thought hundreds or thousands of years prior or force fit New Testament Christian thought into that mold. I am not rejecting the concept of a soul nor putting “life” into every usage in the New Testament based upon the views of Jews hundreds or thousands of years earlier. Change did happen over time. Jewish belief in an afterlife is just one example.

Vinnie

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There are a lot of things popular in the long history of the church which doesn’t come from Jesus and Paul, such as the notions from Neoplatonism and the Gnostics. It lead to a lot of rhetoric based on dualism between mind and body which had a nonphysical mental entity operating the body like a puppet. But this just doesn’t stand up to the findings of science – there simply is no such thing.

I am not sure where all this talk of the ancient Jews is coming from. I was only talking of the mixing with ideas from Greek philosophers and Gnosticism to which I am very much opposed. I don’t believe in their idea of a bodiless mental soul or nonphysical thing or stuff being inserted (or trapped) into bodies to animate them (or moving from one to another as in transmigration or reincarnation). It doesn’t agree with science or the Bible.

Indeed. Many of those changes are very welcome, particularly in the areas of morality and attitudes towards women and slavery. But when we find that things adopted by Christianity are not in agreement with either the Bible OR science, then there is obviously no need to cling to them.

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Including the ones that are derivable and don’t have to be measured? Most of those that have to be measured (15) are the masses of fundamental particles in the creaking 70s Standard Model of 25 dimensionless constants. Along with 8 parameters of 2 matrices. So God had to set them? Why? Until proved otherwise they are self tuned, like the relationships between many particles. For the derived ones ‘all’ He has to do is instantiate them and the laws that use them. That’s the God bit. Instantiation. Not ‘creating’ 1+1=2. He couldn’t ‘create’ otherwise. So, that leaves us with the fine structure and strong coupling dimensionless constants and four measured dimensioned constants; c, h, G and the magnetic constant of vacuum permeability, mu zero. So only God can om in those keys?

Thanks on (3).

(4) God explains nothing that His absence doesn’t. Possibly apart from the records of the early Church and therefore everything. Proton half life is 10^31-36 years. If it has one. Which is nothing compared with other particle physics milestones. Including the quantum perturbation spawning of a next [universe]. There have always been material effects and causes God or no. To say we can explain existence with God is as absurd as not. Absurdity is intrinsic to existence…

(1) I know of no rational reason to invoke the superfluous concept of a soul. Arguing that we have one, whatever it is, which you inexactly know, because God[,] is… not an argument.

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I am reminded of this passage:

Jonah 4:11

And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals ?”

Deuteronomy 25:4 [Full Chapter]

You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.

Deuteronomy 5:14

But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey , or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.

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Absence of empirical evidence is not proof of absence. Many of us believe in God, Biblical inspiration (a milder form for me), and that Jesus was God’s son. There is no empirical evidence for that. There is no rational proof for many of our beliefs. Just personal experience that can be interpreted many different ways and rationalized. Many will tell us free will is an illusion as is our sense of self and consciousness.

That you have no rational evidence for an immaterial soul does not mean one does not exist. That is a non-sequitur and by definition natural studies will not find evidence for one. I have my reasons. As stated: scripture (e.g Paul and Jesus) and the teaching of the Church. I never attempted to offer proof. Only those two foundational supports.

You stated positively there is evidence no such thing exists. I asked you for that evidence. Lacking scientific or empirical evidence for something’s existence is not the same thing as evidence it doesn’t exist. It would lead to agnosticism on the subject at best.

Secondly, there is no evidence the fundamental constants of our universe are self tuned. They have no volition or awareness as far as I know, no ore than a rock on the side of the road. You are going far beyond what science can actually say.

An immaterial soul, like the existence of God, is beyond the realm of scientific inquiry. Many people think there is a spiritual realm to humans and that souls are not superfluous.

Vinnie

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Jesus did, or at least NT translators found reasons: soul searching.

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There is no need to make up entities that explain nothing at all beyond fossil steps in cultural evolution which have been long superseded. It’s the same with the polydactylic handful of half dozen measured constants that the obsolete 50 year Standard Model can’t derive, there is no warrant filling those gaps with ID. We need rationality to come up with a better model that goes beyond the empirical. And until then. Rationality, now, not magic. Nature abhors not even a vacuum. If there can be null there can be not null. No or God. And whatever quantum noise that is can evolve, emerge, develop, hatch with only those six fingers. Back to Jesus, I want, desire Him to be as writ. Why should I want ‘soul’, whatever that is, to be? All we can say for sure about the proposition of God and nature is that He grounds it. Nature has no soul but His therefore. And six numbers less than a century and a half old don’t show it. The only warrant for God is Jesus.

YMMV

Marty