They all unnecessarily, except as spandrels, go beyond cold hard facts. They aren’t prevenenient and don’t need explaining away before we can get to the cold hard facts. Those stare us in the face and we don’t like it, so make up campfire stories. Like Goodall’s.
An immaterial soul is beyond the observations of science by definition. To say there is no such thing goes vastly beyond the evidence. You can simply say we have no empirical evidence of an immaterial soul. But this says nothing at all because we shouldn’t expect to have such evidence. Its not the same as a invisible pink elephant because most cite Church teachings and Biblical teachings as evidence. We accept this “otherness” to human beings based on the teachings of Jesus, Paul and other Hellenized Jews 2000 years ago and the historic teachings of the Church or we don’t. Same with canonization, inspiration, the incarnation, etc.
Science can’t comment on this belief. Billions of Biblically based Christians have had no issues with belief in the soul and have thought the Bible teaches it. Modern translations that the majority read all use the term souls. The believe that it just means “life” in the modern sense is not accepted by them otherwise a different term would be used. Yes, many might say that the modern concept is nowhere found in the Old Testament or even fully in the New Testament. But my point about ancient Jews is that they also lacked other beliefs such as an afterlife that the New Testament possesses. Both beliefs began developing after the Babylonian exile. One could also argue that the Trinity doesn’t agree with all of the Bible or the law of non-contradiction, let alone science (how can three distinct entities actually be one?). The concept of a soul, however developed or underdeveloped compared to a few hundred years later, is found in the New Testament just as is belief in an afterlife.There is no reason to believe all revelation from God stopped with the last book of the New Testament and any new changes are purely secular. I leave specific details about the “soul” unresolved because we lack any real empirical evidence and we just have to infer based on a few Biblical verses. There is something distinct beyond the body that survives it and can later be reunited with it at the resurrection. There is something to us beyond our brains alone.
Some are welcome for sure but in the US the Bible was used extensively by half the population to justify slavery in the 1800s, there is still systemic racism today and inequalities between men and women, the later of which just received the right to vote 100 years ago. It wasn’t until the 1960s that women could open bank accounts and 70s where they could be given credit without a husband’s signature. We know of segregation after the emancipation and all civil rights movements of the 60s and the unethical and unChristlike treatment of black people by White, often Bible toting Christians, in the United States. We have a long way to go and it took the church thousands of years to overcome these things, which are CLEARLY supported in the Bible to various degrees. Slavery is easy to justify. It is sanctioned and regulated as a normative practice. If women and your daughters can be a male’s property, how much more can he own others? Paul tells slaves to obey their masters. That has been the problem all along. Slavery, women as property, women being subservient to men, women being silent in church and having no authority over a man, etc. The truth is we have to disregard these passages. There is no reinterpreting them. Hopefully, soon more of the church also disregards the passages about homosexuality. I was just at a conservative Bible study where all but me agreed a practicing homosexual could not be in an authority in church because they are willfully engaged in a sinful lifestyle. There are many things taught in the Bible that we disregard and there are many things we believe not really taught in the Bible. Not a fan of sola scripture. It needs to be tempered by teachings from the Church.
Vinnie
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Evidence is science. What do you have that I don’t?
Of course it can. Belief is grist for science’s mill.
So you insist on understanding the universe and ourselves as machines. For you It seems that anything which doesn’t fit your expectation that the truth be discernible as demonstrable facts is just a waste of time. From my WV it seems you’ve set yourself up for frustration and failure because we are not machines. The soul is not a ghost jockey that pilots our meat bodies in life and then God only knows what after that. But while not something supernatural our souls are more than our capacity for rationalization or imagination. It’s real but will never be found by someone looking for a cog in the machine or who assumes that what it is is up to them. Good luck though.
No I don’t. Machines are made by intelligent agents. We weren’t. We are natural. So I can’t fail. I’m not looking for what isn’t there. I am looking, all to little too late, to be a better soul.
Disagree. Science uses empirical observation under the assumption of both uniformity and cause and effect. Science never proves anything. Every theory is open to further analysis and remains controvertible by further observations. This is one of the hallmark achievements of science.
There is knowledge outside the realm of scientific evidence. I do not believe science can ever tell us how we ought to behave. It can try to reduce the golden rule purely down to reciprocal altruism of a social species that evolved over time. I think there is an objective morality and it is grounded in God. I do not think evolution is capable of producing moral truth anymore than quarks or rocks are, no matter how you assemble them. Moral, aesthetic and supernatural beliefs (by definition) are outside the purview of scientific investigation. Religious experiences exist usually in our mind and are also often times outside the realm of scientific inquiry, unless you want to call them delusions.
Some of us believe morality is real, love is more than just a delusional state of our mind caused by brain chemistry, that there are value judgments and so forth. The belief that Jesus is the way to God, or that He is God’s Son or that he saved us from our sins is far outside the realm of scientific inquiry. You do believe these yes? Most of our daily actions and most cherished beliefs fall outside the scope of scientific inquiry. Morality and proper behavior is far more important than learning facts about the universe. Learning facts because we are using God given gifts to benefit our fellow man is even better still.
I distinguish between evidence, scientific evidence and reasons for belief. I would sub-divide scientific evidence to distinguish the harder sciences rom the softer ones. They can all overlap at times but I don’t think this is mandatory. Science is extremely useful but it doesn’t cover every area of life. It can never tell me how I should live or how I should behave or that one of my behaviors is a sin. Even if God built them into the universe somewhere a popularity contest is a logical fallacy. Science cannot discover them or at least has not and shows no signs in the near future of doing so. It will always assume what it is trying to prove.
Vinnie
I think fallible you and I serve souls rather than being them. We “have” a soul only in the sense that a crewman has a captain. We have enormous capacity for exercising independent judgment but as with moral choice our captain the elephant carries more volitional weight. Something there is onboard within us that understand our lived world better than our detached rational minds can. I’m content to call what that is my soul.
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I know how science operates. Within rationality. And it indicates, requires no morality grounded in God. Can you give me any example of morality, i.e. real, actual good behaviour, that requires Him? I have no idea what moral truth is. I don’t know how any belief or religious experience can be outside the purview of scientific investigation. And which beliefs, if any, aren’t to some degree (like 360) delusional, i.e. subjective? And therefore real. Feelings, emotions are real. What isn’t? And again, how, apart from mere assertion, is belief that Jesus is the way to God, or that He is God’s Son or that he saved us from our sins outside the realm of scientific inquiry? And yes, I believe those things, but not the way you do. Again all of our actions and most cherished beliefs fall inside the scope of scientific inquiry for me, but not for you. Morality and proper behaviour to benefit our fellow man are learning facts about the universe. It’s all in the tilt of the head.
Did I skip over something in between those two?
Without God, all morality is subjective to me. Hypothetically speaking, why is murder wrong? Why shouldn’t I just take what I want if I can get away with it? Should I be good even if there are no consequences? Even if doing so does not benefit me and my family? Why should I care about the next generation of humans? I will just enjoy my greenhouse gases and cheap dirty energy now and wish them the best. Do you feel that bad when a bird eats a fish or a person steps on a bug or runs 200 over on a joyride?
We all tend to feel we are a part of something bigger than ourselves. You can of course engage in good behavior without believing in God but the idea of there actually being objective good to me requires God. I just don’t see how morality can apply to completely physical objects. I don’t see how assemblages of atoms somehow gain ontological meaning and importance over others, even if they form a brain. Just atoms, forces and motion and material objects. The atoms making up humans have existed for billions of years and will eventually completely unassemble and reassemble as something else. Maybe a new star or just expand into nothingness. I am not even sure I trust my own thoughts or brain to get me to truth in an atheistic universe. You can believe otherwise but I don’t think either of us can prove it one way or another. I do not find God superfluous to anything, however. Life is void of ultimate meaning without God to me. A materialistic universe is bleak and empty to me. We are ultimately star dust with a blink of an eye existence in the grand scheme of things. One species amidst countless others at the top of an evolutionary ladder still going. Thinking we are special or important in this worldview all seems a tad bit silly to me.
You can study religious experiences but if a person thinks God speaks to them you cannot ascertain the validity of that statement. You can call them crazy, delusional, piously mistaken or in communion with the Lord. There is no way to verify or falsify their experiences. Even if you can explain their experiences rationally, this is not the end of the discussion.
How does one go about scientifically testing whether or not God, as you call him the ground of all being, exists? Would seem to be an assumption or axiom rather than an argument. Furthermore, what experiment do you propose to determine if Jesus is God’s son, if Jesus who lived 2000 years ago is God incarnate, if the experiences Christians have correspond to a real experience with a spiritual being or are just the delusions of evolved primates? What experiments can we do to test the reality of Jesus’ salvific work on the cross? Sure, we can look at the impact on his followers and the world but we cannot really resolve whether he actually did anything and changed anything objective about the predicament of man or billions of people are just really convinced he did and act accordingly. One cannot test claims that correspond to events whose ultimate truth resides outside of our physical reality. Do you really think science can verify or falsify God’s existence? Aside from evangelical ID proponents and YECS, I’ve never encountered this belief before.
So you can certainly study religious beliefs and compare them to other religious beliefs, but there is no real way to verify or falsity their truth claims unless they say specific things about the material universe (e.g there was an Exodus and there is little to no archaeological evidence of it, or the earth is 6,000 years old and science is strongly showing its 4.6 billion years old). But in the end, no one can prove or disprove the notion that God created a universe with the appearance of age. It could have been made 2 seconds ago for all we know. Science only deals with claims that are open to verification. Not all truth claims are open to verification. That is why science is such a strong way of learning about God’s creation. It is objective, not subjective and it self-corrects to a degree via peer review and repeatability. It makes testable predictions and is very much capable of being verified or falsified. I can’t put Jesus in a test tube and determine if He really did empty himself and enter the world as a human or if he was just another man like everyone else–whose only pre-existence was found in the atoms that came together to form him. Empty tomb? Same boat. We can lead out bad arguments about the women at the tomb but in the end there is no proof. Just faith.
Vinnie
Jane suggests that not only do animals have spirits (or souls) but so do trees and plants. I think no-one has more experience than Jane living and communicating with apes and or chimpanzees - along with the sense that they have souls too. Her big idea seems to be that man is different from animals in degree, but not in kind. I disagree with this, on the basis of the idea that entering into moral awareness (knowing right from wrong), results in the gaining of the faculty of “responsibility”, meaning being accountable for ones actions, and thus able to be judged by a law. Animals, in my view, do not have this faculty, for example, a tiger or a chimpanzee cannot be guilty of murder because they are not aware of a moral law, but rather have feelings, emotions, and sentience (or what I think Jane means by “soul”). If an animal were to gain a moral conscience, it would become the same “kind” as humans, including the need to be morally justified (and possibly in need of Christ). I like to think that animals are also not “fallen” - they do not experience a sense of being outside of nature or being separated from it. This, in my idea, is because the guilt of “sin” and the “shame of nakedness” is what causes us to feel disconnected from God and nature, something that animals do not experience. I like to think that this moral awareness “casts us out of the Garden”, and makes us bear the burden of being part animal, part divine.
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- Why would having a spirit have anything to do with a knowledge of right and wrong let alone some moral law you imagine. Sounds like an invention of a legalist, or a Gnostic who thinks spirituality is all about knowledge.
- Living things have responsibility corresponding to their capabilities, which for plants is obviously much much less than we have, and still considerably less than us in the case of animals.
- Animals definitely have a great deal more responsibility and moral awareness than plants, especially the more socially oriented animals. Some might argue they have a better sense of when it is right to kill and when it is not – for make no mistake, humans draw the same lines (when it is wrong to kill and even when it is a necessity).
- I do not think that animals are fallen. God did not speak to them or adopt them as children. But this does does not mean they have no spirit.
- But I certainly do not agree with this notion that we have a spirit because we have sin let alone this highly cultural notion of a a shame of nakedness which many cultures do not have.
- It is not moral awareness that has severed our relationship with God but self-destructive habits which has made God’s presence in our lives do more harm than good. That is the only thing which can EVER sever a parent child relationship.
With or without God all morality is subjective, personal to everyone. Why are the Godless often more moral, whatever that means, more decent, more righteous than the Godful? By civilized or Christian standards? Similarly the Muslim than the Christian?
What is objective good? What have physical objects with no meaning got to do with morality? Ah, that’s what we are without God. So we’re not entitled to morality without Him? What truth are you trying to get to? I’m trying to get to the truth of being a better human being regardless and failing badly. Because like everyone else we know, nobody knows God, whether we’re in Him or not. No one can prove Him but Him. So what basis do I have for thinking I’m special or important just like all other infinity of beings from eternity? I used to have a T-shirt emblazoned with “I’m unique. Just like everyone else”.
Why? As in ALL irrational claims, without exception, I don’t have to work up contrary validity to validity that does not exist in the first place. It’s not a 50:50 level playing field. Theism does not rationally come before atheism. Atheism is rationally assumed with no further justification needed. It’s untheism, non-theism, pre-theism by default and theism needs to do all the work. I happen to want to believe in God thanks be to Christ. And as you know more than most, there is virtually no forensic, literary, hermeneutic warrant for that. But I want it to be so.
Er, why would one engage in such meaningless behaviour? Why are you setting up a straw man of your own devising? Like C.S. Lewis on a bad day?
There is only one religious claim worth giving the time of day to. Jesus. And all He implies. God in Him is my heart’s desire. Oooh look! We agree. Can we agree on anything else? That faith only has any meaning at all when it is expressed in love? Otherwise it is meaningless belief.
Marty
I remember learning that we have 25% of our DNA in common with trees in Richard Power’s book The Overstory. I wonder if in some sense every creature reflects an aspect of God’s image?
One could argue that given our nature, we are the only creature in need of restraint and, if we are to enjoy what free will as we have that means we need a capacity for responsibility. I’m not sure how that would indicate we reflect God’s image more so than any other creature. The image we have is the aspect of His nature of most direct relevance to human beings, but is there any reason to think God’s nature is especially human-like?
I would think what casts us out of the garden is our ability to act against our conscience and to strategize our own advantage without regard to the harm to others, human and non human. Our capacity to consider hypothetical outcomes and the use of language is what really sets us apart, and not necessarily in a good way.
Please explain to me how it works, that according to your rationality, God is forbidden from acting providentially and intervening into time and space, but he is not forbidden from becoming incarnate [that’s pretty much intervening into time and space]. “Providence is nothing more than goodness in action.” Jesus himself is the ultimate Providence.
I think there is a difference to knowing about a law and knowing that law is correct. The latter makes one accountable. For instance, knowing that 1+1=2 is right makes 1+1=3 incorrect. This “being subject to the law” gives one the ability to judge ones actions, and incurs divine responsibility in my view.
I would agree that to the degree that plants have a moral law, then they also would have responsibility. I just don’t think they have one.
I would think animals do not make these decisions by consulting a moral law, certainly not a written one, rather I think they make decisions based on feelings.
Agreed.
Well, I think it’s the capacity for sin that makes us special, and closer to “godness”. Not sure whether that’s the same as “spirit”. I know of almost no cultures these days that consider naked normal (in France you have to go to a beach, not walk down the street).
This seems like an original understanding. Mine is that breaking Gods moral law makes us guilty and liable to judgement. I believe the “great divorce” (as C.S. Lewis puts it), was caused by disobedience to the command of God, alluded to by.eating the fruit of the Tree of Life. I think the only way to become children of God is by adoption.
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I do not. That is what a law means. Thinking it is not correct is to think it is not legitimately a law. Besides one of the more important teachings of Jesus is that morality really isn’t about laws anyway. And I still don’t see why any of this has anything whatsoever to with having a spiritual existence. I reject such legalist and Gnostic notions. And I certainly reject the notion that other living organisms don’t have moral imperatives just because they don’t bandy linguistic moral abstractions.
I reject the notion that morality and responsibility requires these human social invention of laws. Once that sophistry and rhetoric is removed then the difference vanishes. I can only repeat that responsibility only makes sense where there is capability and plants naturally don’t have responsibility where they obviously have so little capability.
And I think all this talk of “moral law” is empty rhetoric to prop up an ideological framework which I see no need to agree with even as a Christian. Animals make decision according to their capabilities, but within those limits they certainly do act according to moral imperatives. Most people make decisions based on feelings too and I don’t think that means they don’t have a spirit just because they don’t babble about “moral laws.” I certainly don’t think that just because they don’t go out and murder people because a “God” and religion told them to means they are without a spiritual existence.
I do not. Nor do I see any reason to think animals are incapable of sin.
And I think that is an invention of those who use religion as a tool of power and manipulation. It is just too convenient for that purpose – make it all about obedience then they can pretend to speak for God and expect that people will obey them. Jesus punches a hole in this distortion by explaining that it really is about feeling – the feeling of love for God and your fellow human beings. Thus He condemned the lawyers and their legal manipulations.
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He did not condemn obedience, though:
Nor did any of the epistlers:
Love is not merely feelings. That’s a Hollywood trope. Love is about behaviors, behaviors that are motivated by correct thinking and decisions and obligations to our neighbors, as well as feelings… hopefully.
Do unto others…
…not just feel.
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