On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 21:08:50 EST Cmekve@aol.com writes:
> I'm hardly qualified to get into this discussion, but I will venture
> far
> enough to suggest the book "Whatever Happened to the Soul?", edited
> by Warren
> S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Malony (1998, Fortress
> Press). In
> general the book supports a non-reductive monism. In a chapter on
> the
> biblical aspects, theologian Joel Green make the following comment
> (in a
> footnote at the end of his paper), "In the end, these results can
> only be
> provisional since we have examined small portions of representative
> biblical
> materials. As references to other scholars indicate..., however,
> the
> prevailling view in the SCHOLARLY study of Scripture is that the Old
> and New
> Testaments support a monistic rendering of the human person. This
> has not
> been true in more POPULAR circles, perhaps due in large part to the
> influence
> of Cartesian categories in Christian hymnody and in
> medicine."[p.173]
>
> Karl
> *********************
> Karl V. Evans
> cmekve@aol.com
>
A group of us went through the book rather carefully. I was very
disappointed. First, it essentially accepted a totally naturalistic
approach with God tacked on. It seems to me deistic rather than theistic.
Second, Green covered all the verses that could be given this
naturalistic twist but neglected those that made difficulties. It is so
easy to declare that "my view is scholarly, you poor benighted and
Cartesian-deluded souls." But this is of the nature of propaganda rather
than demonstration. Of course their view is scholarly: so was the most
radical Higher Criticism. And it is the claim of the Jesus Seminar.
I will grant that it is not possible to give a scientific description of
soul or spirit without reductionism. But deity also must be reduced to
anthropomorphic projection or something similar to fit scientific
categories. I do not see rational grounds for denying the latter if I
accept the former.
Dave
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