Jan,
In brief, Descartes wrote about mind and body. The latter in his view is
physical, causal, etc. The former is totally opposite. All animals are
purely physical, elaborate machines. Human beings possess minds, which
connect to the body at the pineal, the only brain structure which does
not appear divided. The problem with this view is getting mind and body
to somehow connect, for they have absolutely nothing in common. This led
to some strange approaches--Malebranchian Occasionalism and Spinoza's
monism notably. This mind-body dualism is then transferred to soul-body
dualism. Obviously, mind or soul are not studied scientifically, which is
the contemporary shibboleth,
Dave
On Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:19:07 -0500 Jan de Koning <jan@dekoning.ca>
writes:
> At 08:27 AM 31/01/02 -0700, David F Siemens wrote:
>
> >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
>
>
> This is the second time that I see a reference to Descartes. Where
> did
> Descartes give an account of the human soul in this sense? I never
> heard
> his name mentioned in this connection, one way or the other. It is
> true
> that I do have trouble with many hymns, which in my opinion are not
>
> biblical. And that is not only when they sing about "soul."
>
> If you can read Dutch, I can give references to some books which
> talk about
> this founded on the bible.
> I am not looking for a "scientific" description of "soul." And I
> realize
> that "soul" is often used for the total human person. That is why I
> think
> that "soul" is not just a part of the human person, but means the
> total
> human person.
>
> Jan de K.
>
>
>
>
>
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