RE: [asa] consciousness, ASA article feedback

This might be true of human consciousness is similar to animals, but how
does self-awareness relate to anything like a Biblical description of a
human "soul" or "spirit"? Again, I think inferences are being drawn, but
I'm not convinced that the inferences add up to the conclusion that a "soul"
is non-spiritual.

I want to bring up a concept for others to discuss here, which I wrote to
you privately. The Bible mentions "soul" and also "spirit". I believe that
what the Bible describes as a "soul" may represent something of a union
between a spirit and the human body, and loosely be represented by what
scientists study as the human mind/will/emotion, and thus be "natural" in
some at least some aspects. Yet there is a spiritual component to us as
well. Is this distinction between spirit, soul, and body something that
would be of importance to distinguish in this sort of discussion?

I'm fairly sure that the Bible does NOT give a single, clear definition or
what is a soul, or make a consistent distinction between spirit and soul.
Sometimes a souls is simply an identified human individual (1Pet 3:20),
sometimes the essence of the whole person (2Pet 2:8), or the religious and
feeling part of a person (James 1:21), sometimes to a departed spirit (Acts
2:27,31; Rev 20:4).

Jon Tandy

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Dehler, Bernie
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 10:56 AM
To: asa
Subject: RE: [asa] consciousness, ASA article feedback (was: RE: (fall-away)
TE and apologetics)

By the way, one reason why I believe the human consciousness is like the
animals, only to a more complex degree (as in all things evolution), is
because of all the experiments on different animals with the "mirror test."
I listened to a philosophy class lecture on it the other day. UC Berkeley
has some free podcasts of their philosophy courses on the internet.

As an fyi, here's wikipedia article on it (which I haven't read yet):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

...Bernie

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Received on Wed Sep 23 13:28:57 2009