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Class envy
I wish I was taking this class (pdf file) instead of my freaky class. But that class meets during the day, when I work. Darn! Here's our syllabus. While looking over both of these, I realized that Ph.D level classes mean reading a book per week. Agh. I'm a fast reader, but not as disciplined as I need to be. I think I will need to kick it up a notch, as they say.
I'm going to try and have a positive attitude about the subject matter of the class. These things are important to think about. We already have IVF and pacemakers. If we have frozen embryos that are "extra" due to reproductive technology, what are we supposed to do with them? If some people have artificial limbs, would it be possible for someone with a brain injury to have a partially artificial brain? I don't understand how this whole downloading your brain into a computer works, and I think it sounds ridiculous, not to mention Gnostic, as one commentator said. But check out this website, which is on our class resources list. I think these people are serious. What is our Christian response?
Help me understand why a Christian would need to have a response, or
reaction to this kind of technocratic speculation? The thought that I have
is that, perhaps, the computer analogy of mind undercuts the concept of a
unique soul. But, I am not even certain of
that.
Cliff [c.stephan@verizon.net]
I'm not sure what you mean. Is it that their idea of mind is undercutting
our idea of what the soul is?
I think we should have some sort of response to this speculation - doesn't all science start out as speculation? Someone thinks, I wonder if you could take an egg and a sperm out of the body, mix it in a petri dish and put it back inside a woman? Voila, IVF! I wonder if you could replicate an embryo? Voila, cloning. Whether we'll ever get to the point of actual human cloning is very debatable, but I think we should have a theological response to the possibility of it, even if that response is NO.
Plus, this transhumanist movement shows how deep the yearning for eternal life is, how much our society resents or fears limits (whether biological or moral), and how much hubris we have. As Christians, we can respond to all of that.
Regarding the soul. I thought that each of us had a unique soul and it is
somehow associated with the body. If we transfer our minds (whatever that
means) into a machine what happens to the soul. The body dies, but what
happens to the soul? That is my question. I guess that a moral response
would make sense to me, but why a theological response? What does theology
have to do with science? In this case a highly speculative and probably
never to be realized science.
cliff
Insofar as science is human, and insofar as God took on human flessh to
redeem us, and insofar as theology is, in part, human reflection on the
experience of God then it seems to me that Christians have everything to do
with science. We are, after all, to take captive every thought to the
obedience of Christ (2 Cor 10:5).
I would say by way of initial response that Christians need to remember their Christology and not pull a Cartesian mind-body dualism trick. We are embodied souls, or, if you like, soulish bodies. What we do to and with our bodies impacts our souls, since we are a unity of soul and body.
Clifton D. Healy [chealy5@yahoo.com]
Please bear with me and I apologize for being uneducated, but I would like
to pursue this conversation for a bit. I was taught that God created my
soul and placed it into my body at conception. Further, I was taught that
at death the soul departs the body and hangs around somewhere until the
final resurrection at which time it is reunited with the body. This may be
based upon a Cartesian concept I don’t know. If it is a Cartesian idea
then has it been replaced (the idea of a soul) with some other viewpoint.
If the new idea is that the soul and body are inextricably united what does
that mean? The body decomposes at death so to then does this unity also
dissolve? Then I would guess, in my view, that we may as well discard the
idea of soul or of body because we don’t need both. Anyway, if I transfer
my mind, which I suppose is material (but I have no clear info on this),
into a machine, does my soul stay in the body or does it go with the mind
(what ever that is)? Perhaps the answer is simply at the time of the
transfer the body dies and the soul hangs around until the resurrection. I
don’t think Christology tells us anything about this since he seems to be a
special case. His body never got a chance to decompose at his death.
Furthermore, I am uncertain, but his soul existed from the get go, that is
he is coeternal with God. So how does Christology apply here?
Cliff
The idea that the soul and body are united is not new. The idea that soul
and body are separate is Greek, I believe, but I could be wrong. The
resurrection body will not be the same body we have now. Paul says it is
sown a "soma psychikon" and will be raised a "soma pneumatikon" (spiritual
body). NRSV translates soma psychikon as natural body but soulish body is
closer. So it's not really reunited so much as transformed.
Christology is important because Christ is the firstborn of the dead. What happened to him will happen to us. It's not a special case in that sense.
So what happens we die? I believe we will be in the presence of
God, but I have no idea what that means. I don't think "heaven" is the
final destination if we think of heaven as a permanent disembodied place.
N.T. Wright has written a lot on the resurrection of the body and its
meaning for Christian life. Here's an interview with him that was in
Christianity
today.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/115/42.0.html
What would happen to someone's soul who downloaded his mind into a computer? I'll get back to you after a few weeks of class, after I know what their definition of "mind" is.
I probably didn't address the issue of Christology enough, but someone else can chip in.
by passing the above conversation i want to affirm that the christology
class w/ long looks great, and as one who just came out of an evangelical
seminary (Trinity), i wish i had taken Long's class...
Geoff Holsclaw [holsclaws@netzero.net]