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.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 31 2002 - 11:16:45 EST