Re: a question for monists

  George wrote:

> While I'm sympathetic with attempts to develop a "nonreductive
> physicalism," it does indeed encounter problems.  One that has to do
> with God can be stated very simply without getting into the more
> difficlut issues involved with the Incarnation.  If minds require
> brains, how can we speak of a mind of God prior to the Incarnation? 

The monist position certainly only relates to human nature, not the
divine. I don't see that monism would have any implication at all for
the incarnation. Jesus is unique in being fully human and fully divine
- physical and spirit. I believe that God is spirit and that there are
spiritual non-material beings. We, however, are not.

God's personhood does not require brains, in fact it does not require
the existence of matter. (Note: I use personhood rather than the word
mind. I think that talking about the mind of God may be equivalent to
talking about God seeing. To envision that God thinks like we do, is
probably as limited as in thinking that god sees as we do.) By
contrast, our particular personhood is rooted in the material substance
of our brains.

The problem with a simple dualistic view of human nature, is that it
implies that the spirit is separable from the physical. If we can
exist as disembodied spirits, then why do we possess bodies? I do not
think that we can be human without our bodies -- I think that is why
Paul emphasizes our bodily resurrection. If one holds to a view in
which the body and spirit are inseparable then, to me any way, the
distinction with nonreductive physicalism begins to become almost
semantics.

Keith
Received on Fri Mar 25 21:38:03 2005