Re: a question for monists

At 09:33 PM 3/25/2005, Keith Miller wrote:
>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 </blockquote></x-html>

 From 1Thess.4: 13ff it is clear that we (if we are still alive when Jesus
returns) are not going ahead of anyone when Jesus returns. Even more the
"dead" shall arise, and then together we will meet Christ.
The issue is thus that man is not a dualistic being: "body and soul", but
is just that "man."
However, on this forum it is maybe possible to discuss the fact that
"time" is also a creation of God and cannot be just assumed. God created
man, and when we die "man" is dead, is not at all. Only at the
resurrection we live again, and meet together with the then living
Christians Christ.

The difficulty is of course that we except "time" from creation, and have,
automatically, with the Greek language which needed to be translated,
accepted the Greek philosophy, which divided a human being in "body" plus
"soul." To aggravate that difficulty the translation we have has made it
even more difficult, so that it is possible to translate "nephesh" in Gen.
1 for animals as "living being", but in Gen.2 as "soul". One result of
these difficulties is, that we find it almost impossible to talk with our
believing Christian brothers and sisters about these subjects.
And, mea culpa, I find it hard to set myself to systematically research the
subject, as I have found that it is almost impossible to talk with anyone,
even theologians about this subject. The comfort found in going to heaven
is too great. Still, the Bible tells us that we will be living on the new
earth, not in heaven.

I promised to write about a lecture I heard in 1942 about this subject, but
I never got around to it. I promise these things too easily, maybe. I have
at least two other subjects, that I promised to write about. So how do you
who write books ever get around to write about what is needed at a
particular moment?

Jan de Koning
Received on Sat Mar 26 10:18:16 2005