Re: [asa] Saving Darwin: What theological changes are required?

Thank you Ted. My understanding is that mind/spirit - matter dualism also
is quite healthy in Roman Catholic philosophy and theology. And I know that
dualism is a major theme in conservative evangelical philosopy and
theology (J.P. Moreland of course and if I recall correctly Millard
Erickson's Systematic Theology). My understanding also is that a sort of
mind - matter dualism (or at least a mind-matter ontological distinction) is
viable in dialectical critical realism (Roy Bhaskar et al), via emergentism
-- and I could see Nancey Murphy et al.'s nonreductive physicalism being
viewed this way, though I don't think Murphy herself goes in that
direction.

Busy day, not much time to track some of this down today -- but I hope we
can continue this discussion. This is great stuff.

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 9:32 AM, Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu> wrote:

> >>> "karl.w.giberson@enc.edu" <gibersok@gmail.com> 6/10/2008 8:44 AM >>>
> writes:
>
> The theologians and philosophers I talk to all reject dualism.
> I am under the impression that it has a negligibly small place in
> contemporary discourse. Many biblical scholars consider dualism to be
> non-biblical, a Greek idea from Plato that is inconsistent with
> Hebraic understandings. The whole point of affirming the
> "resurrection of the body" is that there is no other way to recover
> the person. If dualism were true, then our immaterial souls could
> exist apart from our bodies.
>
> Ted comments:
> As my earlier post indicates, Karl and I are apparently not talking to the
> same theologians and philosophers.
>
> I entirely agree with Karl about affirming the bodily resurrection, but my
> own view of that event, heavily influenced by my own reflection on
> scripture
> and also by NT Wright, is that (so to speak) there is a time in between our
> physical death and our re-embodiment in a glorified body. I don't know
> whether or not Karl holds this view; perhaps Karl believes that our
> re-embodiment is instantaneous (so to speak). If he does share this view,
> however, then I would ask him: Karl, where do "you" go in between death and
> resurrection (so to speak)? Does God hold you in God's own mind? If so,
> is
> God's mind a material mind or not? Does being held in God's mind count as
> being embodied, or not? Either way, what exactly is it that God remembers,
> prior to our resurrection? Is it our "form", as the scholastic
> philosophers
> (who weren't stupid) might call it? Is it our "soul"? Even if God
> remembers us as embodied creatures, not simply as "forms" or "souls," what
> exactly is it in God's mind, in between times? Isn't it something pretty
> darn like a "form" or "soul" of you or me?
>
> I don't pretend to have good answers to these really hard questions. Karl
> might, in which case I'm all ears. But my overall point here is (again) to
> avoid dancing on the gravestone of dualism, when (like Huck Finn), it might
> be attending its own funeral.
>
> Ted
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology
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