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

The Dictionary of Critical Realism offers an excellent discussion of
idealism / materialism and dualism / reductionism with regard to mind under
the entry for "Mind" (book site here:
http://www.routledge-philosophy.com/books/Dictionary-of-Critical-Realism-isbn9780415260992)
It notes the following:

[Critical realism's] main contribution on this subject is synchronic
emergent powers materialism (SEPM), which shares with Searle's biological
naturalism a refusal of the basic terms of debate set out by dualism and
reductionism, on the basis that both are rooted in an ontological
idealist-materialist dichotomy.... SEPM argues that consciousness is an
emergent non-reducible property of the material brain. The term synchronic
is used to differentiate the use of the term emergence from its diachronic
application to the evolution of species and their capacities. Thus
consciousness is concurrent with a given form of material brain. But this
does not in itself indicate a hard claim about the temporal relationships of
consciousness and brain materiality. Philosophical and scientific
ontologies are different.... Since CR focuses attention on the generation of
the possibility of reason and on the subsequent generative mechanisms of
reason, this false choice between causation and freedom, reductive
materialism and defensive idealism, is avoided.

It seems to me that the resources of critical realism and emergence theory
offer a third way in many of these discussions about the imago Dei, the
"soul," free will and determinism, etc.

On Tue, Jun 10, 2008 at 11:39 AM, <drsyme@cablespeed.com> wrote:

> No, the definition in question is 3b. Karl rejected it out of hand.
>
> But even 3b is nuanced as David suggest with various types of dualism of
> humans such as emergent dualism, non-reductive physicalism, etc.
>
>
>
> *On Tue Jun 10 11:26 , Bill Hamilton sent:
>
> *
>
> Perhaps some of us are laboring under one definition of dualism, when Karl,
> Ted and David are using another. Thed Merriam Webster online dictionary
> defines dualism as
>
> Function: *noun* Date: 1794 1*:* a theory that considers reality to
> consist of two irreducible elements or modes
> 2*:* the quality or state of being dual or of having a dual nature
> 3 a*:* a doctrine that the universe is under the dominion of two opposing
> principles one of which is good and the other evil b*:* a view of human
> beings as constituted of two irreducible elements (as matter and spirit)
>
> The dualism that is rejected by Christian theology is definition 3. I think
> Karl, David and Ted are using definition 1.
>
>
> William E. (Bill) Hamilton, Ph.D. Member ASA
> 248.821.8156 (mobile)
> "...If God is for us, who is against us?" Rom 8:31
> http://www.bricolagia.blogspot.com/
> Want to help a child?:
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>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> To: Ted Davis <TDavis@messiah.edu>
> Cc: "karl.w.giberson@enc.edu" <gibersok@gmail.com>; ASA list <
> asa@calvin.edu>; Stephen Matheson <smatheso@calvin.edu>; Steve Martin <
> steven.dale.martin@gmail.com>; George Murphy <GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 8:53:23 AM
> Subject: 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
>
>
>

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