Warren S. Brown, Nancey Murphy, and H. Newton Maloney, editors. Whatever Happened to the Soul? Scientific and Theological Portraits of Human Nature. Minneapolis, Minn.: Augsburg Fortress, 1998. xv + 252 pages.

Reviewed by David R. Larson

Because it addresses a subject that is of interest to many, I take this opportunity to recommend this book even though it has been available for several years. This topic is what some of us used to call "the doctrine of the state of the dead." Today we more frequently refer to it as "the Christian understanding of man and woman" or perhaps even "the psychosomatic unity of the self." It is a consideration of the relationships in human life between the body and the soul. This is why I like to refer to it as "the doctrine of the state of the living."

The authors of the individually written essays in this volume view the human soul "as a functional capacity of a complex physical organism, rather than a separate spiritual essence that somehow inhabits the body." This point of view differs from those that trace back to Plato, who taught that the soul exists before and after its temporary "imprisonment" in the body. It differs as well from views rooted in the teachings of René Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, who posited an irreducible difference between thinking substance ("mind"), on the one hand, and extended substance ("matter"), on the other. The authors in this book believe their orientation "is the best way to incorporate and reconcile all the various sources of available data."

The term they prefer is "nonreductive physicalism." The first word in this expression denies the assertion that the human soul or mind is nothing but an aftereffect of the body at work, a view sometimes called "epiphenominalism." If this doctrine were true, we could explain how changes in our bodies can alter what we think, but we could not explain how changes in what we think can alter what our bodies do. Therefore, although we should think of the mind as a "functional capacity" instead of a "separate spiritual essence," we must view it as having an interactive relationship with the body. Contrary to "reductive" points of view, we must hold that the boulevard between the body and the mind is a two-way street.

The term "physicalism" stresses that in our attempts to avoid the error of thinking that the mind is nothing but an aftereffect of the body we should avoid another mistake. This is the error of thinking that the mind is a separate and fundamentally different substance. At this point in their presentation, this book’s authors make good use of one of the possible meanings of the word "supervenience." As they employ it, this term emphasizes that some complex systems depend upon others without being wholly reducible to them. For example, chemistry depends upon physics without being wholly reducible to it and in similar ways biology depends upon chemistry, psychology upon biology, and sociology upon psychology, and so forth.

Some hold that sociology is "nothing but" physics. However, the idea of "supervenience" as the authors in this book use the word is that sociology depends upon psychology, biology, chemistry, and physics, but that it cannot be wholly reduced to any or all or them. Instead, at each level of greater complexity something emerges that is irreducibly more than, and yet dependent upon and continuous with, that which precedes it. In an analogous fashion, the mind emerges from the body and cannot be wholly reduced to it. Nevertheless, just as sociology is continuous with physics and everything between the two, the mind is not separate or fundamentally different from the body.

The authors in this book develop these claims from different academic disciplines. Nancey Murphy of Fuller Theological Seminary does so from the point of view of ancient and contemporary philosophy. Francisco J. Ayala of the University of California at Irvine and V. Elving Anderson of the University of Minnesota do so from the perspectives of evolutionary biology and genetics. Warren S. Brown Jr., H. Newton Malony of Fuller Theological Seminary, and Malcolm Jeeves of the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland add the contributions of psychology and neuropsychology. Joel B. Green of Asbury Theological Seminary, Ray S. Anderson of Fuller Theological Seminary, and Stephen G. Post of Case Western Reserve University contribute from their study of Christian Scripture, theology, and ethics. These authors offer lines of evidence from diverse areas of research and reflection that converge on a single point: that each human person is best understood as a single integrated whole whose life is interwoven with those of others.

Although I endorse the ideas of "nonreductive physicalism" and "supervenience" as these authors employ them, I believe we can strengthen the case for them by including an idea from process philosophy and theology. This notion, which some call "panexperientialism," challenges the view that only human beings have "minds" or "souls." This challenge is harmonious with Scripture’s application of the Hebrew word for "soul" to other animals and with Aristotle’s conviction that plants, animals. and human beings all have souls even though they differ greatly. It is also harmonious with the increasing scientific evidence we have of the mental abilities of animals we previously regarded as "dumb."

I reject pantheism. I also believe that on this planet only humans are created in the Image of God. Nevertheless, until we overcome the belief of some of Descartes’ followers that we can do anything we want to nonhuman beings because they have no minds and therefore cannot suffer, we will not escape from all of the negative consequences of his sharp distinction between mind and matter. Furthermore, we will discern greater continuity between the "irreducibly more" that emerges at each greater level of complexity with that upon which it depends if we recognize that all living beings experience some form of mental life, even if in comparison to our own it is minute.

Read and enjoy!

© 2002 Spectrum/AAF