TE and the soul

[JVD]

Okay...this is from a creationist who is considering the other options.

I am wondering what TE's think of man having a soul. When did he get a soul? At what stage in the evolutionary family tree would man have received a soul? I am assuming that TE's believe that humans do have souls and animals do not...is that a valid assumption?

I asked this question in the middle of someone else's thread and got a little response but thought I should start a thread on the question itself.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

There is no specific "TE" position on the soul. I am sure that my answer is very different from Herev's, for example.

What is a soul? Is it some kind of ghost inhabiting and driving a living body? I don't think it is. Let us consider what the "soul" is usually associated with.

Consciousness
Emotion
Personality
Will
etc.

But all of these can be shown to arise in the brain, as any one of them can be influenced and altered by damage to, or stimulation of, the relevant parts of that organ.

It seems to me, therefore, that what we mean by "soul" is, in fact, an emergent property of a complex brain.

This fits in really rather well with Christianity, methinks, because the Christian hope is not in some kind of ghostlike survival of death, but of resurrection in a new transformed body, presumably containing a new, transformed brain.

So my answer is that there is no dividing line between "has a soul" and "doesn't have a soul". As brains increase in complexity, organisms more and more have an experience of existence that approaches what we would consider to be possession of a soul. I have no idea where other extinct and extant species are in this; one would have to be a chimp or a dolphin to know what it is like to be one.

 

[seebs]

Why would souls evolve? They're not natural; they're created. Bible even says so.

 

[JVD]

I suppose some would seperate soul and spirit.

The soul would be associated with the conscience, will, emotion etc.

The spirit would be the God Given essence of a human that survives death.

If so, my OP has the wrong question, I should have asked about the spirit.

So Karl...would TE also say that the spirit is a result of evolution?

 

[Gold Dragon]

I suppose some would seperate soul and spirit.

The soul would be associated with the conscience, will, emotion etc.

The spirit would be the God Given essence of a human that survives death.

If so, my OP has the wrong question, I should have asked about the spirit.

So Karl...would TE also say that the spirit is a result of evolution?

I would say that the biblical understanding and most Christian understandings of the soul is a supernatural phenomenon that is beyond the realm of scientific study.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

The soul is a big theological discussion.
First the issue of tripartitism needs to be addressed, as pointed out about.
Then the issue of how we get ours souls: creationism or traducianism.
Then the issue of original sin esp. whether imputed or infused (mostly).
since most/many TE's are committed Christians primarily interested in science and the interface of science and theology, and these are strictly theological problems, you will probably not get a lot of answers to the question:

When did he get a soul? At what stage in the evolutionary family tree would man have received a soul?

with all of that i propose that you look at the two adams, or old earth/young adam theory, which seems to summarize the limited data in a nice way.....

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

I suppose some would seperate soul and spirit.

The soul would be associated with the conscience, will, emotion etc.

The spirit would be the God Given essence of a human that survives death.

Personally, I am not convinced that such a thing exists.

If so, my OP has the wrong question, I should have asked about the spirit.

So Karl...would TE also say that the spirit is a result of evolution?

I do not speak for TEs as a whole. If folk do believe in a supernatural soul or spirit, then no, it would not have come about through evolution, which is concerned purely with our biological origins.

 

[JVD]

If folk do believe in a supernatural soul or spirit, then no, it would not have come about through evolution, which is concerned purely with our biological origins.

I guess I am a little confused. I thought that most TE believed in God...or what does the T stand for. And if they believed in God they also believed in a special relationship with Man. I guess that doesn't necessarily follow does it?

So Karl...do you believe that God has a special relationship with humans...or are we just another life form.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Back up a bit - where did I even imply that God did not have a special relationship with man?

 

[JVD]

Well, I guess I inferred that with your statement that seemed to question whether humans had a soul or spirit. I guess my feeling is that if humans do not have a spirit, than we are not made like God at all , we are just another life form that will pass away when the earth passes away.

You have to understand that I am coming from a background of YEC, and beginning to perhaps understand some of the TE viewpoint. I am not willing yet to say I accept the TE point of view, but I have always had questions about the age of the earth and of the universe from the YEC perspective. So if I jump unwarranted assumptions, please forgive me.

Perhaps you could give me your understanding as to how God has a relationship with man? And how is it different than God's relationship with chimps for example?

 

[Vance]

As a TE, I believe that God did, indeed, "breathe His Spirit" into Man at some point. How and when this occured, I don't know. Whether it was a specific intrusive event, or something embedded in the process to occur at a specified point, I have no idea.

But yes, I accept fully that Man has a unique and special relationship with God. Unlike the "when and how" of creation, this is clear from Scripture.

 

[JVD]

It does seem like some (most??) TE's believe that man has a spirit and a special relationship with God through his son Jesus Christ. I can accept TE much better with the understanding that there is a spiritual relationship between God and man.

I see a lot of Karl's posts...wondering about his take on this. It seems that he may not believe this?

 

[Vance]

Karl would be the first to admit that he is on the more liberal side of TE, where many others of us are much more conservative. Herev, for example is even more conservative than I am, holding to a literal Adam and Eve, whereas I have no idea whether Adam and Eve were literal and don't find that this effects my Christian beliefs one way or the other.

 

[GodSaves]

Check these two articles out. It is about Francis Crick and his study on the soul. He believes it is nothing more then apart of the mind.

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8870/books/crick.html
http://www.blogofdeath.com/archives/001107.html

 

[Beowulf]

Curious:
Where does "made in God's image" figure into this?

 

[Vance]

Well, the "made in God's image" has been a theological question long before the issue of origins arose. Does it mean that our actual physical being are in His image? Well, this would not be the case unless be believed that God was humanoid, with arms and legs, etc. If God is spirit and power, as most believe He is (with even the "He" being inappropriate, but convenient), then this physical likeness could not be it.

Are we "in His image" in our abilities or power. Well, no, this is not it.

The best explanation I have heard (entirely outside of the issue of origins) is that we are in His image in that we can imagine beyond ourselves. We can conceive of higher things and strive for them. The great gap between Man and the other creatures is not in our physical make-up (we share more chromosomes in common with chimps that horses do with zebras!), but in this self-awareness, this ability to think abstractly, to conceive of concepts like love and justice and God and redemption. We can establish values and strive for them, we can hope of a greater future. Nothing else in creation can do anything close to this.

Now, exactly how and when God brought this about, we can not know for sure, but we know He did. Somehow, somewhere, He "breathed" this spirit into Man that made him not just another creature, but somthing taking on this higher "image" of God.

 

[PaladinValer]

Evolution is science. Does it have any "realm of control," so to speak, with souls? No.

Leave evolution with science and leave God with religion.

 

[JVD]

Actually...science and religion do meet in origins...

If religion has nothing to do with it why is it called "theistic" evolution?

And one of my biggest questions has to do with when did man change from pure animal to a spiritual being. Did God interact with those early humans? How far back on the evolutionary tree does Christ's redemption extend?

Those are necessary questions in my mind if we accept evolution as the means of God's creation.

 

[Vance]

Actually...science and religion do meet in origins...

If religion has nothing to do with it why is it called "theistic" evolution?

And one of my biggest questions has to do with when did man change from pure animal to a spiritual being. Did God interact with those early humans? How far back on the evolutionary tree does Christ's redemption extend?

Those are necessary questions in my mind if we accept evolution as the means of God's creation.

Now, *that* we may never know, like so many other details of God's activities. God didn't seem to think this was crucial for us to know, and really, it isn't crucial. All we need to know for belief purposes is that it happened. If we discover some particular point in Man's development when there is strong evidence that these types of changes occured, then we might be able to reach some tentative conclusions on this. Otherwise we will have to wait until we can ask Him face to face.

Until then, we can merely speculate. Some might think that it was when some "critical mass"-type event took place (according to God's design) and it triggered this "uplift". Others could suggest a special creative event in which God took some specific and unique supernatural action with Man at a certain point. Some get more specific (and a bit more literal) by saying that God selected representatives from among the early human population and placed them in a literal Garden.

But really, I find this question much less troubling than the "where did Cain get his wife and who the heck was he so afraid of" type questions that arise from a strict literal interpretation.

 

[GodSaves]

From my perspective we already know how everything occured. Genesis 1-3 tells us. This is of course the debate how to read it. My belief on the 'man made in God's image' is that we were in the image of God before the fall of man. We were righteous, sinless, perfect, just like God. Man was given his first choice, eat of the tree of life and stay in perfection forever, or eat of the tree of good and evil and fall from righteousness and a sinless life. Man of course chose the later. Man, at the least, has been consistent in choosing the path away from God. Hence, the coin phrase, 'the battle against the flesh.'

I believe, and I can be quite wrong, that science will one day say it can now observe and hypothesize on God. I am sure many thought 50 years ago science could not go into the realm of the soul and free will. It has now done so. I believe it will eventually do so with God. This is of course as science advances itself. Why do I think this? Because man must know everything, it is the quest for knowledge. Soon that will take man to make a scientific explanation of God.

I have seen some theistic evolutionists say that they do not believe Moses ever existed. I wonder what these people think of the transfiguration.

God Bless