Separation of Soul and Body

A challenge to any assertion of the essential separation of Soul and Body is to explain how interaction between them becomes possible.  No such challenge faces correlative dualisms, such as Form-Matter, since their unity is given, and is never disrupted.  Some commonality between Soul and Body is necessary for interaction to occur, but recourse to some tertium quid merely displaces the problem.  However, in standard theological contexts, the question of Soul-Body unity is itself a displacement of a more fundamental problem--how a presumably incorporeal deity creates corporeal existence, i. e. creates existence that is antithetical to its own nature.  That problem also underlies the question of how 'evil' can come to exist in a world created by an omnipotent 'good' deity, except in this case, the attribution of 'free will' to some creature does not suffice to explain the existence of corporeality, as it might to explain the existence of 'evil'.  So, the standard theologization of Soul-Body separation bears out its underlying premise--the ontological inferiority of Body to Soul.  Conversely, absent that implicit evaluation, Soul and Body can be conceived as correlative, like Form and Matter, and any unity is easily explained.

Soul and Individuation

For Aristotle, Soul and Body are inseparable, i. e. they are related as form-matter, and, hence, are correlative.  In contrast, in Medieval Theology, it is seemingly unanimously held that Soul can survive the death of Body, an agreement that transcends a significant dispute regarding the nature of Soul--whether there are many souls, or one.  Equivalently, the dispute is whether, prior to incarnation, souls are already differentiated, or, soul is one, becoming differentiated only as it is distributed into distinct bodies.  The former thesis seems predominant in contemporary culture, i. e. even the 'rugged individual' is a secularized vestige of it, though the statement 'we are all the same inside', expresses the one-soul thesis.  While Augustine does not address the topic explicitly, his regular use of the definite article in conjunction with 'soul' suggests that he believes that a plurality of souls exist.  In contrast, Aquinas' association of Individuation with Matter seems to commit him to the view that only one soul exists.  Now, the passage at Genesis 2:7, in which God creates Adam by breathing life into dust, seems to support Aquinas, i. e. God's breath would seem to be one and the same on its various occasions.  On the other hand, while Aquinas is traditionally classified as an 'Aristotelian', his thesis that an incorporeal soul exists, is not.

Soul and Free Will

Perhaps one important Biblical passage for Augustine is Genesis 2:7--"Then the Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul."  For, the Greek for 'soul' is 'psyche', meaning 'breath, so the passage presents for Augustine a possible fruitful intersection of Philosophy and Christianity.  In particular, the breath-dust contrast of the passage easily lends itself to Platonist soul-body dualism, with the potential of soul to survive bodily death, at which point it returns to God, and to eternal life.  On the other hand, while the Platonist soul is, by nature, wisdom-seeking, the Augustinian soul, by nature, is content to obey God's warning to avoid knowledge of good and evil.  Furthermore, Platonism has no faculty of 'free will', which only underscores the problematic status of the latter for Augustine, i. e. as a power to choose between obedience to God and corporeal temptation, it must be, in itself, neither soul nor body.  So Platonism does not seem to help Augustine escape the suspicion that his concept of 'free will' is no more than an ad hoc device to resolve the apparent inconsistency between a good omnipotent creator and the existence of evil.

Pascal's Wager

While Kierkergaard characterizes his Christian faith as a 'leap', the innovative mathematician Pascal likens it to a quantifiable 'wager'.  For, given the absence of empirical evidence, one way or the other, to believe that God exists is, according to Pascal, a gamble that after death there is eternal life, rather than nothing.  He argues that this wager is risk-free, since there is literally nothing, i. e. eternal death, to lose, and everything to gain.  However, this metaphor betrays Pascal--a wager in the present entails risking something of present value, not a future something of no admitted worth.  In other words, his scenario ignores the potential this-worldly costs of committing oneself to beliefs regarding posthumous events--for example, economic deprivation and psychological stunting, as, notably, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, explain.  So, the terms of the wager are not eternal life vs. eternal death, as Pascal frames it, but unverifiable possible after-worldly existence vs.the one actual life that one verifiably has.  'Sacrifice', rather than 'wager', might better describe those terms. 

Superstition and Faith

A black cat crossing one's path is often regarded as a 'superstition', because while it might be thought to be a harbinger of 'bad luck', misfortune rarely, if ever, actually ensues upon it.  Accordingly, 'superstition' can be defined as an 'object of belief lacking empirical support'.  In other words, a superstition is independent of earnestness or fervor of doxic attitude.  Thus, for example, whether or not placing a curse on someone is a superstition depends not on the intensity of utterance, but on the subsequent experiences of the cursed.  Likewise, whether or not a prayer for a medical recovery is a superstition depends not on piety, but on subsequent physiological phenomena.  Now, 'faith' is usually conceived as 'belief despite the absence of empirical support'.  Hence, the distinction between faith and superstition is unclear.

Grace and Punishment

The Augustinian concept of Grace is based on the thesis that all 'good' is derived from the Abrahamic deity.  However, that thesis does not entail that only good is derived from the deity.  Furthermore, the espousal of the proposition that only good is derived from that deity faces the challenge of explaining God's 'greatly multiplying the birthing pains of the Eve and her descendants', to paraphrase Genesis 3:16.  Now, it might be argued that God's action in this passage is a just punishment for an evil deed, and, hence, that the infliction of misery is a 'good'.  However, there is no corresponding divine 'justice' for good deeds, i. e. no divine rewarding.  For, a 'reward' is a response to an independently 'good' action, the possibility of which is excluded by the concept of Grace.  Hence, while Augustine might intend Grace to express the thesis that all good is derived from God, his concept, when fully developed, also portrays his deity as an unjust source of misery, and, so, as an object of fear.

God and Evil

In the Augustinian tradition, the attribution of 'free will' to humans is a response to the concern that the existence of Evil disproves the existence of God.  However, in a different, perhaps longer, tradition, the existence of a deity is, to the contrary, derived from the existence of evil.  In that tradition, 'evil' is misfortune, which humans, naturally, seek to eliminate, the process of which entails the positing of a cause of the misfortune, the elimination of which requires some efficacious procedure.  In many societies, that cause is personified as a deity, and the corrective procedure is some ritual of appeasement of the deity.  So, in such cases, the positing of the existence of the deity is derived from the existence of evil.  Now, despite the efforts of  theologians to treat the Abrahamic deity as ontologically primordial, it is not clear that they have decisively distinguished their case from those others, i. e. that the Abrahamic religions are not, at bottom, too, programs of appeasement of a derivative deity.

Theology and Free Will

According to Augustine, and others: 1. God is the creator of everything 2. God is good; and 3. Evil exists.  So, the obvious inconsistency in the combination of the three generates: 4. Something other than God must be the cause of Evil; 5. God gave humans the power of 'free will'; 6. Therefore, humans are the cause of Evil in the world--which, further, suppresses: 5a. Human 'free will' exists.  Now, despite the thorough logical vetting that this argument has received over the centuries, it retains its influence, e. g. the common acceptance of 5a.  Still, the more fundamental challenge to the Theology to which it is essential is its scriptural groundlessness, i. e. there is no literal support for it in the text of Genesis: 2-3, which means that it is no more than an arbitrary theological concoction.

Human Dominion over the Earth

While the focus on Evolutionism tends to be on its account of the origin of the human species, the theory also entails the emergence of higher entities.  On such an occasion, humans would no longer have the "dominion" over the entire earth that, according to Genesis 1:26, God has granted them.  Thus, while Creationism, qua an alternative hypothesis to Evolutionism regarding only the origin of the species, is still possibly sound, it would be decisively disproved by the arrival of super-humans.

Work and Theology

While one main theme of Genesis:2-3 is Sexuality, another is Work, with the two intersecting in the usage of the term 'labor' to describe the birthing pains of a mother.  The common interpretation of Work qua fallen condition of humanity has had a multifaceted legacy, entailing an importation of an incorporeal meaning to it--toil as punishment for disobedience; 'work ethic'; 'work will set you free'; and theological justification of class distinction, in general, and of slavery, in particular.  In contrast, by interpreting the human species as part of the animal kingdom, 'knowledge of good and evil' can be understood as a symbol of superior human technological ingenuity, the eating of the fruit of which constitutes an ascent, as Darwin proposes, not a fall.  Possibly, the ongoing contemporary ambivalence towards technology, e.g . Frankenstein, Luddism, 'natural' foods, etc., expresses the tension between these competing interpretations of the origin of the species.  In any case, the entrenched influence of the theological version presents an obstacle to the goal of uniting Work and Play, as proposed by Marx, Dewey, and others.

Imperfection and Finitude

If a individual human is conceived as a defective version of an original, the correction of which is possible only via a restoration of the original condition by its creator, then interaction in the fallen condition is essentially futile.  Hence, for example, the pursuit of Truth through the senses, and that of the Good through cooperation with other defective entities, are in vain.  In contrast, absent the premise of the equivalence of 'finite' and 'defective', both Science and Politics, for example, can be means to the substantive enhancement of human life.  Thus, antagonism towards those endeavors, an ongoing factor in contemporary affairs, can be the expression of that arbitrary premise.

Time, Finitude, Mind

It would seem to follow from Augustine's attribution of immorality to Edenic existence, that his theory of Time would be derived from the fallen condition of humanity, e. g. 'past', 'present', and 'future' derived from the fragmentation into successive finite generations of the race. However, he develops an independent concept of Temporality that is more a precursor of Kantian Subjectivism than a variation on Platonism, i. e. in that concept, the three dimensions of Time are derived from the mental acts remembering, attention, and anticipation. However, he seems to stop short of theologizing Temporality, analogous to the way that Heidegger ontologizes it. Accordingly, the latter reflects Augustine's failure to consider that remembering, attention, and anticipation are themselves functions of an entity that has fallen into finitude, and, hence, that such mental acts might, conversely, be lacking in entities enjoying immortality. So, it is unclear if Augustine's innovative theory of Time is consistent with the concept of Immortality that is entailed by his Theological and Moral doctrines.

Fall of Man and Ascent of Man

According to Augustine, the events of Genesis:2-3 constitute a 'fall' from Edenic immortality, to the need for sexual reproduction in order for humanity to continue to exist. Hence, this interpretation entails two propositions--1. Existence in Eden is sexless and deathless, and 2. The fundamental purpose of reproduction is continuation in existence. Now, while #1 seems unverifiable, it is, as is, incoherent in one respect--sexless Adam and Eve just happen to have been created with complementary reproductive organs. But, the greater weakness of the interpretation is #2, the principle of continuation of which is challenged by the principle of ascent, as proposed by Evolutionary theory. So, though Darwin and others compromise that innovative principle by subordinating it to a 'survival' instinct, two challenges to the Augustinian tradition remain--1. Adam/Eve is not an immutable human type, and 2. The transition to reproductive activity might constitute an ascent, not a fall.

Morality and Immortality

Perhaps the fundamental challenges to psychological equanimity are fear of death and sexual excitation. Aristotle's Ethics is among the prominent and influential responses to those challenges, i. e. his principle of Moderation. Augustinian Morality can be understood as a more radical solution, one that not merelys seek to establish self-control, but that explains the complete elimination of the cause of the problems, which, on his etiology, have a common root. That root is the Adamic fall from eternal life, which thereby introduces into human existence both death and sexuality, i. e. the need to reproduce in order to continue. His solution is, accordingly, the return of the individual soul to eternal life, possible only via divine Grace, and, hence, possible only beyond any human knowledge of a means to it. So, Augustine shares with Aristotle, and others, the ideal of psychological equanimity, which, on his analysis, is equivalent to the immortality of the soul.

Religion and Feritility Cult

James seems to not recognize the activities of a fertility cult as a variety of 'religious experience', thereby contributing to the suspicion, encouraged by his neglect of Pantheism, of a prejudice against Corporeality. He also, therefore, misses an opportunity to examine to what extent some Biblical sects are fertility cults. For example, on the standard reading, the fundamental sin of Adam and Eve is to disobediently engage in sexual relations, one common corrective of which is a 'morality' of severely regimented reproductive activity, that seeks literal instantiations of the expression 'God the father'. In other words, the focus of these sects on sexual mores reveals them as fertility cults, whether or not they are explicitly represented as such.

Humpty Dumpty in Eden

Some of the events of Genesis 3 are often characterized as a 'fall', though the word itself does not appear in the text. Rather, the essential meaning of the characterization can be inferred from a combination of a comparison with a previous passage, and a reference to another famous 'fall'. Genesis 1:28 describes God's blessing of the newly-formed human race, "Be fruitful and multiply". In contrast, according to Augustine, notably, in Genesis 3, Adam's disobedience costs him eternal life, thereby forcing him to reproduce in order for human existence to continue. Likewise, what is calamitous in the fall of Humpty Dumpty is his fragmentation, suggesting, in combination with Genesis 1:28, what is salient in the standard interpretation of Gen. 3--a Parmenidean prejudice against Multiplicity, a condition which all the king's horses and men in the City of Man cannot correct.

Beyond Knowledge of Good and Evil

According to Augustine, divine Grace is both a necessary and a sufficient condition of human goodness, i. e. is a deliverance to the City of God from the sinful illusion of 'knowledge of good and evil' that governs the City of Man. However, this doctrine is weak in two respects. First, presumed Biblical support is compromised by the passage at Genesis 3:22--God's statement that "the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil"--which asserts that that knowledge is substantive in the City of God, an implies that one resident of that community is the alleged unsaved perpetrator of 'original sin'. Second, as entirely independent of human conduct, divine Grace is an idea with no consequences, i. e. no human conduct can be known to effectively promote it, and, hence, is meaningless, according to Pragmatism. So, what seems, in Augustine's doctrine, to lie beyond the knowledge of good and evil, is Moral Nihilism.

City of God, City of Man

Augustine's distinction between 'City of God' and 'City of Man' is based on a soul-body contrast--the Good of the former City is spiritual, while that of latter is corporeal, i. e. is the satisfaction of physical needs. On that basis, Hobbes's Leviathan, as well as each of most of his modern successors, is a 'City of Man'. One doctrine that complicates Augustine's classifications is Spinozism, in which, because humans are all Modes of God, any human community is also a divine community. An Augustinian could argue that even a completely rational Spinozist community is still not a 'City of God', because, as Spinoza himself allows, the intuition of God is inessential to the formation of such a community. In turn, a Spinozist could respond that Reason suffices to accomplish what Augustine aims for--self-mastery over physical impulses. So, what ultimately distinguishes the two City of Gods is that in Augustine's, but not in Spinoza's, the good of the soul is possible only through grace of God. But, if so, then that good is achievable only on an individual basis, i. e. in independence from the condition of any other soul. Thus, Augustine's 'City of God' entails an empty concept of 'city'--a collection of individual souls without any community.

Theology, Morality, Politics

Of profound and enduring influence on subsequent Western Civilization is Augustine's theological gleaning of a doctrine of 'Original Sin' from Genesis 2-3. His hermeneutical procedure entails the selection of some passages as 'true', and the generalizing of them in accordance with his interpretation of Platonism. The result is a casting of 'morality' as a project of Redemption, which only his deity can bring about, and with respect to which Platonist and Aristotelian principles are, therefore, inadequate. The writ large version of this project, his 'City of God', thus effects a cosmic rupture between Morality and Politics, which, for e. g. Aristotle, are complementary endeavors. Consequently, while Politics, for Aristotle, is a noble activity, for the subsequent Augustinian tradition, it is, at best, a necessary 'evil'. Furthermore, since the locus of the nisus towards Redemption is private, i. e. the individual 'soul', even secularized claims of political immunity for the 'private sector' is vestigial Augustinianism. Likewise, since for Augustine, the proximate cause of some of the events of Genesis 3 is genital temptation, the primary concern of Augustinian 'morality' is sexual, a legacy with remains in plain evidence in contemporary American politics, and which remains oblivious to the inconsistencies between Genesis 1 and Genesis 3 regarding human procreative activity.

Pluralism, Polytheism, Bi-theism

One explanation for religious Pluralism is Polytheism, i. e. that there are multiple religions because there are multiple deities. However, the more prevalent account is that there are a plurality of perspectives on one and the same deity. The challenge to that explanation is to attribute to the deity a principle of active pluralization, without which a perspective is no more than an extrinsic distortion of the deity. Usually, though, such a principle tends to be lacking. In contrast, here, the Material Principle--Becoming-Diverse--is a fundamental pluralizing process, one which is complemented by the Formal Principle of the system--Becoming-the-Same. Hence, the theologization of the system leads to a classification of it as 'Bi-theistic'. One notable Bi-theistic precursor is Nietzsche's Dionysus-Apollo tandem of Birth of Tragedy, which, remains underdeveloped, because of the disappearance of the latter deity from most of his subsequent oeuvre. In any case, without a principle of active pluralization, religious Pluralism easily reduces to traditional Polytheism.

Pluralism, Supernaturalism, Pantheism

Toward the end of Varieties of Religious Experience, James summarizes the preceding 'empirical' study by classifying 'God' as an unseen 'supernatural' power. It follows from that classification that 'religion' entails the belief that some unseen supernatural power exists, and that 'religious experience' is constituted by interaction between a natural entity and a supernatural power. On those bases, Spinoza's naturalistic deity fails to qualify as a 'God', and, likewise, the Modal intuition of that deity is no 'religious experience'. Instead, James characterizes Spinoza's doctrine as a 'religion of healthy-mindedness', which, because of its treatment of 'evil' as relative and privative, has a derogatory connotation for James, i. e. James regards 'evil' as, like 'God', an unseen but real force. So, both James' religious 'Pluralism', and his erstwhile 'Empiricist' methodology, seem compromised by his prejudices.

Re-Creativity and Religious Varieties

Initially in Varieties of Religious Experience, James is reluctant to define 'religion'. Soon, though, perhaps mindful that at least some circumscription of the topic is called for, he offers 'the beliefs that 1. "There is an unseen order", and 2. "Our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto"' as his definition. Later, he modifies #1 to 'There is a higher power that produces real effects in the natural world', while apparently maintaining #2. However, #2 seems to preclude the Spinozist alternative, among others, that 'Our supreme good consists in our own creative activity', which, in combination with #1, yields the classification of Re-Creativity as a 'religious experience'. Thus, even James' influential advocacy of Religious Pluralism entails subtle prejudice.

Re-creativity and Recreation

'Recreation' has two common senses. One, when it is pronounced 'rec-reation', it connotes 'relaxing pastime', while, when parsed as 're-creation', it means 'copy of a product'. Thus, both can be distinguished from a third etymologically sound possibility, 'new process of creativity', for which 're-creativity' can be used. 'Re-creative' could, for example, characterize religiosity based on the events of Genesis 1, i. e. a religiosity in which reverence for the deity is expressed by creative acts. Now, the idiosyncrasy of the term 're-creativity' corresponds to the general lack of recognition of such piety in Biblical religions, even among those who read Genesis 1 'literally'. Conversely, the very possibility of such religiosity exposes the arbitrariness of the more prevalent alternative, i. e. of that alternative defined by the perdition-redemption theme that is addressed to the deity of Genesis 2-3.

Recreativity and Redemption

The relation between the account of the origin of the human species in Genesis 1, and that in Genesis 2-3, is unclear, if not inconsistent. Similarly unclear, if not inconsistent, is that between the satisfied, creative deity of the former, and the demanding, angry deity of the latter. Plainly, much of Biblical 'religion' is a response to Genesis 2-3--the seeking of salvation from a perdition caused by disobedience. In contrast, a religiosity based on Genesis 1 attempts to effect re-creativity, rather than to secure redemption.

Literalism and Reading

For some esoteric religious sects, most Theology is besides the point. For these, Scripture is a repository of divine energy, the physiological act of reading of which is an energizing process, in the same way that an aerobics exercise is. On that basis, any assertion about the language of the texts--including the Literalist thesis that they are 'true'--is an irrelevant abstraction. Likewise, the fundamental locus of any Theology appropriate to such Esotericism would be the actual scriptural reading process itself.

Literalism and Esotericism

The most common alternative to Biblical Literalism holds that the texts consist of a random hodgepodge of myth, history, parable, and precept, from several authors. Another hermeneutical approach draws a distinction within Literalism--exoteric vs. esoteric. In that approach, Esotericism asserts that at least some, if not all, of the texts can be grasped as literally true, once the language in which they are actually cast is properly understood. The most prominent Esotericism is Kabbalism, the primary variety of which is based on the thesis that letters have numerical values. However, while in some versions, the esoteric and the exoteric levels are parallel, in others, the latter is presented as posterior to the former. The challenge, not always appreciated, to the assertion that the Esoteric grounds the Exoteric, is to explain, and not merely to insinuate, the derivation of the latter from the former. In the absence of such an explanation, Esotericism can remain a fascinating but inconsequential entertainment.

Ten Commandments and Knowledge of Good and Evil

Arguably, the centerpiece of 'Biblical morality' is the Ten Commandments. Now, it might so happen that one begins to wonder if there is a principle common to the Ten, or one might be confused about the relation between the prohibition of killing and God's command to Abraham to slay Isaac. In both cases, the contents of the Commandments are being subjected to intellectual assessment, i. e. to the same standard of consistency that motivates the systematic Ethics of Aristotle, Kant, and Mill, among others. In the process, the Commandments are no longer taken at face value, i. e. divine approval no longer suffices for the acceptance of their Goodness. Indeed, such moments of hesitation can be characterized as 'eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil', even by the most devout.

Piety and Mathematics

The Euthyphro focuses on the relation between Goodness and divine approval, without considering an analogous issue that can also bear upon the nature of Piety. That is, also debatable is: whether something is true because a deity asserts it, or a deity asserts something because it is true. One challenge to the former thesis are mathematical propositions, to which even the Biblical God seems subject. For, not only does Genesis not ascribe to God the creation of Mathematics, God himself seems conditioned by simple laws of addition, e. g. the 3rd day + a new day = the 4th day. Furthermore, while God's command to Abraham seems to override any injunction against murder, not only is there no analogous evidence of a divine suspension of mathematical rules, the possibility of such a power seems difficult, to put it mildly, to even conceive. So, Piety, qua respect for Truth, seems independent of both the existence of and the nature of Deity, plus, while 'Science' is commonly posited as the primary adversary of 'Religion', Mathematics presents the more formidable challenge to the latter.

Piety and Deity

Piety is generally conceived to be obedience to a deity. However, if, as is proposed in the Euthyphro, a deity approves something because it is good, rather than the goodness of something being derived from divine approval, then Piety is independent of the existence of Deity. Thus, in prominent modern examples, while Kierkergaardian Piety, i. e. a 'leap of faith', is constituted by the very positing of the existence of a deity, Kantian Piety consists in respect for a Reason by which even a deity is governed. Now, despite their significantly different theological orientations, those two concepts agree that Piety is a type of psychological attitude, one lacking in superficial religiosity, e. g. in mechanical ritual, or in symbolic gesture. On the other hand, neither accommodates the Piety that is entailed in a Creativist system, such as Spinoza's--not: doing what the deity says to do, but: doing as the deity does. In other words, apparently unrecognized by either Plato, Kant, or Kierkergaard, is that the nature of Piety can be, at least partly, a function of the nature of Deity.

Belief in God

The speciousness of the popular formulation 'I believe in God' is borne out by its ungrammatical structure. The object of a belief is a proposition, the expression of which is properly constructed as 'X believes that P', in which P is a clause, i. e. P consists of a subject and a predicate. For many, that proposition seems to be 'God exists', which, in itself, is no more informative than 'Satan exists'. In many cases, the implicit predicate seems to be 'dispenses rewards and punishments', but with little agreement as to the occasions of such dispensation. In fact, common sentiment seems to be that the determining factor of such divine action is whether or not one 'believes in God', thereby closing the vacuous circle of popular religion.