What
differentiates humans from the animals? Are
we just advanced animals, with more complex mental lives? Christianity brings
with it belief that we are spiritual beings. Christians believe in a form of
dualism, meaning “of two natures.” We have a physical body and physical brain,
but we also have a spiritual nature that is somehow distinct from the body, but that operates in unity
with the body. The Bible is
clear that there is something about us that makes us special - distinct from
the animals.
We are made in the image of
God.
René Descartes is famous in the history of psychology
and philosophy for “Cartesian dualism.”
Descartes applied deductive reasoning to support his
worldview belief that Mankind is made of body and soul. Though distinct, the
body and soul interact with one another. Descartes believed that the physical
and spiritual connected at the conarium (pineal gland).
Cartesian dualism was not a new idea. Descartes, like
Christians and others for centuries, believed that human nature was both
physical and spiritual. The ancient
Greeks thought our spiritual and physical natures connected in the lungs (after
all, when you quit breathing you die) and Hippocrates, who was ahead of his
time, thought it happened in the brain.
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