Thursday, June 29, 2017

A Christian Weltanshauung and Psychology - The Nature of Mankind (Dualism)



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.

RenĂ© 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.

Naturalistic worldviews are monistic, meaning of one nature.

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