Christian Spirituality and the problem of mental Causation
Introduction
Since Descartes proposed his Cartesian Substance Dualism, scholars have been baffled by how a non-spatial soul or substance is causing the action of a physical body. For thousands of years, the dualistic nature of the mind/soul and the body has always been a popular understanding among scholars regarding the nature of human being. Among Christian theologians, most theologians, for instance Augustine of Hippo, did express a dualistic view that believes humans are having an immortal soul and a mortal body.[1] However, as natural science is having a better understand towards the universe, since the 18th century, scholars have been questioning whether the position is still a preferable one. In the last century, as the raise of neuroscience, many scholars have identified the brain with mind/soul and conclude that the dualistic view is a categorical mistake and propose the reductive view of mind, which parallel mind with the physical body/brain. For scholars, especially among psychologists, neither the substance dualism nor the reductive physicalism is right, to them, a proper view of mind should be a property dualism, which deny both the existence of non-physical substance and all properties are physical properties, while asserting the thesis that human minds are basically physical but having mental properties and physical properties.[2] Some contemporary theologians, for instance John Polkinghorne, Peter Van Inwagen and John Hick has followed this line of thoughts and articulate their views on philosophy of mind and the metaphysical problem on afterlife.[3] Furthermore, practically speaking, many theologians who are experts in Christian Spirituality have seen the positive linkage between psychology and Christian Spirituality; as a result, a lot of movements like the pastoral care and spiritual direction, positive thinking and self-esteem and spiritual healing is becoming very popular among contemporary Christians scholars.[4] Nevertheless, as many scholars have pointed out, property dualism, which believe in the causal power of mental properties has failed to prove how mental properties are action causing, worst some scholars even suggest that mental properties are epiphenomenal and thus the thesis of property dualism is at best cognitively meaningless.[5] Put things altogether, Christian Spirituality is facing a very embarrassing situation, to theologians who advocate substance dualism, they have shared the burden of proofs in explaining the relationships between the non-physical soul and the physical body; while it is doubtful whether theologians are opened to the reductive physicalism option.[6] So if the arguments from the problem of mental causation are valid, property dualism is neither an option and we would come to a condition that contemporary Christian Spirituality thoughts are false because it fails to satisfy a very fundamental condition for Christian Spirituality, that human agents are able to respond to their Creator’s message. In this paper, I am going to argue considering the literature we have in the Anglo-American tradition, such a conclusion is an inductive strong one and as a result before taking Christian Spirituality for granted, theologians should provide a decent response to the problem.
Christian Spirituality
To most scholars, Christian Spirituality originated from the life and the teachings of Jesus Christ whom was a Rabbi of Judaism died in the 1st century.[7] However, after evolving for 2000 years, the term Christian Spirituality is meaning more than just what Jesus has done and believed; in this paper rather than arguing how different schools interpret the notion, I am going to define Christian Spirituality from it’s theological root. According to Edward Yarnold, Christian Spiritualities share the common grounds of these beliefs:
1. God has created the universe.
2. God created us for a purpose.
3. Human beings are sinful.
4. Jesus Christ has saved us from sins.
5. Through Holy Spirit we prayed.[8]
Put things otherwise, the root of Christian Spirituality is the existence of God and His willingness in communicating with us, it is because, unlike some religion that believes, through spiritual practices or meditation people can become divine, Christian Spirituality rest upon the premises that we act in responses to God’s work, for instance His creation, His salvation and His grace.[9] In other words, if the Christian God does not exist or does not exist in a way mentioned in the Bible, all the sayings of Christian Spirituality are false, our spiritual practices are responding to nothing. However, theologians have been disputing radically towards whether the proving of God is necessary for the seeking of truth, on the one hand as Paul Tillich has written, “Theology cannot accept the support of technical reason in “reasoning” the existence of God. Such a God would belong to the means-ends relationship. He would be less than God.”[10] While on the other hand theologians like Richard Swinburne and Alvin Plaintinga have dedicated their works in proving the existence of God, either inductively or deductively.
Furthermore, as many scholars have argued, the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved; so does it mean that it is impossible for us to discuss Christian Spirituality considering we are defining Christian Spirituality as how human react to God? My answer is a reserved Yes, it is because base on the definition, Christian Spirituality should be divided into 2 parts, firstly, the Divine actions of God and secondly the responses from human beings. It is without a doubt that the existence of God is one of the most profound but complicated concept for theologians; however, it is clear that the existence of God is just a necessary condition for Christian Spirituality but not a sufficient condition for Christian Spirituality. The logic is simple, God exists is a thing, God exists and He is communicating with human being is another, while the existence of human being and the ability in communicating back is the other; in other words, if we are defining Christian Spirituality as the responses of human beings to God, the notion has to meet all three conditions, so despite showing God exists, theologians also have to prove how such communication is possible. However, in contemporary Anglo American literatures, scholars have spent great deal of time in arguing the existence of God and about how God is interacting with His creations; nevertheless, very few theologians have spent their time in articulating theories in arguing how human can respond to God, considering He does exist and willing to communicate with us. Put things otherwise, I believe it is hard for any theologians to prove the existence of God deductively; however, we can inductively show that the existence of God is a highly possible, while whether human is able to communicate to God is becoming one of the burden in such probabilities calculation.
Before furthering my discussion on how the problem of mental causation conflicts Christian Spirituality, I would like to propose a rational alternatives in evaluating the situation. I believe it is rational to suggest that my division of Christian Spirituality is a redundant one; it is because if God exists in the sense written in the Bible, He must have a way in communicating with us and already provided a way for us in communicating back. However, the saying is problematic in either ways, firstly, the saying relies heavily on the argument for the existence of God, unless there is a deductive valid argument indicating the existence of God, the existence of God is at most a highly likely issue and so it is questionable if one can further induce the existence of God to He is willing to communicate with us and we are able to communicate back.[11] Secondly, if it does not rely on the argument for the existence of God, the saying has fallen into the informal fallacy of question begging, the problem remains, there exist a God is a thing, He is willing to communicate is another and we are able to communicate is the other. So to sum up, it is not redundant in arguing that to make sense of Christian Spirituality, these 3 conditions must be meet.
The problem of Mental Causation
The Problem of Mental Causation starts from a very simple question, “How could our mentality cause physical actions?” Originally, the question was categorized as a metaphysical problem in Philosophy since the 16th century; however, as the raise of Psychology and Neuroscience in the last century, much of the discussions have become more “down to earth”. Most scholars have been arguing the relationships between human brains, mentality and actions; they would agree that human minds are physical that may or may not exhibit mental properties. So to them, human souls or supreme minds are all physical substances that follow the physical laws; so the simple question could be rewritten as, “How could our physical mentality cause physical actions?” Here scholars have generally divided into two parties, on the one hand, scholars, especially in the field of Neuroscience, have proposed a reductive view of mind, which identify the brain with mentality and deny any mental properties; on the other hand, there are scholars who desire to retain the mentality of human beings, by proposing a properties dualistic view that there is only one substance, physical substance but at least 2 properties, mental properties and physical properties and which mental properties are action causing.
According to most scholars who would like to defend the existence of mental properties, consciousness experience is one of the most obvious and strong examples in showing that not all properties could be reduced to physical properties; it is because, to say one is in pain is different from feeling the pain. Biologically speaking, when X hurts, C-fiber in their brain realizes the painfulness to X and as a result X feels pain; nevertheless, cognitively speaking only X, (suppose X is awake and able to feel the pain) is actually having the feeling of being in pain. Put things otherwise, the consciousness experience of pain of X could not be reduced to the realization of C-fiber of X. Moreover, in the field of philosophy of mind, the arguments for the existence of Qualia have provided further reasons in denying the reductive view of mind. So in conclusion, more and more scholars have come to the conclusion that the properties dualistic view is a more probable view in explaining human mentality.
However, before jumping to the conclusion that the existence of consciousness experiences could maintain the usefulness of mentality, it is reasonable for us to question, “How could the experience of consciousness (a mental property) causes physical actions?” According to Kim Jaegwon ‘s Exclusion Argument or Supervenience Argument, mental properties are epiphenomenal and his argument starts from two principles:
1. The Causal Closure of the physical domain: if a physical event has a cause occurring at time t, it has a sufficient physical cause at t.
2. The exclusion principle: no event can have more than two or more sufficient causes, all-occurring at the same time unless it is genuine case of over determinism. [12]
To most scientists both 1 and 2 are principles can hardly be rebuked; it is because these principles simply describe how scientific investigations have been constructed. So base on these principles, Kim further argued, according to the properties dualistic view, there does not exist any mental events but just physical events and since all physical events, if there is a cause, according to the principle is having a sufficient physical cause unless it is a genuine case of over determinism, mental properties is not causing our action.
Let’s illustrate with an example, to most people, the mental event, the desire of drinking the cup of milk on the table causes the physical event of taking up the cup drinking the cup of milk on the table; nevertheless, since all mental events are literally physical events and because there exists only physical substances, the desire is literally a physical event and if we believe the desire is causing the action of drinking the milk, base on the Exclusion Argument, it is not the mental properties of the desire that cause the action. Put things otherwise, the Exclusion Argument is providing another picture towards our understanding to mental causation, it suggests that even there exist mental properties like the consciousness experience, they are not action causing. So if someone proclaims, “After reading the Bible, I have a change in my mind.” He is saying nothing more than, the physical property of the physical event, reading the Bible has caused he a changed in a physical event.
Christian Spirituality and the problem of mental causation
If we are defining Christian Spirituality as events of human beings have been making respond to God, the problem of mental causation question two things firstly, how does God interact with us and secondly, how does we send a message back to Him. However, before articulating the conflict between Christian Spirituality and the problem of mental causation, it is reasonable for us to consider what do we mean the human mind that make a response to God. As I have briefly discussed at the introduction, traditionally, there are three major interpretation for how human mind, substance dualism, reductive physicalism/materialism and non-reductive physicalism/property dualism. To most theologians, probably since Paul, substance dualism is just a logical necessary, for when God created human, He created the immortal, non-physical soul and planted it in a earthly physical body; under this circumstances, the communication is a “supernatural” one, when we pray our soul encounter the Holy Spirit, and we are moved by the Holy Spirit and we respond to His grace. Nonetheless, substance dualism is having a lot of problems, both metaphysically and physically, most obviously, how is it possible for a non-spatial soul causes the physical body to move? If our soul is like a captain of the ship, how can the captain who has no causal power in causing the ship to move? Here, I am not saying that it is impossible for an individual to argue human mind from the substance dualistic perspective; what I am arguing here is that, considering what natural science has taught us in the past 200 years, substance dualism has to explain how mental causation is possible, they have to explain how the non-physical soul is having causal power on the physical body and why we have to believe in the existence of the non-physical substances. Put things otherwise, despite substance dualism is less popular than before, theologians who advocate the theories still has to provide an answer of the problem of mental causation.[13]
Reductive physicalism/materialism is believed as the most decent thesis in solving the problem of mental causation; it is because, according to the thesis, the problem of mental causation does not exists. The logic is pretty simple, for reductive physicalism, there is no such thing as mental substance or mental property, all substances are physical and all properties are physical; so mental causation of human being is the physical causation of a physical substance.[14] Even though reductive physicalism is able to solve the problem of mental causation that both substance dualism and property dualism is having a hard time on; when we deliberate clearly, the thesis doesn’t solve the problem, it just eliminate mentality. It is because, for the thesis, human mentality is a illusion, since all substance and property “is” physical properties, it entails that all mental substance and property does not exist in a way we believe.[15] Put things otherwise, the cost of solving the problem of mental causation, according to the reductionist is to eliminate mentality, if mentality is just an illusion, the problem of mental causation is no more mysterious. However, to most theologians, reductive physicalism is not an option for them, it is because, most Christian theologians believe in the existence of human mentality which the theory deny, as a result unless a theologian is planning to giving up human mentality,
reductive physicalism is not an alternative to them.[16]
reductive physicalism is not an alternative to them.[16]
So if neither substance dualism nor reductive physicalism is preferable, it appears that a theologian could either advocate a strong mysticism or a non-reductive physicalism. Here, I am not considering a strong mysticism as an option because, as I have suggested above, substance dualism is not preferable because it shares the burden of proof in explaining, firstly, countering our scientific belief, how could there exist a non-physical substance and secondly, even such substances do exist, how are they communicating with the physical body.[17] A strong mysticism, is more like the position I have briefly introduce in the last part, it relies heavily on the existence of either the existence of divine or the experience in encountering the divine, which the problem of mental causation is mean to ask. Put things other wise, there are many scholars, for instance William P. Alston who have been arguing religious experiences as a decent evidence as perceiving God.[18] Nevertheless, the center of the problem of mental causation is challenging whether such “experiences” are reliable or in a worst sense if these “experiences” do exist in a way we use to believe. Let’s illustrate a little bit more on this point, for reductive physicalism, religious experiences can reduce to the function of our brain, there does not exist any substance other than physical substance, so if an individual propose, God moves me to do X, it means a physical substance God is causing some physical substance in my brain to do the action X; however, there is no evidence that such a physical God exists, so at best the notion has to reduce to some physical substance that reductionist can find that cause the action of X.
As a result, many scholars have suggested that the non-reductive physicalism or property dualism is the best position of mind. It is because, as briefly discussed above, reductionism is having a very hard time in explaining consciousnesses and intentionality of human mind; it is very common among Christians that after reading a certain piece of Scriptures or a long group prayer, we suddenly have a consciousness feeling of being touched by the Holy Spirit and we are thrilled. The feeling of such consciousnesses, as many scholars have argued can hardly be reduced to a physical property, it is because to those reductionist they know what it is like for us to have a prayer and how it is like for us to feel like after the prayer; however, it is very hard for them to explain the “attached” properties of the action, the feeling of feeling, a high-order mental states.[19] Because of the undeniable existence of consciousness, scholars have been that there exist at least one property that is neither physical nor possible in reducing to physical, so it is logically to say that, the position of reductive physicalism is false since it suggests there exist nothing other than physical substance and physical properties. For many scholars, property dualism is basically the default answer to the mind/body problem, for it explains human nature in detail without conflicting natural laws, it explains how a physical human being is having a mentality in a substance monolithic world. So in the last century, after realizing psychology, that believes human mentality under natural laws does not necessary counter the existence of God, scholars have started the journey in merging psychology with Christian Spirituality.[20] However, as the problem of mental causation has entailed, the existence of consciousness is casually powerless, if it is the case, it appears that inductively if Christian Spirituality put faiths on psychology that pre-request the validity of property dualism, Christian Spirituality has to solved how property dualism can escape from the charges of epiphenomenal. Let’s illustrate the point by a contemporary Christian Spirituality thesis, the theory of pastoral care.
The pastoral care “movement” peaked in the North American in the 1960s and taking individual counseling as its main paradigm of action, the movement was much influenced by the techniques and theories of humanistic psychologists such as Sigmund Freud, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, Eric Berne and Fritz Perls.[21] Despite the charge of emphasizing too much on psychological concerns, like most other Christian Spirituality movement in the last century, the movement has put faith on the validity of the psychological method, which the problem of mental causation has been skeptical on. For pastoral care theorists, giving a spiritual direction for individuals is beneficial, because by a decent communion with God, like sacramental confession, the “spirituality” of an individual can become more Godly from the obstacles created from one’s anxiety or experiences .[22] Metaphysically speaking, these practices are not helpful unless it is the case that our mental properties are causing either another mental properties or physical properties. By using an example, through group prayers, an individual is believed to be lead by a spiritual guide in tasting how God is like and having a change in both mentally and physically, for the time being, first let’s not concern whether the spiritual guide is guide by the Holy Spirit or an individual guide by the Holy Spirit. For property dualism, there is a mental event GP (group prayer), and during the GP, A claim to know more about God, so mental properties M of the mental event GP is causing another mental event KG (knowing God) and as a result the mental properties of KG, M1 is causing the physical action BC (becoming better Christian by doing X or Y). So for the theorists, this is exactly what has happened, a mental event is causing another mental event that would end up causing a change in physical actions.[23]
However, for Kim, this line of thoughts fails to pass the problem of mental causation, it is because according to the property dualists, at the beginning all these events GP, KG and BC are physical events, at best with mental properties; secondly, to say GP cause KG cause BC, base on the casual closure of the physical domain, these physical events are having a cause occurring at time t, it has a sufficient physical cause at t. Put things otherwise, the problem of mental causation does not deny that during these events, an individual is having a feeling like John Wesley has once felt after his prayers; what the problem denies is whether such feelings are causing further actions for an individual. Undoubtedly, to most individuals, the problem of mental causation simply does not make any sense at all, it is because to most of us, the cognitive feeling that when I desire a cup of milk and under no other physical constraints, I am going to have a cup of milk is obviously showing that one’s mentality is action causing. Nonetheless, the argument of Kim is an deductive argument and if the premises are true the conclusion must be true; how we think and experience can be illusive, just as Kim has argued, the usefulness of mental properties might be something like watching the shadow of the car and believing that the shadow of the car is causing the shadow to move. And as a result, my desire, the consciousness feeling of GP, KG and BC are all casually powerless, it is not the case that after the group prayer one has a change because one knows more about God, it is the case that the physical property of the group prayer, maybe the unintentional sounds or visions causing a mechanic response of a change in our thinking, then the physical properties of the thinking rather than the mental properties or the content of the thinking is causing the change of the individual. To sum up a little, under the problem of mental causation, we are like those rare case of patients who is believed by the doctors as suffering from brain death, we might be conscious of the environment, believing that things can change by our wills but to the end we cannot, without the physical properties we are just a conscious puppet and so even we are actually doing some responding, it is questionable such response fit the general understanding a Christian theologians might have been looking for.[24]
Here it is reasonable for me to further illustrate the embarrassing situation for Christian Spirituality considering different responses to the theory; in contemporary Anglo-American literature, as many philosophers and psychologists has argued, Kim’s argument can be solved from allowing mental properties in doing something other than what we traditionally believe mental properties have been functioning or allowing some mental events are genuinely cause of over-determinations.[25] Nevertheless, I am skeptical whether these solutions can be used for Christian Spirituality, firstly, most scholars in the field does not mean to retain the existence of God but the existence of human mentality; here, I am not saying that these counter-arguments to Kim cannot be used by theologians, on the contrary, I am asking how these arguments can be used for theologians. The problem of Contemporary Christian Spirituality has been encounter is that, we have been borrowing the fruit of psychology without realizing the setback of the thesis and so it is doubtful whether their answers can become the answers of Christian Spirituality. Secondly, even considering this arguments are true, most of the thesis just express a “bottom-line” case for mentality, the cost of these responses has reduce human mentality into a minimum sense and it is dubious whether a theologian who wants to maintain God as the center of Christian Spirituality can accept such a condition.[26]
In this paper, Christian Spirituality is defined as the responses of human agents to the creating God who has an intention in communicating with His creation; to most scholars the problem of mental causation question how mentality come to cause physical bodies in actions. But as we can see, for theologians, mentality must also be able to receive the message from God in an intentional way, supposing the existence of God is a highly properly. However, the contemporary Anglo-American literature towards the problem of mental causation has basically ignored how the receiving of God’s message is possible but discussing how a single mentality is having causal power. Put things otherwise, with the problem of mental causation on the table, theologians do not just need to explain how mental causation is possible but also how the divine action can harmonize with mentality. So, it might be true that some mental properties might have it’s bottom line power together with the physical properties in causing the physical action; nevertheless, how does the divine works with that? For instance, suppose we say the Holy Spirit cause us to believe in X and from X we do Y, for property dualists, there is an agent HS (Holy Spirit) who is a physical substance and HS has done Q that causes A to believe in X, so the physical property of Q of HS cause the physical property PP and articulate a mental belief that has both mental and physical properties M* and P* that P* is causing A to do Y, while M* is functioning in a bottom line case in the causation. However, it is problematic, firstly can we define the action of Holy Spirit as a physical action? If no, we are going back to the problem that substance dualism has encountered; while with yes, it is reasonable for us how such chain effects could have been done in a way Christian theologians have been looking for.
Put things altogether, the problem of mental causation is questioning all there condition for Christian Spirituality. At the very beginning, there is a contemporary movement among Theologians who believe that there exist an intellectual Designer, the problem of mental causation first counter how such an intellectual creator would have created such an useless mentality.[27] Secondly, the problem of mental causation also demand theologians in explaining how divine action is empirically and contingently possible in saying the Divine is communicating with His creations and last but not least, the problem challenge theologians in explaining how human being is able to communicate back to God in a traditional way.[28] So it is fair to say, the problem of mental causation is closely connected with the validity of Christian Spirituality that believe in the property dualism. However, as I have recently argued in my research proposal, “The problem of mental causation, consciousness and an intellectual designer”, the problem is under appreciated by most contemporary Anglo-American theologians, as far as I am aware, among contemporary Christian peers, only J.P. Moreland and Nancey Murphy has tried to articulated a direct response to the problem from a theological angle which none of the two are strong enough in refuting the problem.[29] It is the case that many other theologians for instance Philip Clayton has argued how divine action is possible; nevertheless, most of this argument has neglected the charges of the problem mental causation and as I have argued here, the problem is a question that we must solve for any theologian who wants to maintain the concept of Christian Spirituality.
Conclusion
The problem of mental causation is one of the strongest counter argument against Christian Spirituality, it is because, if Christian Spirituality believes there exist the God and He is willing to communicate with us and we can communicate back; the problem of mental causation just challenge all these notions. And as I have argued, unless a theologian starts his endeavor from the perspective of reductive physicalism, base on contemporary literature, neither substance dualism and property dualism is providing a decent theological response to the problem. I do not deny that in these years, there are different responses from philosophers and psychologists that may have created a bottom line cases for mentality; nevertheless, as I have argued, I do not believe these responses is good to be used for Christian Spirituality as I believe not much Christian theologians are willing to pay the price of allowing a bottom-line mentality as a decent one, put things otherwise, if Christian Spirituality believes that human is able to transform with the grace of God, it must be something more than a chain of inevitable physical events, an individual must not only be conscious but also able to intentionally transformed by his own wills. As a result, Christian Spirituality is facing a very embarrassing situation, with the help of psychology, it appears that many of our experiences and practicing are getting us closer to God; however, if we dig deeper, we will come to realize that it is not the case, psychology does not provide us with answer but more questions. Furthermore, the questions are making our beliefs problematic, we are lost because besides relying on the consciousness religious experience, we have no proofs in showing that we are able to communicate back to God or how God is communicating to us. Worst, as far as I am aware, theologians seem fail to articulate how the problem is dooming our understanding and if we believe faith seeking for answer, supposing we can now relieve from the charge of epiphenomenalism, theologians should start making responses to the problem.
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[1] Christianity." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2010. Web. 5 Apr. 2010 <http://search.eb.com.easyaccess1.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/eb/
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[2] Billig, Michael. "psychology." The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. Outhwaite, William (ed). Blackwell Publishing, 2002. Blackwell Reference Online. 05 April 2010 <http://www.blackwellreference.com.easyaccess1.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9780631221647_chunk_g978063122164720_ss1-62>
[3] Hasker, William, "Afterlife", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/afterlife/>.
AND
Polkinghorne, John and Nicholas Beale Questions of Truth, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 2009, Page. 74
Polkinghorne, John and Nicholas Beale Questions of Truth, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 2009, Page. 74
[4] Mursell, Gordon., ed. The Story of Christian Spirituality: Two Thousand Years, from East to West. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001. Page 348-353
[5] Donald Davidson’s Anomalous Monism has vividly explain how psychological properties are logically epiphenomenal. For further reading, see Donald Davidson, “Actions, Reason and Causes.”
[6] Undoubtedly, it is logically possible in arguing Christian Spirituality from a materialistic or reductive physicalism position; nevertheless, contingently and theoretically speaking, it is questionable whether such views could survive the basic criteria of Christian Spirituality that I am going to examine in due time.
[7] Mursell, Gordon., ed. The Story of Christian Spirituality. Page 19-25
[8] Jones, Cheslyn, Wainwright, Geoffrey, and Yarnold, Edward, ed. The Study of Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. Page 9-17
[9] Even the concept of theosis proposed by the early church fathers relied heavily on the existence of God written in the Bible; they are not saying we can become a particular divine, but in a sense we could behave or transformed in behaving like the God mentioned in the New Testament.
[10] Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology. Vol. 1, Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1951-1963, Repr., London:SCM, 1978. Page 74
[11] Here I am not arguing that all the arguments for the existence of God have failed; what I am saying here is that, as contemporary epistemology entails, human knowledge is limited, most of our knowledge is gathered from inductive arguments and none of them is self-evident. Thus, each arguments and counter arguments provide probability reasons for us to believe and disbelieve in certain thesis X and to the end we can conclude coherently X is true or false. By using an analogy, we are pretty much like a jury in the court, we judge whether X is guilty base on evidences, but it is highly likely that the evidences do not entail the entire picture of the case, so to the end our judgment is at best a highly likely one. Relating to the issue here, as I believe, the existence of God is a highly likely; however, it is dubious whether this belief can induce to the thesis that God is willing to communicate with us and we are able to communicate back. More will be explain in due time.
[13] It is true that in this paper, my focus is on property dualism and Christian Spirituality rather than substance dualism and Christian Spirituality. It is because even though substance dualism is still a popular view among theologians, most contemporary scholars in the filed of Philosophy of Mind have already denied the validity of the thesis. It is true that I cannot take things for granted and argue because most of the scholars in the field believe X is false, X is false. Nevertheless, I believe, as I have demonstrated, either case substance dualism is at no better place than property dualism in sharing the burden of proof in explaining the problem of mental causation.
[14] Stoljar, Daniel, "Physicalism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/physicalism/>.
[15] For reductionist mental is just like a system, the best analogy is a computer; generally, we believe the computer we used are functioned in a way like human being but lacking of mentality, intentionality and consciousness. For reductionist, our situation is parallel to the computer, we are just a more advance computer that are capable in functioning daily routines, but we are still a mechanic system that lack of what human used to hold as important, for instance, the passion of love, the feeling of sublime and so on and so forth.
[16] The conflict between Christian theology and reductive physicalism is already out of the scope of this paper; by giving the reader a general understand. To reductionism, basically, most of our religious language are cognitively meaningless, it is because most reductionist reduce human mentality to brain functions, a passionate belief to God is nothing more than a brain activities a happens in a client’s brain; in that sense, even regarding God exists and is willing to communicate with us, it is questionable we could respond to Him, it is because our “respond” is just an inevitable, mechanic function of our brain.
[17] I am not paralleling scientific knowledge as absolute or deductive truth; on the contrary, it is just empirically and inductively stronger in believing there does not exist non-physical substances. I am open to the possibility, if more evidences reveal the existence of non-physical substances, things can change. But consider the knowledge we have on hand, it is more rationally to conclude, the position of substance dualism is an inductive weaker one.
[18] Alston, William, Perceiving God, New York: Cornell University Press, 1991.
[19] Van Gulick, Robert, "Consciousness", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2009/entries/
consciousness/>.
consciousness/>.
[20] Main, Roderick. "Psychology of Religion." The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion. Segal, Robert A. Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Blackwell Reference Online. 08 April 2010 http://www.blackwellreference.com.easyaccess1.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/subscriber/tocnode?id=g9780631232162_chunk_g97806312321629
[21] PATTISON, STEPHEN. "pastoral care, theories of." The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought. McGrath, Alister E. Blackwell Publishing, 2005. Blackwell Reference Online. 08 April 2010 <http://www.blackwellreference.com.easyaccess1.lib.cuhk.edu.hk/subscriber/
tocnode?id=g9780631198963_chunk_g978063119896318_ss3-1>
tocnode?id=g9780631198963_chunk_g978063119896318_ss3-1>
[22] Jones, Cheslyn, Wainwright, Geoffrey, and Yarnold, Edward, ed. The Study of Spirituality. Page 568-570
[23] In contemporary discussing, what causing an individual to act is under heavily debates; some scholars believe action are driven primary by rationality, while some believes the root is one’s desire. Here I am discussing an optimal case of spiritual direction, for these theorists, through the pastoral care, an individual is having a change in their mind (believes) and as a result change in their physical actions. For instance, through understanding that God desire one to worship Him in Sunday, a gambler who has a habit in watching early Sunday American Football must choose going to the church rather than stay home and watch the matches.
[24] I believe there exist theologians who might accept such a mechanic conclusion of human responses; but, I also believe, base on most Christian theologians’ work, just for instance the Pastoral Care and Spiritual Directions, they have been demanding for more, our responses must be intentional rather than an inevitable and mechanic one. The practices have been done in helping the mentality (mental properties) of an individual in transforming, must be an intentional and action causing one, so I don’t believe the mechanic conclusion that the problem of mental causation has entailed fit this requirements.
[25] Robb, David, Heil, John, "Mental Causation", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives
/sum2009/entries/mental-causation/>.
/sum2009/entries/mental-causation/>.
[26] Mclaughlin, Brain and Jonathan Cohen, Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of mind, Victoria: Blackwell, 2007. Page 243-263
[27] Supposing the argument is valid, the mental causation entails that human mentality is basically usefulness and as a result it is questionable whether the inductive argument from intelligent design is a strong case.
[28] It is clear that, by using the result, the property dualism suggest we can respond to God; however, such responses are non-intentional, it is just a response of a chain of physical causation. By using an analogy again, we know we are responding to God, but we have nothing to do in the responding. So it is doubtful whether we can say such a response is really a response Christian Spirituality has been suggesting.
[29] Nancey’s argument as she has concluded can just provide doubts to Kim’s argument, while Moreland’s argument has just targeted the “original” version of Kim’s argument that Kim has already given up.
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