Why I am a Universalist, Part 5: Salvation in a Post-Cartesian World

This post carries over from my post on Moral Luck. I want to talk specifically about free will systems of soteriology (e.g., Arminianism) and the crisis they will face in the coming years.

The philosopher Thomas Nagel in his essay "Moral Luck" correctly notes a connection between moral luck, free will, and responsibility. Perhaps you also sensed the connection when you read that post. Specifically, contemplation of moral luck tends to shrink the scope of human agency. Further contemplation can shrink agency to the point where it goes "poof!" Gone.

So this post will consider a kind of worst case scenario for human agency and free will: What if free will becomes wholly untenable to future generations of Christians? How will soteriology have to cope with that possible theological future?

But is that future possible? Will free will really undergo a theological crisis? I'll argue that, yes, the crisis is coming and is already starting.

Where is the crisis coming from? Simply, it is due to the demise of Cartesian dualism.

As most are aware, the belief that we are comprised of both body and soul is referred to as Cartesian dualism, or simply dualism. The name is due to Rene Descartes who was the pivotal Western thinker who articulated the idea in the Western philosophical literature. For those dismissive of Cartesian dualism the idea is called "the Ghost in the machine."

As Descartes paints the Ghost in the Machine model our soul inhabits our body or at least interfaces with it and, thus, via that interface mechanism, directs the actions of the body. But this model creates a whole other round of issues known as the "mind-body problem." How exactly does the soul (typically aligned with the mind/consciousness) interface with the body? And how does the body interface with the soul? These kinds of considerations have generated such a large speculative literature that it defies my ability to summarize it all.

But I don't think we need to dwell on the mechanics of dualism because dualism is growingly untenable. Modern people are increasingly refusing to believe that they have a soul inhabiting their body. There is no Ghost. Why is this assessment growing in the population? Answer: Neuroscience.

To illustrate these popular trends, trends that will grow over time, below I walk through two different newspaper editorials in the mainstream media by two very influential psychologists.

In a New York Times September 10, 2004 piece, entitled “The Duel Between Body and Soul,” the psychologist Paul Bloom stated that:

The great conflict between science and religion in the last century was over evolutionary biology. In this century, it will be over psychology, and the stakes are nothing less than our souls.

Why does Bloom draw this conclusion? He explains that science is gradually making the idea of the soul untenable:

The qualities of mental life that we associate with souls are purely corporeal; they emerge from biochemical processes in the brain. This is starkly demonstrated in cases in which damage to the brain wipes out capacities as central to our humanity as memory, self-control and decision-making.

According to Bloom, this conclusion, that the soul is nothing more than the brain, is creating enormous tension between the religious and the scientific view of man:

The conclusion that our souls are flesh is profoundly troubling to many, as it clashes with the notion that the soul survives the death of the body. It is a much harder pill to swallow than evolution, then, and might be impossible to reconcile with many religious views. Pope John Paul II was clear about this, conceding our bodies may have evolved, but that theories which ‘consider the spirit as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man.’ This clash is not going to be easily resolved.

We find similar sentiments expressed by author and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker his September 27, 2004 Newsweek article entitled “How to Think About the Mind: Neuroscience shows that the ‘soul’ is the activity of the brain”:

Every evening our eyes tell us that the sun sets, while we know that, in fact, the Earth is turning us away from it. Astronomy taught us centuries ago that common sense is not a reliable guide to reality. Today it is neuroscience that is forcing us to readjust our intuitions. People naturally believe in the Ghost in the Machine: that we have bodies made of matter and spirits made of an ethereal something. Yes, people acknowledge that the brain is involved in mental life. But they still think of it as a pocket PC for the soul, managing information at the behest of a ghostly user.

Modern neuroscience has shown that there is no user. ‘The soul’ is, in fact, the information-processing activity of the brain. New imaging techniques have tied every thought and emotion to neural activity.

Pinker, like Bloom, also recognizes the lurking conflict with religion that this view of the brain entails:

In Galileo's time, the counter-intuitive discovery that the Earth moved around the sun was laden with moral danger. Now it seems obvious that the motion of rock and gas in space has nothing to do with right and wrong. Yet to many people, the discovery that the soul is the activity of the brain is just as fraught, with pernicious implications for everything from criminal responsibility to our image of ourselves as a species. Turning back the clock on the ultimate form of self-knowledge is neither possible nor desirable. We can live with the new challenges from brain science. But it will require setting aside childlike intuitions and traditional dogmas, and thinking afresh about what makes people better off and worse off.

Here is why I am citing these two articles:

1. This is the growing view in the modern world. Neuroscience is making Cartesian dualism untenable. In short, in the coming decades Christian reference to the "soul" will seem quaint and charming. Like speaking about the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

2. We are currently training ministers to go out into a post-modern and post-Christian world. Well, that's great. But let me make clear a challenge that bible professors are wholly overlooking. We are sending ministers out into a POST-CARTESIAN world. And, I ask, are these ministers being prepared for THAT? How quaint that we are training people to go out to reason in the world with notions as charming, to the listeners, as the Easter bunny.

3. Neuroscience, like evolution before it, is setting up up for a titanic struggle between faith and reason. And this one will be much, much worse. The soul itself is at stake. But what if Christianity looses this battle as it has with evolution? What if the soul is removed as a legitimate category of discourse? How will theology need to adjust?

In fact, theology HAS begun to adjust. Embodied visions of humans which reject the Platonic influences inherent in Cartesian dualism are on the rise. See the work of Nancy Murphy as a case in point (start with her book Bodies and Souls or Spirited Bodies?).

Although I applaud the work of Murphy, I don't, however, think she or others are really facing up to the real crisis. The real crisis isn't about the soul. The real crisis is about free will.

The doctrine of the soul is only important in that it allows a mechanism for free will. For what other reason would we care if the soul existed or not? If I have no soul why should I care? Immortality isn't really an issue, because the vision in the bible is of a bodily resurrection. No, the fear of not having a soul isn't about immortality, it's about free will and moral accountability.

For the soul is believed to allow us causal powers outside of the scope of environment, heredity, and moral luck. But if there is no soul, as Nagel points out, human agency reduces until, poof!, it's gone. Again, the crisis isn't really about the soul. The crisis is about free will.

So, as a psychologist, let me tell you about the theological landscape of the future:

It will be a world where the soul has no place. In its place will be behavioral genetics, neuroscience, and psychology. "Sins" will be increasingly be viewed as biological or environmental issues (e.g., addictions, chemical imbalances). And, as a consequence, issues of justice, crime and punishment will continue to move more toward rehabilitative and social contract (e.g., deterrence) models. In short, the brain with its related sciences will slowly transform notions of free will and in its wake notions of virtue, sin, justice, crime, and punishment. Humans will be viewed as the product, a nexus, of causal activity and we will strive, as a self-reflective species, to understand and manipulate that causal machinery to engineer a harmonious future for all. We are in the beginning stages of this process, you see it already around you, and it will intensify as Pinker and Bloom say it will.

And as this future evolves, how will Arminian soteriological systems fare?

Not well.

How will universalism fare?

Very, very well.

Why? Because as notions of "free will" erode we will have to alter notions of moral praise and blame. Moral luck will dominate discussions of human responsibility. And Arminian systems will have no leverage in these conversations. But universalism will. Because universalism is fully compatible with a causal vision of the will. That is, God is fully willing and able (from a time perspective) to work with you as causal nexus, working with and shaping your contingent will to mold you into the image of Jesus.

Universalism is on the rise. And the factor driving this trend is, interestingly, neuroscience.