The Soul and Greek and Jewish Thought

[Grillsy]

As I was earning my degrees in Biblical studies it was often claimed by professors that the common Christian concept of the soul was a Greek idea. Stemming from Plato's concept of separation of soul and body and the pre-existence of the soul. Therefore according to certain teachers we must adopt a "Jewish" understanding of the soul. What do you make of this? Any opinions? Are we all just subliminal Platonists?

 

[rbcbob]

I have heard many preachers and sermons bemoan the "fact" that our bodies are the prison houses of our souls.

 

[jwright82]

Here is a paper by Bahnsen on this subject PA143, warning though it is somewhat technical and I had to have my dictionarary of philosophy handy to understand some things. I will attempt to lay out some of his criticisms though.

He points out, following Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle, that just because we talk about something, like love, doesn't necessaraly mean that there is this entity out there called "love" and it is non-material because I can't point to it somwhere. This is a fundamental problem for all dualistic theories of mind, we use all these words on a daily basis (like beleifs, emotional feelings, thoughts, etc...) and we know they don't reduce to pure material things (synapse firings, chemicals in my brain, etc...) so we posit this whole seperate entity we call a soul to place these things in. But this may be a violation of the law of parsimony, which states that you may not posit the exsistance of an entity unecassaraly, like positing the exsistance of faries to explain your missing shoes.

Just because materialism fails doesn't mean dualism wins. Wittgenstein really changed the metaphysical game, in my opinion, and has given us a lot to think about. Now I must confess that I don't have an answer to the problem of the theory of mind but I am convinced that pure materilaism and pure dualism are both failures. Bahnsnen criticizes all theories on both sides and gives his own theory (that he doesn't really give a complete explination for, which he admits can't do). It makes you wonder what the real answer is. I hope I helped.

As I was earning my degrees in Biblical studies it was often claimed by professors that the common Christian concept of the soul was a Greek idea.

I am generally skeptical of anyone who simply writes off a whole tradition as originating in some heretical place. Do you really know how hard that statement would be to prove? Although it does seem to hold some water here.

 

[Skyler]

As I was earning my degrees in Biblical studies it was often claimed by professors that the common Christian concept of the soul was a Greek idea.

I am generally skeptical of anyone who simply writes off a whole tradition as originating in some heretical place. Do you really know how hard that statement would be to prove? Although it does seem to hold some water here.

It's also a fallacious argument. It's called the "genetic fallacy".

 

[jwright82]

As I was earning my degrees in Biblical studies it was often claimed by professors that the common Christian concept of the soul was a Greek idea.

I am generally skeptical of anyone who simply writes off a whole tradition as originating in some heretical place. Do you really know how hard that statement would be to prove? Although it does seem to hold some water here.

It's also a fallacious argument. It's called the "genetic fallacy".

You are absolutly correct.