The Human Soul: A Psychological View of Theological Concepts

By Eric J. Kolb PhD

The Human Soul is an exploration of the essence of human life from a scientific psychological, philosophical, and theological perspective. The purpose of this book is to instructor the reader on current scientific findings of the nature of mankind and to compare these with Biblical scripture and philosophy.

This book is unique because unlike many religion bashing scientific based books, the Human Soul is more objective. While citing peer reviewed scientific evidence, the author demonstrates how this evidence aligns with the Bible, because although faith is blind, it need not be ignorant.

This is a book for those willing to view and understand the scientific data pertaining to the nature of man and contrast this with The Bible. Though it might be to scientific for those whose only source of understanding is the Bible and to Christian for those who reject Religion at the face of it, the Human Soul, if read with an least a partially open mind, may help one to better understand what they believe to know about human life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jul 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823083683

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© 2023 Eric J. Kolb, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/21/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8367-6 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-8368-3 (e)

Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible verses are taken from the New International Version.

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Science and Theology

Interchanging Uses of the Terms Soul, Intellect, and Mind

The Three-Ring Model

Overview: The Critical difference between Attention and Focus

Chapter 1: Reality

Perception and Perspective

False Claims

Critical Thinking and Presumption

Proof of Knowledge and Understanding

Qualia, the Unit of Experience

Chapter 2: Cognition

Abstract Construct

Reason

Impressions and Ideas

Thoughts

Concepts

Intellect

Decisions

Intuitive Knowledge, Belief, and Reason: The Human Ability to Reason

Chapter 3: Materialism versus Dualism

The Perspective of a Materialist

The Perspective of a Dualist

Cartesian Dualism

Hylomorphic Dualism

Property and Substance Dualism

The Science and Reason of Substance Dualism

Objections to Dualism

Causation and Dualism

The Mind-Body Problem

Materialism versus Dualism, a Question of the Soul

Chapter 4: Consciousness

The Hard Problem of Consciousness

The Nature of Consciousness

Conscious Awareness

The Neural Pathways of Consciousness

The Quantum Theory of Consciousness

The Mathematics of Consciousness

The Evolution of Consciousness

Consciousness of Plants

Consciousness of Animals

Theories Pertaining to Consciousness

The Multiple Drafts Model

Integrated Information Theory (IIT)

The Organic Relationship between Consciousness and Matter

Conclusion Consciousness

Chapter 5: Theories and Definitions Pertaining to the Human Soul

Opposition to Thomas Aquinas

Five Qualities of the Soul

Location and Mass of the Soul

The Human Soul: Merely a Bundle of Perceptions?

Chapter 6: Identity Continuality, Proof of the Human Soul

Proof of the Human Soul

Continuality of Identity and the Soul

Opposition to Continuality

Chapter 7: Causation and Conscious Free Will

The Principle of Causation

Duality and Free Will

Benjamin Libet

The Libet Experiments

The Illusion of Conscious Free Will

Opposition to Libet

The Effect of Conscious Free Will on Moral and Social Behaviour

Conscious Awareness: Consciously Controlled Behaviour

Intention

Empirical and Phenomenological Free Will

Self-Steered Self-Organised System

God’s Will versus Mine

Chapter 8: Created in the Image of God

The Cosmic Timeline

Resurrection and Afterlife

Moral

Physical and Mental Health Benefits of Spirituality and Religion

The Essence of Religion

Kant’s Reasoning of God

Biblical Understanding of the Soul

Resurrection

Spiritual Development

The Existence of Evil

Human Critic on God’s Creation versus Spiritual Development

Stages of Creation and Development

References

To Him and all who are earnestly seeking the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

The mind knows it believes, but the soul believes to know.

INTRODUCTION

Nature has a quality that many scholars have described as relational. In any scientific aspect of nature, one is likely to find an equation with an equal sign in it. Density equals mass divided by volume; time equals distance divided by velocity; force equals mass times acceleration. All these equations illustrate how various aspects of nature are related and defined in terms of each other.

Since the work of Immanuel Kant, we have come to realize that one cannot know reality directly but only through one’s senses, and those senses distort reality by emphasizing one aspect over others. One approach is to consider the most likely metaphor for reality and test that hypothesis, using scientific evidence as it becomes available. A good hypothesis will lead to evidence and new knowledge through further scientific investigation. However, this approach presumes that reality is not only relational but also rational, and rational in a way humans can understand. Thus, some questions in science, such as the mind-body problem, do not have answers that completely coincide with our understanding of reality.

As such, science may require us to change our understanding of reality or our understanding of the scientific data that conflicts with our understanding of reality (Graves, 2008). This may be truer for the subject of the human soul than for any other subject. In this examination of the human soul, I aim to inform my readers of the scientific understanding of the soul and how it compares to the theological understanding of the human soul.

In A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume (1739/2007) posed questions concerning man’s nature, which were never discussed objectively. Not without reason did Hume first publish his three-volume work anonymously. The church did not take kindly to the idea that one should even ponder the nature of man. They believed that it should be sufficient to intuitively know that God created man. Man had no business trying to get a peek behind God’s curtain, like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. As one who understands that the curtain has long since been torn, I have a special appreciation for Hume’s critical and extremely thorough depiction of the human soul.¹ In 1739, long before scientific psychology was even a thing, Hume demonstrated an incredible and accurate understanding of complex neurological systems, which were not to be discovered until the turn of the twentieth century.

Other philosophers and theologians are renowned for understanding that although faith is blind, it need not be ignorant. Descartes (2010) began his work by stressing the importance of questioning one’s own beliefs, just as one must be wary of one’s own perceptions, which are known to be deceptive, as we will later discuss. John Wesley argued that faith is an active principle, and hope relates to that which we do not yet possess. It should be noted that this idea is common to Christian theology and scientific psychology.

John Calvin, a man whom I was forced against my will to learn about on a church retreat, began the war against prideful human knowledge that I continue to fight today. In his will, he wrote that his life’s work should be an endowment to show the mutual bearing of science and theology (Coulson, 1955). Both science and theology seek an understanding of the nature of the world.

I believe that the nature of the universe was set in place by God. Science has demonstrated this by the contrapositive method of proof. Science first assumes that there is no God and then studies creation from that perspective. When this leads to contradictions, as the cosmological anthropic principle asserts, then this should serve as evidence that the primary assumption is false. However, instead of drawing this conclusion, science tends to change the assumptions to satisfy the data. On the other hand, theology seeks understanding through the Word and Spirit of God but tends to neglect the study of scientific data.

Why not both? Doubting Thomas, as he has become known, was one of Jesus’s disciples. He experienced first-hand all of Jesus’s miracles. Nevertheless, when told of His resurrection, Thomas said, Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe (John 20:25). Because of this, Thomas is often depicted as having weak faith. This story is often used to teach people to believe blindly, not to doubt, and certainly not to question. But how did Jesus react to his doubting? Jesus did not scold him or shame him. He very simply gave Thomas the evidence he required to believe.

Science and Theology

I would like to suggest that science is to theology what math is to music. Music is indeed based on math, but it is not the math that moves us and inspires us to dance. As a Christian, I believe that the Bible is the highest authority of truth. And anybody who studies the Bible diligently can learn everything they need to know about God. Many verses in the Bible state that God reveals Himself in nature, which essentially means God reveals Himself in science.

Thus, Christians should not only devote themselves to learning the Word of God, but also to studying His creation. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power, and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse (Romans 1:20). Paul is saying that even if one has never heard of the Bible, never gone to church, and never been taught anything about God, nature itself is proof enough of God’s existence. So no one can say, Oops, I didn’t know; nobody told me. Furthermore, if one knows God only through the Bible, then although one may have learned everything one needs to know about God, one will not have learned all there is to learn about God. God also reveals Himself through nature, and it is through scientific study that we learn about nature.

Based on its method of searching for the truth, Coulson (1955) asserted that science is essentially a religious activity. It is designed to discover truths based on a belief, otherwise known as a hypothesis. One makes an unexplained observation and then considers a plausible explanation. The scientist who creates a hypothesis is essentially saying, I believe this is how it works. Then an experiment will be designed to test this hypothesis.

However, in order to conduct scientific experiments, one must assume that no forces are acting upon a system other than those observed. Yes, this essentially means that science must assume that God does not exist and that life and the universe created themselves from nothing. Thus, many believers choose to reject science because science rejects God. Many believers do not understand that the scientific method requires the assumption that no outside forces are working on a system other than those that are observable. That is, if a scientist is trying to determine the best braking system for a car, the best medicine for an illness, or the best components for a battery, the scientist must not consider whether a driver is listening to gospel music, a patient is praying for healing, or if the battery is used in a pastor’s microphone.

To discover the true relationship between science and religion, one may begin by examining science as a way of obtaining knowledge (Coulson, 1955). The secular scientist first assumes that God does not exist and then tries to find an explanation for the mysteries of nature. The theologian assumes God exists and allows this assumption to explain the mysteries of nature. The religious scientist understands that the scientific method requires the assumption of a closed system but then also recognises the presence of God in the contradictions that arise through the primal assumption.

Most people value reason—some more than others. The successful developments of science illustrate the value of reason. Some have criticized the Bible for supposedly teaching that one should not lean on one’s own understanding (Proverbs 3:5). In other words, if we used our rational thought, we would understand that all of this religious stuff is bullocks.² However, people of this orientation fail to understand the difference between the capacity for rational thought and rationalising. Rational thought is the ability to make assertions beyond observations. However, much too often, this cognitive ability is used to organise one’s thoughts to correspond with one’s beliefs. This line of thinking is what is commonly referred to as rationalising.

I am sure most scientists would agree that rationalising is not a good method of thinking. It is virtually impossible to believe something and at the same time know it might not be true. In scientific research, this is called bias, and it is essentially unavoidable. In addition, we must understand that even rational thinking will not lead to all the answers. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem, the double-slit experiment, and many other mathematical paradoxes are scientific evidence of this fact.

The clou to the whole problem is that something can be true and still not be provable. In reality, science cannot tell us anything about what something is; it can only help us understand what it does. For example, an electron is not a particle, though it may be good enough for many purposes to treat it as if it were. An electron is also not a wave, though again, for certain other purposes, it may be convenient to treat it as if it were.

In the same way, we often try to attribute who God is based on what God does. But as Descartes (2010) pointed out, some people would rather deny the existence of God than believe that everything else is uncertain. Because theoretical physics has shown us that we may no longer think in terms of an absolute object, absolute mass, absolute rest, or absolute time, and we have lost all our previous absolutes, one may suggest that we are left with only one possible absolute: an absolute God. In this respect, Coulson (1955) warned against the classical God of the Gaps kind of thinking, in which the mysteries of science are filled in and credited to God.

Although science primarily assumes that God does not exist and completely disregards the Bible as a source of knowledge, by studying God’s creation, scientists are indeed seeking truth. If God is this truth, as I believe He is, then science is a moral enterprise that seeks to discover the truth. It holds within itself a kind of religious experience, not completely unlike what a believer may feel. If you watch videos of atheist scientists talking about stars, black holes, and nebulae, they often speak with a an excitement similar to that of a believer talking about the Bible, Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit. The only difference is that scientists worship creation, while believers worship the Creator.

From this perspective, science could be viewed as a kind of religion that worships nature’s splendour, power, and dynamic through scientific study. Of course, a believer would call this idolatry, claiming that the splendour, power, and dynamic of nature are simply God’s splendour, power, and dynamic character progressively revealed to us. Thus, religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never-relaxing crusade against scepticism and dogmatism, against disbelief and superstition. The rallying cry in this crusade has always been and always will be On to God (Coulson, 1955, pp. 62–63).

Nevertheless, the conflict between science and religion persists because science, according to its own principles, must maintain that the whole is always only equal to the sum of the parts. That is, a picture is nothing more than a collection of pixels, music is nothing more than a collection of sounds, and love is merely a biochemical reaction. Others, including myself, do not perceive the whole as merely the sum of its parts. If this were true, noise and music would be the same thing. In many areas of our lives, the whole is clearly greater than the sum of its parts.

One may try to rationalise that this surplus results from higher human consciousness. That is, our children are merely our offspring, whose existence is simply a result of an animalistic desire to pass on our DNA. The only reason we feel more deeply about our children than a fungus may feel about its spores is that we have a higher level of consciousness. The fact that an animal with a higher level of consciousness, such as a chimpanzee, may demonstrate remorse and sadness when its offspring are killed, while an animal with a lower level of consciousness may eat its own young, is often given as evidence that in truth the whole is really only the sum of its parts, and it is only humans’ highest level of consciousness that induces the illusion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

According to Graves (2008), the conflict between science and religion occurs from two perspectives: scientific materialism and biblical literalism. Scientific materialism asserts that all phenomena will eventually be explained in terms of the actions of material components, which practitioners believe to be the only effective causes in the world. Thus, scientific materialism claims that science can explain everything and religion has no purpose. Graves defined biblical literalists as those who hold the literal interpretation of the Bible as a flawless interpretation of the truth, and thus science is mistaken when it contradicts Scripture (p. 9). However, I would argue that those who believe that science contradicts scripture either do not understand the science or do not understand the scripture. Graves makes my point for me:

Biblical literalists argue against evolution and propose creationism which describes a literal reading of the Genesis creation story. Biblical literalists interpret passages such as Before I formed you in the womb I knew you (Jer. 1:5) as indicating the existence of a person prior to the body, and they interpret passages such as the dead were judged according to their works (Rev. 20:12) as indicating the existence of a person after the death of the body. (2008, pp. 9–10)

Graves ignored that evolution is a proposal that has been found to be statistically impossible (Barrow & Tippler, 2009). And as far as the creation story of Genesis goes, an accurate interpretation illustrates that the six days of creation are not about the creation of the universe but about the preparation of earth to sustain life (Ross, 2014). Whether this took place in six twenty-four-hour days or whether the word day refers to some other period of time can be debated. It is an interesting debate. But, as I see it, the matter is rather insignificant if one believes that Jesus’s death paid for the past, present, and future sins of the world. Thus, if God loves me, saved me from my sin, and has a perfect plan for my life, it stands to reason that He knew me before my birth and will know me after my physical death.

In his discussion of the conflict between science and theology, Coulson (1955) pointed out that the role of the scientist himself, as an observer, shares an unexpected intimacy with nature in that we have now come to understand that the very presence of an observer has a direct effect on the event being observed. The famous double-slit experiment is scientific evidence of this³.

Science and theology agree that things are often not what they seem. Theology argues that God is a real part of all our lives, though it may seem that He is not. At the same time, science argues that the whole is only equal to the sum of the parts, though the whole may seem like it is more. Similarly, some scientists hold religion to be history’s cruellest hoax, while history has shown that science has often been on the wrong side of truth and morality. Thus, the conflict between science and theology rages on as each side claims to be the sole bearer of truth.

Science arose within a Christian tradition, which was in no way distinct or different for many years. As Robert Grosseteste, author of Compendium Scientiarum and later bishop of Lincoln, suggested, it is impossible to understand nature without mathematics, physics, and chemistry, which will one day unite science and theology (Coulson, 1955). For me, this is still the case, for I understand the necessity of a closed system in experimental science and of necessity of Jesus as my Saviour.

Coulson (1955) pointed out some similarities and differences between science and religion. Simply put, science concerns itself only with that which is material, and religion concerns itself only with that which is immaterial. Nevertheless, Coulson proposed that because science pursues truth and God is truth, science is essentially a religious activity:

If we cannot bring God in at the end of science, He must be there at the very start and right through it. We have done wrong to set up any sharp antithesis between science and religion. Science itself must be a religious activity: a fit subject for a Sabbath day’s study, as John Ray put it in the seventeenth century. There is no other way out of our impasse than to assert that science is one aspect of God’s presence, and scientists therefore, part of the company of His heralds. (p. 30)

To further illustrate that science, like religion, is based on belief, Coulson quoted Thomas Huxley and Louis Pasteur:

Greatness in science is associated not with facts but with imagination. I will quote but two. First, there is T. H. Huxley: It is a popular delusion that the scientific enquirer is under an obligation not to go beyond generalization of observed facts … but anyone who is practically acquainted with scientific work is aware that those who refuse to go beyond the facts, rarely get so far. And then there is Pasteur: If someone tells me that in making these conclusions, I have gone beyond the facts, I reply: It is true that I have freely put myself among ideas which cannot be rigorously proved. That is my way of looking at things". (p. 42)

Thus, it may be proposed that science is not concerned so much with the physical facts but rather is interested in going beyond them to discover a deeper truth that may or may not be buried beneath the surface of the physical facts. This method of digging beyond the physical fact has proven to be effective in various scientific fields. But one cannot help to notice that, while science is obviously willing to go beyond the physical fact in many aspects of nature, when it comes theology, scientists are much less willing to speculate beyond the