tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post4355197849118094003..comments2024-01-17T02:39:06.048-05:00Comments on rude truth: toward a zombie cyborg theologyJJThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14920416765778868736noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post-33447853999150386142010-12-14T14:59:21.898-05:002010-12-14T14:59:21.898-05:00Heresy? Nah. "Heterodoxy," as Schleierma...Heresy? Nah. "Heterodoxy," as Schleiermacher would label it. :)JJThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14920416765778868736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post-27945544460371886432010-12-14T14:51:54.312-05:002010-12-14T14:51:54.312-05:00That's sort of where I've ended up. I lean...That's sort of where I've ended up. I lean toward universalism because the neuroscience is pushing me in that direction, soteriologically speaking. <br /><br />And while that is heresy for many, I think, on a practical level, as you note at the end, it really places spiritual formation front and center. If volition is embodied then faith itself is embodied (even synaptically), inculcated through the Incarnational practices of the faith community. The Imago Dei imprinting, quite literally, itself on my mind/body. A new sort or programming/software? Gives Romans 12.1-2 a whole new twist.<br /><br />Thanks for the conversation. Stay warm up there.Richard Beckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06500628452135216019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post-20170133486612509342010-12-14T13:54:15.034-05:002010-12-14T13:54:15.034-05:00I would love to see a session on some of this at t...I would love to see a session on some of this at the 2011 CSC. I'm not volunteering or anything--but wouldn't it be great if <i>someone else</i> did all the work...<br /><br />Yeah, I see your pickle and sour it certainly is. Maybe one way out would be a sortof Barthian universalism. The reformed notion of election and the gift of faith is odious when it is formulated in arbitrarily exclusive ways--but might could be reformulated without the arbitrariness and exclusivity. So first option is, faith is gift, but given to all (at some point in some form).<br /><br />Or another way out might be to question why, or rather if, a conscious and voluntary "belief in" God (or to sharpen the dilemma, and make it CofC relevant, <i>correct</i> "belief in") God, salvation, etc., is a prerequisite to redemption. (There's a wonderful line in the novel <i>Keys to the Kingdom</i> by AJ Cronin that has been stuck in my head ever since first reading it: "Atheists won't all go to hell. Hell is reserved for those who spit in the face of God,"--uttered by a rogue priest, of course.) Certainly we know we're not going to get it all right, and so we trust that our best efforts will be received with grace and our imperfect faith counted as righteousness and all that. If that's the case, then how much is "belief in" really functioning as a requirement? And if it's not, really, then we can read God's redemptive purposes as indeed cosmologically universal. So second option=faith is gift but not prereq to redemption.<br /><br />Or, from another angle, this makes the community of the church and its catechetical function hugely important--a la Schleiermacher-- this becomes the means by which our embodied wills are formed into faith. The conditionedness and contingency of our choices is pretty well captured in his formulation of the doctrine of sin, and the practical answer to the problem he sets up there is found in his ecclesiology.JJThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14920416765778868736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post-25408509194160200012010-12-14T13:11:42.450-05:002010-12-14T13:11:42.450-05:00I'm totally with you. But here's where I g...I'm totally with you. But here's where I go with this and I'd like your take (if you have the time or inclination).<br /><br />It seems to me that as we move more toward an embodied or physicalist view of volition we start to realize that our "wills" are not radically free but very contingent. Upon genetics. Learning history. Or even if my blood sugar is low, or I'm tired, or hungry. <br /><br />And if this is so it puts a lot of pressure of Arminian soteriological systems. If will is radically contingent then "responding" to the gospel becomes a biological and environmental issue (to some, I think large, degree). Suddenly, a Reformed notion of election seems, for purely neurological reasons, more tenable: God has to "give" or "enable" faith in the believer.<br /><br />But I find Reformed soteriology offensive on theological grounds.<br /><br />So I'm in a bit of a pickle. Neuroscience makes Arminian systems nonsensical (or scientifically naive) while Reformed systems are theologically odious.<br /><br />In short, I think advances in neuroscience, as they affect conceptions of the will, have huge implications for soteriology (let alone theodicy). And I don't see a lot of people talking about that. They do talk a lot about embodiment, but few get around to the <i>soteriological and theodicy implications</i> of embodiment.Richard Beckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06500628452135216019noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post-72606566957904211372010-12-14T09:48:28.105-05:002010-12-14T09:48:28.105-05:00I talk a bit about free will in the diss, in the c...I talk a bit about free will in the diss, in the context of the categorical difference we typically draw between humans and nonhumans (both animal, a la Descartes, and machine). I don't wrestle with it in any deep way, though.<br /><br />My working theory at this point is that definitions of free will that rely on non-material substance to undergird them are just plain unworkable, and also that they presume a definition of free will that doesn't describe anything remotely like what we actually do or experience in real life. Decisions don't get made in vacuums by floating heads, so any notion of free will that ignores the constraints of material reality just doesn't seem to me to be worth bothering with, at this point. I don't think this makes me a "determinist" in any way, but it does mean that I assume the free will is an embodied process rather than an intrinsic ethereal capability that proceeds from a "soul," the way that it gets categorized in, say, Thomas Aquinas.<br /><br />Dude, the facebook discussion stuck to zombies...JJThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14920416765778868736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12478084.post-6407642911421624192010-12-13T23:03:15.831-05:002010-12-13T23:03:15.831-05:00It seems to me, when I read these discussions, tha...It seems to me, when I read these discussions, that the big skeleton in the closet is <i>determinism</i>. That is, we seem to want to posit a soul (or some dualism) to rescue a strong notion of free will. So I guess my question is: Did you wrestle with free will in your dissertation? Because it seems a move toward the cyborg makes this issue more acute. What are your thoughts on this (i.e., free will, causality, materialism)?Richard Beckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06500628452135216019noreply@blogger.com