BODY, SOUL, AND HUMAN LIFE
The nature of humanity in the Bible
By Joel B. Green. Paternoster. 180 pages. £12.99
ISBN 978-0-80103-595-1
This book addresses the knotty issue of the relationship between brain, mind and soul. It seeks to present the Bible’s teaching on ‘what a human being is’ in the light of the neurosciences (brain biology, psychology, etc.). Is the ‘real me’ my soul? Green rightly rejects this popular approach as incompatible with both science and Scripture.
On the one hand, thinking and behaviour is inextricably tied to brain state, which is undeniably physical. On the other hand, Scripture presents human persons as a unified whole — demonstrated climactically in God’s commitment to bodily resurrection, rather than ‘souls going to heaven’. Along the way Green considers the issues of 1) humankind in God’s image — in terms of role/relationship rather than ‘we have a soul, animals don’t’; 2) sin, freedom and moral responsibility — given that physical/brain factors at the subconscious level profoundly influence our choices and actions; 3) conversion — not something that happens to our souls, but a new framework of understanding, vitally tied to integration into the community of God’s people; and 4) the intermediate state — where Green denies personal, independent existence after death, claiming rather that God recreates us at the final resurrection.
