MALE_1: went to the Body
Worlds exhibit a few weeks ago

and had a lot of
conflicting emotions.

I found it fascinating
anatomically,

at the same time seemed to have

a funeral atmosphere to it.

I think it was
particularly the music

that gave me this impression.

As somebody who's
in theology and

interested in the question
of death and afterlife,

the question that I
came away with was,

are we our bodies and

what's the overall impression

that you get from the exhibit?

Maybe it was the eyes. They
didn't really look dead.

The message I took
away from it was,

we are our bodies.

Three of the quotes from

Seneca, Euripides,
and Nietzsche,

were to that effect
that when we die,

that's the end of us and so
what we are is our bodies.

That's the question I
want to address tonight.

Are we just our
bodies or is there

some aspect of us that
survives bodily death?

I don't know that the exhibit

intentionally raises
this question,

but I think it does raise it.

I would say that
if I'm correct in

interpreting the message
being that we are our bodies,

I would say that's directly in

line with mainline
science with biology,

with neuroscience, which more
and more really tends to

see the human being as

a the sum of our
material components.

Neuroscience, in particular,

equates the mind with the brain.

I'll give you a quote
from Francis Crick,

the astonishing hypothesis.

Crick says, "The astonishing
hypothesis that you,

your joys, and your sorrows,

your memories, and
your ambitions,

your sense of personality
and free will are in fact,

no more than the behavior of

a vast assembly of nerve cells

and their associated molecules."

It is a position you might
call hard reductionism.

Jeffrey Schwartz, who's a
neuropsychiatrist at UCLA,

recently came out
with a book called

the Mind and the Brain.

Very interesting book.

He says this, "Materialism,

it seems fair to say,
has neuroscience in

a chokehold and has had it
there since the 19th century.

The materials reductionist
camp holds that when we have

mapped a mental process
to location in the brain,

we have indeed fully explained

the phenomenon in question."

Schwartz, you might
say is a liberal

in neuroscience because he

doesn't think we are
just our bodies.

He thinks that there's
an emergent self and

particularly an
emergent free choice,

which he thinks he
can demonstrate so

that we're more than our
bodies, but the same time,

I think you would not say
that there's any aspect

of us which lives on after
the death of the brain.

I know quite a few
people in biology,

both at my own university,

here at the University of
Minnesota and other places,

I don't know of anybody
in the sciences,

especially in
biological sciences,

that would affirm
the existence of

immaterial soul which survives
the death of the body.

I think this is an autre
position in the sciences.

There's a number of
people in the sciences,

however, such as
Schwartz himself,

who would say that what we
are is an emergent self,

which depends on the
complexity of the brain,

depends on our social
interaction with others.

Our capacities, like free
choice, personality,

things like this
are gradually built

up over our lifetime,
depend on our brain,

depend on our body, and
aren't directly reducible.

Schwartz disagree with Crick,

we're more than just the
assemblies of our nerve cells.

There's some emergent
properties or an emergent self,

which goes beyond that,
but at the same time,

Schwartz and others would say,

once we're dead, we're dead,

that's it, and so they'd
agree with many of

the quotes in the
science exhibit.

What's interesting to
me as a theologian,

is how this conflicts with
traditional religion.

Because traditional religion
almost across the board

from animist societies down

to relatively developed
modern religions,

has taken the position
that in some sense,

we're more than just our bodies.

In some sense, personality

can survive the
death of the body.

For example, even in
animism, African,

Chinese religions,

there's generally a sense
of ancestor spirits.

There's generally a sense
that some aspect of

the person lives on after
the death of the body.

The best example
of this probably

is reincarnation in Hinduism,

where as it says in
the Bhagavad Gita

that the body is like a suit of

clothes that the self-exchanges

as it dies and puts
on a new body.

This is taken over in Buddhism,

although Buddhism has
the peculiar position of

denying that there's
no substance,

there's no self, and yet

they also maintain
reincarnation.

Various schools of
Buddhism work out

this paradox differently
among themselves.

Tibetan Buddhism I would say
that consciousness survives

49 days after the body

[inaudible] typically
reincarnated.

I think Pure Land sects
would say the same thing,

but there's a range of
Buddhist positions.

Traditional Judaism and
Islam have traditionally

believed in an immortal soul
and bodily resurrection.

The soul is crucial
because it provides

continuity between the person

who dies and the person
who's resurrected.

I think as far as I know, this

is the position of all Muslims.

It's the position of orthodox
and traditionalist Jews,

although not Reform Jews.

Traditional Christianity
is the same way.

Although you can get
different readings,

but I think it's fairly solid

that you would say
that there's a belief

in an immortal soul and
bodily resurrection together.

The person who dies carries
on in some sense and then

awaits the resurrection of

the body in the
escaton, the end times.

For example, in
Revelation 6 verse 9,

the seer says when he
opened the fifth seal,

I saw under the altar the souls

of those who had been
slaughtered for the word of God.

These people are dead.
They've been slaughtered,

but obviously they're not
resurrected, they're souls,

but at the same time,

Christians hold that Jesus' body

was resurrected and
not resuscitated.

There's a difference.
Indeed that

Christian believers will
likewise be resurrected.

This is the gist of Paul
makes it very clear in

1 Corinthians 15 that
all of us Christians,

he says, can expect to be
resurrected as the Lord was.

The roman Catholic
position is that God

creates the soul of
each person directly,

but that the person will
also be resurrected.

You might think
for a minute about

how strange this is because

the idea that God creates
the soul directly

and then at the same time
we're going to be resurrected,

how exactly is the soul
a part of the person?

Is it injected in the
person at a certain stage?

There's problems,
particularly if you

compare this with the
evolutionary statements.

At what point, for example,

when human beings develop out of

primate ancestors,
does the soul appear?

It's the same problem
if you ask yourself at

what point in the gestation of

a fetus does the soul appear?

Some contemporary
Christians hold that we are

our bodies and that we will

be resurrected, but
there is no soul.

A good statement of
this position is

in Warren Brown and
Nancey Murphy's book,

Whatever Happened to the Soul.

My own position, I'll just
summarize in a few minutes.

I don't think we can ignore
the findings of neuroscience.

I think it's necessary
in this life to hold

that we are a
psychophysical unity.

We are unity of mind and body

so that what happens to our
brain affects our mind,

what happens to our mind
can affect our body.

I think you have to hold that.

This is an idiosyncratic
position of my own.

I've been influenced
by the results

of near-death
experiences in which

people seem to be
able to describe

from an out of body
perspective what's going on,

for example, in the operating

room when they're
being operated on.

Interesting video on
this in the BBC that

was just released
last year called

The Day I Died in which a

woman who had an aneurysm
at the base of her brain,

they had to drain
the blood out of

her body in order
to operate on it,

chill the body down to
just above freezing.

You wouldn't think she
could have survived,

but she did and came back and

described all the utensils in

the operating room
which had been kept

wraps because of
sterile conditions,

describe conversations
and so on.

It's rather striking
thing. If you

can get this video,
it's worth seeing.

How do you put these
two things together?

How can you say on the one hand,

we are a psychophysical unity in

this life and as I
would want to maintain,

on the other hand, the
personality can, in some sense,

survive bodily death and I

would also hold
for resurrection?

I would suggest, and I talk
about this in my book,

The Sacred Cosmos, that in fact,

at some point in
each of our life,

God establishes a
relationship with

the emerging person and at

this cost carries with it
the gift of immortality.

In some sense, although the form

is the organizing
principle of the body

and in this life is always

involved with the
body, in some sense,

the relationship
that God has with

each person allows
the personality

to survive the death
of the body and then

eventually to be
resurrected. Thank you.