Nonreductive Physicalism and Soul: Finding Resonance Between Theology and Neuroscience

Abstract

Cognitive neuroscience has raised important questions regarding the religious understanding of persons as bodies inhabited by nonmaterial souls (dualism). Although physicalism (monism) offers an alternative, this view has typically been associated with reductionism that is inconsistent with a religious view of persons. Nonreductive physicalism provides a description of human nature that is more resonant with a theological perspective. Nonreductive physicalism entails abandonment of reductionism in science and of body-soul dualism in theological anthropology. This article suggests that nonreductive physicalism preserves the critical properties and attributes of human nature, and potentials for human experience, which have been described in religious scriptures and assigned to the soul. It is argued that a critical feature of a religious view of persons is a capacity for the deepest forms of personal relatedness. Thus, soul is an attribute of physical human beings that is an emergent property of the capacity and experiences of personal relatedness.