How Does God Make Souls? (5 Views W/Joshua Farris)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- In episode 270 of the Parker's Pensées Podcast, I'm joined once again to by Dr. Joshua Farris. This time we discuss 5+ views on the origin of the soul, that is, how is it that God actually goes about making souls. Read my summary of the views on my Substack here:
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Parker and Dr. Farris, you both have such a gift for laying out philosophical landscapes. It's always a pleasure to see you in conversation together.
Yet another view of the soul: a single shared soul that all humans participate in. Not compatible with Christianity IMO, and not defended today (would love to be proven wrong), but a major view for most of antiquity / the middle ages and hotly debated among Christians in the 13thc. Distinct from panpsychism, bc it's precisely partaking in the universal soul that distinguishes humans from other material substances. Technically an extreme version of substance dualism, I guess, but different enough to merit a place at the table.
(For the medievalists in the room: yes, I'm substituting soul for intellect, and I know it's more complicated than that :)
Yes, that is a fascinating view! I would love to read someone developing and defending that sort of view!
Great survey of the topic. Really enjoyed.
Wow, this book appears to be a great addition to the body / soul debate but $170? I guess I have to wait. Being a Farris I have always been intrigued by the name of Joshua Farris on a few books I have run across but never realized he was into the very same things I am: analytical idealism, philosophy of science, etc. And proudly he attended the school where I completed my doctorate, Southern Seminary. Wonder if there is any relation? anyway, glad I stumbled onto this cast. Thanks!
A lot of old books are on libgen for free if you don't care about reading ebooks
Direct creation of the soul by God is actually not an official binding (infallible) dogma of the RCC, although one day it may very well be. However, it is true that not accepting the doctrine is frowned upon in RC.
What on earth is a "SOUL"?
Great discussion, guys. As I tell my students, all my friends think I’m a kook ;) I’ll point them this way for proof (and a great and informative discussion).
Haha love you dude! Gotta get you back on the pod soon
Another wonderful and informative discussion! I look forward to reading Joshua's book. However, it strikes me that you did not really address the central "But how?" question: How does or could a God first "create" an immaterial and truly simple "soul"? Here, I agree with Joshua that PRE-EXISTENCE is an important option, and I find it sad but expected that he couldn't really find a "professional" philosopher or theologian to write on this possibility. Parker mentions Huemer, and it would be interesting to hear further from him on the matter. It strikes me that Hoffman's "conscious realism," if not already a version of pre-existence, at least pushes (strongly) in that direction. I have read Givens's book, When Souls Had Wings, which is an important contemporary contribution here. Yet what really pushes me in the direction of considering pre-existence is following all the complexities and challenges of contemporary panpsychism. So many now agree: it seems we must posit consciousness as fundamental, in some sense. Okay, but then the bottom-up version suffers from the combination problem, and any top-down version seems conversely to suffer from the de-combination problem (as argued by Chalmers and others). What then? Well--pre-existence! Posit not merely some vague "consciousness" as primary and fundamental, but the the entire center of subjectivity we call selves or persons, with their unity and identity as equally foundational. We thus posit a system of selves, never merely one ur-self. However, as system, we can ALSO understand these pre-individuated selves as being One. Here we can take inspiration from the doctrine of the Trinity itself, though of course we are saying something very different. A foundational One-Many. Again, think Hoffman's conscious realism, and also consider Griebel's edited volume, Both One and Many: Spiritual Philosophy Beyond Theism, Materialism, and Relativism. In short, I am inclined to think that even a God, as traditionally understood, could no more "create" an immaterial and truly simple "soul," than it could square the circle, or create a stone too heavy for it to lift. We simply don't understand the concept of the self well enough yet. But we are getting there!
Great comment! I agree it seems metaphysically impossible for God to create souls, in the sense of first-person realism, that there is something special about our individual consciousness beyond its structure in the world. "Merely" creating the world, which a God no doubt can do, does not explain first-person realism because the self has a level of reality beyond the world (as proven by the fact that a complete description of the world does not tell you WHICH person you are -- that's the harder than hard problem of consciousness). So we seem to be preexisting and incarnating in conscious beings, perhaps reincarnating too as Huemer says, but I never understood why he thinks reality necessarily must "run out" of souls to incarnate so they have to be reused?
All Things are Full of Gods by David Bentley Hart just came out, you should read it!
À la carte. Descartes couldn't see past his name ;-)
Either God creates the bare particular that is your soul, or it exists more fundamentally than God? Because I have trouble comprehending how even God could create it. It is not something that is reproducible even in principle, so how could God create it? How can God create something he can't copy? Everything that is creatable is in principle copyable, but a bare particular can't be copied because then it would just be a pattern and there is no soul or at best a transcendental solipsistic soul.
*Overall:* you have to question this entire "discussion" merit. There _might_ be a tractable "what is...?" question worth answering, but *(a)* it might not be answerable, and *(b)* it might not be a useful question, certainly in the world today it is a distraction, for *(c)* what is important is the 'why?' --- what is the purpose of the soul? That's the only question spiritually that matters. It reeks of *_Scientism_* (falsely totalising scientific thought) to ever think science or some human construct model can ever tell us what a (nonphysical) soul is and how it can interact with a physical life-form. *(d)* One does not necessarily have to know the origin or "how" of the soul to understand the purpose. The purpose was given by God, and is the most important thing to know, and is discoverable, otherwise God would be cruel, and so would not be a consistent Being, so would not in fact *_be_* 'God'.
From _The Hidden Words:_ _"I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life."_
Justathought... there is not much "how" here (by 'naming thy name'???), there is however a purpose.
Hi parker can you help me understanding philosphy i am new and someone told me start philosphy with reading hegel first but when i watch one of chomsky interview with howard gardner in which he regarded hegelain philosphy one of stupidest and craziest thing that he ever read .do you have idea why he say this .also did you regard chomsky this view true or false ? Also. And if anaylitic philospher reject hegel philosphy of contridiction .is they are right in your view or not ? Is hegel correct in dismissing the kant noumenal as he describe kant noumenal realm knowable as a contridiction rather than noumenal as unknowable ? please answer and explain to me i am beginner at philosphy we have no philosphy department here
I would strongly advise against starting with Hegel. Hegel cannot be understood without some grasp of Kant, and Kant isn't a great place to start.
The classic starting point for philosophy is Plato; I recommend _Euthypro_ , _Phaedo_ , _Phaedrus_ , and _Timaeus_ . ( _Republic_ is a classic, but it's much longer than these.) Aristotle is a logical next step; I recommend _Physics_ , _Metaphysics_ , and _Nicomachean Ethics_ . If you want to get to Hegel, you should read Descartes, some Leibniz, Hume, maybe Berkeley, Kant, and then Hegel. If you have any particular philosophical interests (e.g. the nature of the soul/mind, logic, the existence of God, how we choose between different scientific theories, what makes something moral, what is a fair economic system), I might be able to give personalized recommendations.
Hegel is a terrible writer, and much of his work sounds like nonsense. My opinion is that he seizes on Kant's mistakes and amplifies them while leaving behind most of Kant's great achievements but that he was onto something important nonetheless. However, I haven't yet given Hegel the close reading that he deserves.
Many have explained properties of the soul through history but that means nothing because “souls doesn’t exist” in a scientific form.
A small dot to a paradigm shift.
Parker, why are you spouting nonsense about Adam? LOL. The original sin is an allegory. You know what "allegory" means? Don't ever take a spiritual lesson materially literally. The material direct meaning is almost always last in importance, and most often false --- this is what "satan" is allegorically, it is any distraction away from the Light of God, turning away from the Divine. Every soul is created pure, but innocent. But *_also_* with _two natures,_ since the soul is created attached to the material world. The allegory of Adam refers to the imperfections of our material nature and our attachment to material things. It is not a sin. The sin is when we do not grow out of these attachments. The Holy Scriptures aught not be always interpreted in time oriented order. A newborn baby has not had a chance to become too attached of their own free will, so is not born in a state of sin. It grows into a state of sin, but can always grow out... somewhat, depending upon will power and nurturing and education.
That we have two natures could be called "Dualism," but it doesn't have to be, an infinity of categories can always be artificially carved up into two sets if there is a distinction in type to be found. If there is a distinction then this carving up for the purpose of analysis is totally valid. I think I know the difference between a boson and a fermion, and it serves me very well to think so! (I'm a theoretical physicist.)
*Caveat:* these are obviously just some of my educated opinions, for a youtube comment they may read a bit assertive, but I do not intend you to take them that way.
Wow, that book is ridiculously overpriced! Maybe it's not worth reading if the author doesn't care enough to make it reasonably accessible. Too bad, since it's a great topic.
Authors can't control that and get almost zero dollars from edited books like this
Unfortunately, I did not get much out of this video. Very difficult to follow.