I was able to attend a lecture by John Polkinghorne. He was really interesting to listen to. The lecture is part of a series on “Perspectives on the Mind”. In his great way of trying to use science and Christianity to explain each other, he talks about systems and the need to look at the whole system (as opposed to just part of it). This brought up the idea about person-hood. He says, “I am more than an end – I’m a person – and I’m influenced by people around me. Relationships that I have influence my ‘personhood’”. This I thought was very interesting based on several conversations about how blogs might or might not make community. Can we count interactions on the internet as being influential to who we are? I did ask at the end – and Polkinghorne thinks that the answer to this is, “yes.”
I found another idea very interesting. He was working up to it (for basically his last sentence). He had talked about how the soul is also a complex pattern. It has information and it accumulates and develops (hence, the “personhood” changing when interacting with others). If the soul is an information-bearing pattern, then it will decay with death. There is no natural immortality. The soul, not interacting with others, will decay to nothing. The only hope is faithfulness of God. God will hold in divine memory the pattern of my “soul” and then will bring about the re-embodiment in the eschatological event.
Wow! Um…still not sure that I think this, but it was definitely a thought-provoking speech. It would also seem to change our discussion during funeral sermons.
Posted by Heather Voss at December 3, 2003 09:52 AM