Seal Bait – Your mind body and spirit connection

Theologians and philosophers also debate a broader issue about the nature of God: how are we to understand what ''sort'' of thing God is? Consider these three things we say about God: first, God is a ''spirit''; second, God is the ''creator'' ''of'' ''the'' ''world''; and third, God exists ''apart'' ''from'' ''space'' ''and'' ''time''. All three of those things are said, in the big monotheistic religions, of the ''same'' ''being'', which gives rise to some puzzles about the sort of thing that God is supposed to be.

Consider the first claim, that God is a spirit, by itself. What does this term "spirit" mean? Please note: if we regard the above definition of "God" as a genus-and-difference definition, then the ''genus'' of God is "spirit," since God is a particular kind of spirit. The rest of the definition of "God" is supposed to tell us ''what'' ''kind'' of spirit God is. Therefore, on anyone's account, if we do not understand what ''spirits'' are, then we have no grasp on what sort of thing God is. So a great deal of philosophical and theological work on the nature of God surrounds the issue of the nature of the divine spirit and what its relationship to the world might be.

On one possible view, we might say that the word "spirit" means no more than ''mind''. We might suppose we have a better conception of what minds are, because we are all (the private language argument notwithstanding) intimately acquainted with our own minds. We then, on this view, have a concept of what God is: God ''is'' a mind, like our own minds, only much more powerful. Now, those who say that God is a mind face special problems of their own. Let us now bring up the second and the third claims about God that listed above: God is the ''creator'' ''of'' ''the'' ''world'', and God exists ''apart'' ''from'' ''space'' ''and'' ''time''. On the view in question, then, it is a mind that created the world, and this mind exists apart from space and, significantly, time. But how can we understand what a mind is supposed to be that creates physical bodies out of nothing and which exists (on one conception of eternal existence) timelessly?

Skeptics and mystics point out that we cannot really understand what it means for a ''mind'' to create anything physical. We do, they say, have a notion of what minds can do, based on observation of our own minds. Our own minds can think thoughts, perceive the world, experience feelings, and make decisions. The decisions we make result in the actions of our own bodies. The only way in which we are familiar with minds impacting the world is via the bodies that are associated with those minds; in other words, it is only when we decide something, or have a strong feeling that causes us to act out of excitement or anger, that our minds cause our bodies to act.

But now compare that with what is being claimed about God. God is supposed to be a spirit, which, on the view under consideration, is a ''mind'', albeit a divine mind; this divine mind is supposed to have ''created'' ''physical'' ''objects'', the physical objects that make up the universe, ''out'' ''of'' ''nothing''. We certainly do not have any experience of minds creating physical objects out of nothing; from a first-person perspective, we surely have no experience or idea of what that would even be ''like''.

Now, suppose that we do understand the notion of a mind creating something out of nothing. We imagine someone thinking very hard, with nothing in front of him; and then the next moment there ''is'' something, like a tree, in front of him; and, whatever this would mean, we imagine that his thoughts have ''caused'' the tree to appear in front of him. And remember, since God is supposed to be ''just'' a mind, without a body, that we shouldn't imagine a ''human'' ''being'' sitting there and looking like he's concentrating hard just before this tree pops into existence. That wouldn't be an accurate representation of the situation. We would have to imagine a ''mind'', somewhat like our own mind, ''all'' ''by'' ''itself'' causing the tree to pop into existence. Now, we may be able to ''imagine'' this, in a way; but the question is whether we really are imagining ''a'' ''mind'' ''creating'' ''a'' ''tree'' ''out'' ''of'' ''nothing''. Because, when we get to the part about a particular decision that ''causes'' ''the'' ''tree'' ''to'' ''appear'' ''out'' ''of'' ''thin'' ''air'', we draw a blank. We have ''absolutely'' ''no'' ''experience'' of anything like that sort of decision. So one would doubt that, in fact, what we really are doing is ''imagining'' the creation of the tree with a mere decision.

So that is one problem about the notion that God is a mind—namely, it is hard ''really'' to understand the very notion that a ''mind'' can create physical objects out of nothing. We might ''imagine'' that we understand this, but it doesn't seem like we actually do.

But now another problem about the notion that God is a mind arises. We said that God exists eternally, and that "eternal" has two different interpretations, meaning either existing ''timelessly'' or existing ''endlessly'' ''along'' ''the'' ''extensively'' ''proportioned'' ''parameter'' ''of'' ''infinite'' ''time''. But suppose, as many people do, that God's mind exists ''timelessly''. In other words, when one thinks about what this divine mind is supposed to be, one can't apply normal categories like "past," "present," and "future" to it. God's mind does not pass from earlier thought to later thought; it doesn't make plans and then, later, act on those plans. To say those things would be to imply that God's mind does not exist timelessly.

But this makes the very notion of the divine mind ''exceedingly'' strange. It does not remotely resemble how we understand what our own minds are: they are, as far as we can ascertain, a series of experiences, thoughts, judgments, feelings, decisions, and so forth, coming one after another. We are saying that God's mind, or rather the mind that is identical to God, has no such series of thoughts, decisions, and so forth. Because the divine mind is timeless: the categories of before and after simply don't apply to it. Hence, it is difficult to say that the divine mind even ''has'' such things as thoughts and judgments, because a thought, in any sense of this word that we are familiar with, is, presumably, something that has a beginning and an end. God's mind is sitting in the same state for all of eternity. A very complex, grand, incomprehensible state. So it becomes a daunting task to demonstrate that this state, or any part of it, has thoughts or decisions, etc.

Other problems arise with the supposed interaction between a timeless "spirit" or state and our worldly existence. Ordinary traditional Christianity, for example, holds that we can pray to God and God answers prayers; that God speaks to prophets and perhaps even to us individually, sometimes; and so forth. But in order for God to do these things, God must, at least in ''some'' sense, exist in time.

The claims about God don't seem to lend themselves to a coherent picture. God is supposedly a mind, but this mind differs ''radically'' from the human mind, because, first, it has the ability to create physical objects out of nothing, through thought alone; and, second, it does not have any series of thoughts at all, but remains in the same mental state, apart from time, or as it were throughout eternity. And yet, straining our powers of interpretation, God is supposed ''also'' to perform individual acts, such as doing miracles and answering prayers, at ''particular'' ''times''. Those, at least, are the claims stemming from the basic notion that the sort of thing that the divine spirit is, is a ''timeless'', ''creative'' ''mind''.

But then is this "being" a true mind if it has little in common with what we know to be minds? If God is in a single state throughout eternity, and with a pure spiritual act it can create a tree, then surely it would be, as Hume says, an ''abuse'' ''of'' ''terms'' to call God a mind. Minds have successive thoughts—thoughts that succeed one another—God is no such thing. God is supposed, at least by many people, to be unitary, simple, and unchanging. And so we would be most accurate not to call the divine spirit a ''mind''.

We can say that God is a spirit, but it does not seem fair to call it a mind. What, then, ''is'' a spirit, if it isn't a mind? Do we have a concept of this non-mental spirit, and if we do, how did we come by this concept?

Throughout history, people have claimed to see visions of God or have claimed to go into mystical ecstacies and so forth by which they procured some understanding of God. But it seems that such experiences are not publicly knowable by ordinary people. It is thus difficult to understand how words like "god" and "divine" have gotten into our language game, if it is believed that they are only knowable by way of mystical experience. People who say they believe that God exists, but who also believe that we cannot have any concept of what God is, except by a very unusual sort of experience, are known as ''mystics'' and their view is called ''mysticism''. The unusual sort of experience which they say gives them some insight on the nature of God is called a ''mystical'' experience.

However, mysticism seems to imply that the concept of God is not broadly accessible. If the only way to come by any approximately coherent conception of God is via a mystical experience, then it seems as though this formulation of God hasn't got enough objectivity to get it off the ground. An alternative description of God is that he is ''not'' "timeless," but that he ''does'' have successive thoughts, feelings, decisions, and so forth. That is, after all, more consistent with many elements of a traditional faith.

This point of view on the nature of God may be described by a term often contrasted with "mysticism," namely ''anthropomorphism''. The term "anthropomorphism" comes from two Greek words, ''anthropos'' meaning man, and ''morphos'' meaning shape or form; so "anthropomorphism" describes any belief according to which something non-human, such as a god, an animal, or a plant, is thought of as being like human beings. Very few believe that God has a human body, but many people historically ''have'' believed that their gods had bodies and that those gods could roam the earth. We could use the phrase "physical anthropomorphism about God" to mean the belief that God has a body. But then we might also use "spiritual anthropomorphism about God," meaning that God has a mind something like a human's.

The idea then is that we get our concept of God's qualities—his ability to create, his knowledge, his feelings for us, and so forth—by ''analogy'' with experience of our own minds. Of course, even the anthropomorphite isn't going to say that God's mind is ''exactly'' ''the'' ''same'' as a human mind. There are some extremely important differences, but God's mind is supposedly enough like our minds that we can make good sense of the claim that God is indeed a mind.


Adapted from the Wikipedia article The nature of God in Western theology, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki