Abstract

Novello, Henry In the past it was customary to conceive of human nature according to a dualistic anthropology where 'body' and 'spirit' were treated as two separate substances, with spirit viewed as a divine immaterial substance inhabiting the physical body and giving the human person the functional capacity to relate to God. With the development of the various natural sciences, however, a variety of perspectives on human nature have emerged, most of which are monistic, not dualistic, in character. In contemporary Christian thought, the label 'nonreductive physicalism' has been coined to describe a particular form of monism that represents a concerted effort to bring Christianity into constructive dialogue with scientists and philosophers. 'Physicalism' denotes a basic agreement with scientists and philosophers who maintain that there is no need to postulate a second metaphysical entity (that is, a spiritual soul) to account for the 'higher' human capacities, while 'non-reductive' indicates a rejection of the position that regards the human person as 'nothing but' a physical body