Explorer When Jesus lost his soul

Modern conversations between the natural sciences and theology on the human soul have not so far engaged extensively with the debates of the early church on the matter. This article considers the relevance of the Apollinarian controversy (the fourth century Christological contention of whether or not Jesus has a human soul/mind), and suggests that this introduces important considerations for the science-theology conversations. The contemporary neurosciences and cognitive science tend to operate within a monistic paradigm (often referred to as ‘physicalism’ in the science and theology field). This position understands all human mental activity entirely in biological/naturalistic terms, and is thereby more or less reductionist compared with the Cartesian paradigm of recent centuries, which saw the mind/soul in terms of a thinking dimension to reality distinct from the physical. And while there is ongoing uncertainty in the new scientific paradigm about the degree to which human consciousness can be reduced entirely to biology (and thereby eventually to physics), physicalism is often cited as making traditional religious belief in the soul obsolete, or at least modifying it significantly (as in the emergentist ‘non-reductive physicalism’ position held by a number of practitioners in the science and theology field). The Apollinarian question of whether Jesus has a soul therefore re-appears. This is not, however, a new form of Apollinarianism, since, if Jesus does not have a dualistic soul in the physicalist paradigm, then neither does anyone else. Nevertheless, in the course of examining some of the crucial arguments at the heart of the Apollinarian controversy, I will suggest that the modern discussion on the soul/mind has thus far been too simplistic in theological terms. The decisive rebuttals of Apollinarius by Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa, often characterised as a re-assertion of the importance of the human soul, actually reveal soteriological subtleties concerning the status and existence of the soul which the modern debate has overlooked. This article will present the relevant fourth century views on the human mind/soul critically, suggesting that, far from being uncompromisingly dualist, they possess important points of contact with the modern non-reductive physicalist position. I will consequently argue that the modern debate needs to be expanded to incorporate three theological features that were judged to be of crucial important in the fourth century: (1) the anthropological location and role of human sin; (2) the soul as causal joint; and (3) the Cappadocian theology of deification.