The Nature of Man―has the Ghost in the Machine Finally been Exorcised?

The machine Gilbert Ryle expressed the scepticism of the age when he disparagingly referred to the traditional notion of man as composed of a spirit interacting with a brain as ‘the ghost in the machine’. For centuries dualism had been the prevalent view amongst philosophers, found embryonically in Plato and reaching its classical statement in Descartes. Man’s composite nature has also been assumed by theologians, whose arguments have centred on whether he consists of a body, soul and spirit (e.g Origen), or just a body and soul/spirit (e.g. Augustine). But today more and more Christian thinkers are echoing contemporary philosophers and scientists in assuming that man is a single entity who cannot be separated out ontologically into physical and spiritual parts. Instead it is argued by scholars like John Robinson that Scripture presents man in a functional way so that when it mentions, for example, man’s spirit, it is not alluding to an entity within him, but is rather referring to the whole man viewed from a spiritual perspective. A man’s body is part of what he is, not something which he has.