1. From Human Existence to Human Nature Human Nature and Interactionism:
7th Annual National Conference on Health, Religion, and Spirituality Indiana State University, November 2-4, 2012
Separating Spirituality from Religion
Carlos Del Rio
The crucial problem
How has reductionism affected current views of human nature?
Language has evolved and so has our understanding of terms
Soul (psyche) → Mind (nous) → Brain = mind
Scientific method has emphasized what is tangible (empiricism)
Physicalism about what is tangible
Metaphysics about what is not necessarily tangible but exists
DSM: V Last decade of 20th century American psychology accepted the codification of religiosity and (religious)spirituality into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
DSM codification fomented interests to study the relationship between (religious) spirituality and mental health
DSM codification presumes (a) religion and spirituality are equivocal constructs, (b) loss of faith is a spiritual problem, and (c) religion and spirituality are elements of cultural diversity.
We have apodictically disproven these three presumptions: (a) because religiosity and spirituality do not conceptually entail (require of necessity) the same definitional criteria (e.g., terms), it follows that religiosity and spirituality are not equivocal; (b) because only [moral] goodness and [epistemic] truth are the proper ends of human spirituality, faith as such is not the proper end of human beings’ spirituality; therefore, loss of faith is not a spiritual problem; and (c) because only religiosity but not spirituality is a cultural expression for some (not all) human beings, only religiosity and not spirituality is an element of cultural diversity. [5]. .
Spirituality is intrinsic to human nature
Religion is a social convention dependent upon belief systems
Spirituality is one’s (ontological) attitude toward life … toward unity with goodness and truth as intrinsic attributes of what is transcendent.
Conclusions:
Background
Hylomorphic Attitudinal Spirituality: Human beings are living substances, not inert aggregates.
Substances have matter (being) and form (essence).
Forms determine what a substance is.
Spirituality is the essence of the human soul.
Spirituality provides persons with a natural inclination toward life and ultimately toward unity with goodness (will) and truth (rational intellect); purposive qualities of the human soul. [5].
The solution
From Human Existence to Human Nature
Paleolithic period: Evidence of Humanity (a new species 10,000 BC)
Burial rites
Tool making
Language development
Classical period: What is humanity? (400s BC)
Aggregates (composed of two separate substances) – Dualism views the human person as an aggregate of a corporeal body and an immaterial soul (Plato, c. 424 –348 BC)
Substances (being in itself that does not inhabit in another as an accident) – Monism (Aristotle, c. 384–322 BC) [1].
Medieval period: Conundrum: Interaction between Body and Soul (Thomas Aquinas, c. 1224–1275 AD) [2].
Spirituality is the essence of the soul; the essence of the organic person
Goodness and truth are the proper ends of spirituality; human nature
Spirituality is inherently human insofar as soul is intrinsic to humanity
Human Nature and Interactionism:
Mind-Body Problem
Carthesian dualism – origin of contemporary reductionism and physicalism: Mind (pineal gland in the brain) is the res cogitans (René Descartes, c.1596–1650 AD)[3].
νοῦς or mind was regarded as reason or intellect (1678 AD)
Human persons are aggregates (rational), animals are substances (irrational)
Modern Physics rejected hylomorphism (human nature constitutes matter and form unity)
Evolutionary biology, genetics (predisposition), neuroscience (cognitive science), neurobiology (neuroanatomy, neurophysiology)– The human person is one substance, a body (brain chemical and electric processes)
Localization studies (neurobiology)– language, emotion, decision- making are brain processes.
As neuroscientists associate more and more of the faculties once attributed to the mind or soul with the functioning of specific regions or systems of the brain it becomes more appealing to say that it is in fact the brain that performs these functions [4].
Yet a dualist claim [that obfuscates physicalism as a byproduct of dualism] is that these functions belong to the mind and mental events are merely correlated with events in particular regions of the brain. [4].
The challenge
Natural and social sciences cannot exhaustively account for self-evident experiences of rationality, emotion, morality, free will, proclivity toward what is transcendent (apprehension of goodness and truth), laughter, (self-)consciousness, and life (as a vital force).
Efforts to conceptualize spirituality
1. If S AND R, then SR (spiritual-religiosity). This
means: It is possible that SR is equivocal to intrinsic
religiosity.
2. If R AND S, then RS (religious-spirituality). This
means: It is possible that RS is equivocal to extrinsic
3. If S OR R, then RS (non-religious–spirituality). This
means: It is possible that RS is simply spirituality.
4. If R OR S, then SR (non-spiritual-religiosity). This
means: It is possible that SR is simply religiosity. [5].
Personality theory – Spirituality = 6th (motivational) factor of personality [6] [7] [8] [9] [10].
Spirituality and religiosity cannot be collapsed into one single construct
Organic chemistry alone does not account for thought or moral goodness and truth
Hylomorphic attitudinal spirituality
References
Aristotle. (1996). Aristotle: Introductory readings (T. Irwin & G. Fine, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett..
Bobik, J. (1965). De Ente et Essentia: Aquinas on being and essence: A translation and interpretation. Notre Dame, IN: University Press..
Flanagan, O. (1991) The science of mind. (2nd. Ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Murphy, N. (1998) Murphy, N. (1998). Human nature: Historical, scientific, and religious issues. In W. S. Brown, N. Murphy, & H. Newton Malony (Eds.). Whatever happened to the soul? Scientific and theological portraits of human nature (pp. 1-24). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Del Rio, C. M., & White, L. J. (2012, March 19). Separating spirituality from religiosity: A hylomorphic attitudinal perspective. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality. Advance online publication. doi: /a
Piedmont, R. L. (1999). Does spirituality represent the 6th factor of personality? Spiritual transcendence and the five-factor model. Journal of Personality, 67 (6),
Piedmont, R. L. (2001). Spiritual transcendence and the scientific study of spirituality. Journal of Rehabilitation, 67 (1), 4-11.
Piedmont, R. L., & Leach, M. M. (2002). Cross-cultural generalizability of the spiritual transcendence scale in India: Spirituality as a universal aspect of human experience. American Behavioral Scientist, 45, (12), doi: /
Piedmont, R. L., Ciarrochi, J. W., Dy-Liacco, G. S., & Williams, J. E. G. (2009). The empirical and conceptual value of the spiritual transcendence and religious involvement scales for personality research. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 1, 162–179. doi: /a
Rican, P., & Janosova, P. (2010). Spirituality as a basic aspect of personality: A cross-cultural verification of Piedmont’s model. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 20, doi: /
Del Rio, C. M., & White, L. J. (2012, March 19). Hylomorphic attitudinal spirituality: Psychometric properties of the Spiritual Typology Inventory. Manuscript in preparation.
Reprints:
Human persons have a soul
The essence of the human soul is spirituality
Human persons are spiritual beings (have spiritual souls) [5] [11].