Blood Symbols

by Izak Botha

  Stoicism, by advocating the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all humans, equates with altruism. All people are manifestations of the one universal spirit, and all should live in brotherly love and help one another with good grace. External differences, such as rank and wealth, are of no importance in social relationships. Although preached, this part is obviously ignored by the Holy See—the government of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Somewhat paradoxically, Stoics see all sins as equal, the sage as good, and everyone else as evil. The sage’s actions resemble proper function with a distinct character of right action. Acting purely from right reason, the sage is distinguished by the ability to avoid passion. The average person has morally wrong impulses and passions, which are intellectual errors stemming from an inability to distinguish between good and bad. By contrast, the sage possesses wisdom, which is always right. Only sages are truly happy and free, capable of living in perfect harmony with the divine plan.

  Chapter 2

  The Soul—After Christ

  The first century AD exposed one of the world’s greatest intrigues when Saul, the Turk from Tarsus, persecuted Jews known as the Nazarenes but then later, nearly singlehandedly, founded Christianity based on the faith of the very people he had persecuted. Popular belief would have it that Christianity originated in Judea, the Jews were Christianized, and Saul persecuted Christians. This, however, is not true. From recorded history, Christianity had its foundation in Antioch, Turkey, where the interloper Saul (later Paul) appropriated the emergent Judeo-Nazarene faith led by Apostle Peter, proceeding then to convert Roman gentiles to a much-altered version of the faith.

  Saul, by his own admission, persecuted Jesus. In Acts of the Apostles, he writes that Christ said to him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” He also persecuted the followers of Jesus, the Nazarenes, in Judea. Despite his life-changing experience en route to Damascus, in which he was struck blind for three days, Saul never announces a conversion to the Nazarene faith. Nevertheless, nearly a decade later, he coerces Antiochenes into accepting his version of the new religion. Saul had earlier attempted to preach to the Jews, but when they questioned his right and responded by stoning him, he turned instead to the gentiles. When Apostle Peter disapproved of his ministry, Saul summoned this rival for a debate. Known as “the incident of Antioch,” the outcome of this impasse is unknown. Clearly, however, Saul changed his name to Paul before continuing his ministry exclusively to the gentiles. The outcome is that Apostle Peter’s trail grows cold, and apart from Vatican “holy traditions” proclaiming that Peter was crucified upside down in Rome, that Apostle is never seen or heard of again. Thus, amid considerable controversy, Saul, now Paul, established Christianity for the gentiles in Antioch.

  With Paul as the founder of Christianity, one should at least take the time to see what the man says about the soul. Paul’s letters to his churches describe the perfect human (teleios) as a tripartite being with body, soul, and spirit. Known in Catholic circles as trichotomy, this concept remains even today the official view of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. However, although the Holy See underwrites Paul’s doctrine, it differs from Jesus’s teachings, as recorded decades later in the Gospel of Matthew. There, the author of the first Gospel attributes the first great commandment per Jesus as “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your entire mind.” In this context, it appears that the mind is more of an attribute than the spirit. At no time does the Gospel equate the spirit with the mind.

  Who to believe, then—Jesus or Paul?

  For Paul, immortality of the soul and a place in heaven comes at a price. In Romans 10: 8-10, he suggests a twofold condition: oral confession that Jesus is God and faith that God raised Him from the dead. For salvation, believers must confess with the mouth and believe in the heart that these precepts are true. The content of the expected confession and belief, however, is astonishing. First, the convert is exhorted to believe that a human is God and then that this person was raised from the dead and now sits on the right hand of the Father. Yet, Paul, who wrote this, had apparently never met Jesus and was stoned by the very people who had.

  Pauline doctrine is contrary to any established views of the time. Claiming that human nature is trichotomous, and not dualistic as promulgated by his peers, places him in opposition to great philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Jesus. None of Paul’s teachings are original. His interpretation equates with mythology dating as far back as the Sumerians. He then combines it with Greek and Greco-Roman thought from the preceding six centuries, and with hint of occult originating in the Orient, he regards the spirit as the highest and indestructible reincarnating component of the human constitution.

  Paul’s doctrine is illustrated in his letter to the Corinthians, where the soul merges with the body at the beginning of an individual’s life, only to be superseded by the spirit at the end. 1 Corinthians 15: 42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. … 44 it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body [pneumatikos]. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, the first man Adam, was made a living soul [psuchē] as the last Adam was made a quickening spirit [pněuma]. 46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 49 And as humans have borne the image of the earthy, humans shall also bear the image of the heavenly, so Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but humans shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and humans shall be changed.6 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory? 56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

  A study of the meaning of these words in the New Testament shows that psuchē, derives from psuchō, which means to breathe voluntarily but gently. It differs from pnĕō, meaning to breathe hard or blow, and aēr, which is to breathe unconsciously or to blow, referring to an inanimate breeze. Psuchē, by implication, suggests spirit. This is distinguished from pněuma, meaning spirit, or rational or immortal soul, and zōē, meaning life force or vitality, even of plants. Pněuma and zōē correspond, respectively, with the Hebrew nephesh and rûwach of the Old Testament. Spirit, when mentioned in the New Testament, is nearly always pněuma, a current of air, like breath or breeze; by analogy, it can also mean a spirit (in a human), the rational soul, the vital principle, mental disposition, or even superhuman and angelic, a daemon or God.

  Paul’s intertwining of nature and supernature is staggering. In one swoop, he rehashes the supernaturalism of the myths, ritual, and magic of the preceding two thousand years. His use of pneumatikos re-introduces a supernatural element to spirituality. He also breaks from a dualistic interpretation, which excludes soul and spirit, yet introduces the mind. His reduction of the brain to a pumping believing heart and his rejection of the mind in favor of the spirit bears no logic. Despite its lack of credibility, Pauline doctrine was ratified by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century when the emperor established Christianity as the official religion of Rome. To this day, the dogma has been cast in stone as the unchallenged “Word of God.”

  Christianity has never successfully adopted the idea of transmigration. Initially, the Gnostics and the Manicheans believed in transmigration, but early Christia
ns who adopted the doctrine were declared heretics by the Church. Yet, the resurrection and second coming of Christ corroborates this belief—transmigration and reincarnation, in and out of the spirit realm. The same reasoning applies to the second physical body, which saved souls are to receive on judgement day. These beliefs relate to reincarnation from one realm to another and to movement from one physical body to another.

  The next principal architect of Western theology was Augustine of Hippo, who lived around the turn of the fourth century. His literary efforts, more than any other, shaped the Christian faith. Augustine, who formulated the doctrine of original sin, also brought a systematic method of philosophy to Christian theology. Human nature is in a state of sin due to Adam’s disobedience, which renders humans powerless to change. As per his theology, believers are saved only by the gift of divine grace. Like Aristotle, he claims the soul to be the causal origin of the body. As God is the good of the soul, so the soul is the good of the body. Augustine also expounded the doctrine of emanation, in which God, as the primeval or eternal one, emanates the faculty mentioned above known as nous. From this intelligence springs the psyche or the mind, which is also the soul.

  The sixth century saw the initiation of Islam. For Muslims, the pure monotheism of Allah (God) has been revealed through many prophets since time immemorial. Resembling much of Judaism and Christianity, Islam also teaches that God breathed the soul into the first humans, who are brought close to God at death, and that the coming judgment will see a resurrection of the dead, together with everlasting punishments and rewards. Angels and spirits are integral to Islam cosmology. Angels have roles, such as the transmission of God’s revelation to the prophets, while spirits, known as jinni, inhabit our world, effecting influences on humanity. The angels neither eat nor drink and are free from sin. They are asexual and usually invisible, except to animals, although they occasionally appear in human form. The principal angel is Gabriel, the guardian and messenger of God’s revelation to humankind. Michael is the protector of humankind, while Azrail, the angel of death, has the responsibility of receiving human’s souls when they die. Israfel is the angel of the Resurrection. All humans rise from the dead and surrender to the universal judgment. The Resurrection will extend to all creatures from humans to angels. After death, each human will be judged and will either receive salvation or be irrevocably condemned to eternal damnation.

  Neo-Platonism, which sees the soul imprisoned in a material body, prevailed in Christian thought until the thirteenth century, when Thomas Aquinas accepted Aristotle’s analysis of the soul and body as two conceptually discernible elements of a single substance. Arguably the most important figure in Catholic theology, Aquinas debates the soul at length and in lofty philosophical lyric. The rational soul has a sensitive and biological component or body and is the form (informant) of such a body. The soul is an incomplete substance, in that it must exist in the physical or vegetative body, completing the substantial unity of human nature. Although attached to the body, the soul is still seen as spiritual. It is not actually immersed in matter, and its higher operations are independent of the material or vegetative being. The rational soul is produced by special creation when the human is sufficiently advanced to receive it. In the first stage, when the embryo is developed, it has vegetative powers, after which a sensitive or sensory soul comes into being. Later still, this soul is replaced by a rational soul, immaterial and implied to arise as the result of a special creative act.

  Descartes, the seventeenth century French philosopher, sought to explain how the soul-mind or immaterial directs matter to execute commands. If they two are separate, at which point do they connect and interact? In Cartesian dualism, he introduces the idea of the mind as part of, or perhaps intrinsically the same as, the soul. The trichotomy of the body, soul, and spirit is rejected in favor of a dualistic view of the body and mind. Accordingly, the mind and body must contain the soul. If the two components are separate, then it follows that the mental and physical models must be discrete. Although this soul-mind can direct matter, it is separate from the body it directs. Of the numerous theories posed by Cartesian dualism, none defines how the mind/body connection works. How does the mind know about the body, and can it influence the physical? And how does the body affect the mind?

  In “Cognito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am), Descartes regards self-awareness as sufficient evidence for the mind to stand independent of the body. God created two substances that compose reality: the soul, a thinking, conscious substance located in the pineal gland, and the body, an extended substance with characteristics extending into a defined area of space. While extended substances act in accordance with the laws of physics, thinking substances act in accordance with the laws of thinking. The mind is not the brain; it exists without the need for spatial location and continues to exist after the death and destruction of our bodies. But what is it, then, that connects the mind and the brain? How can a non-physical mind cause a body to move? How can information about the external world make its way to our senses and cross the line that separates physical and mental, enabling perception from outside? Descartes’s answer is that the states of mind causally interact with the states of brain. The aches and pains that cause us to moan and complain are the result of a brain state, which in turn triggers the physical reactions. Desires and intentions cause actions, which in turn give rise to brain states causing bodies to move, thus influencing the physical world. When the perception of physical senses takes place that involves causal transactions from the physical to the mental, this generates a two-way psycho-physical causal interaction. Taking place from the mental to the physical, it is an action; from the physical to the mental, a perception.

  Cartesian dualism also assumes free will—a faculty akin to the soul. The supposition of free will is contentious among philosophers. Opposing factions see the mind as physical and a product of the brain, and they argue that since all subjectivity arises from outer world objective impulses, free will cannot exist. Scholars who found Descartes’s ideas difficult to accept considered mind and matter incapable of affecting one another. Any interaction between the two is caused by God, who, on a physical change, produces a corresponding mental change, and vice versa. Others abandoned dualism in favor of monism, which maintains that ultimate reality comprises one substance; this, for most, is matter.

  Two seventeenth century philosophers, Gottfried Leibniz and Nicolas de Malebranche, battled to resolve the difficulties left by Descartes’s mental causation, abandoning the idea of free will and settling on the preservation of mind-body dualism. Both philosophers tried to separate dualism, characterizing humanity as both mental and physical, with the concession that the realms interact.

  Malebranche, the formulator of occasionalism, denies that matter can interact with the mind, arguing that since knowledge is only possible through the interaction between the human and God, the mind and body cannot interact; it is God who makes it appear as if they do. Occasionalists identify force with the will of God. In its most extreme form, occasionalism promulgates that all mortals are devoid of fundamental worth and that God is the only true redemptive agent. Bodies cannot affect other bodies or minds, and minds have no causal effect in bodies of any kind, or even upon themselves. Only God is responsible for engendering phenomena, rendering both the mind and body causally ineffective. God is the one true cause.

  Leibniz believed that God creates a blueprint that synchronizes a person’s mind and body. His idea of pre-established harmony does not admit an intercausal relation between the mind and body. Known as psychophysical parallelism, it teaches that God has a master plan, with the non-physical and physical running parallel to one another. Parallelism accepts that mental events correlate with physical and that mind and body exist in a pre-established harmony, ordered by God from the moment of creation.

  Baruch Spinoza, another seventeenth century philosopher, taught that material and spiritual phenomena are attributes of the one underlying and infinite
substance. The soul and body are a form of expression of divine essence. Since substance is self-sufficient and only God is self-sufficient, it follows that God is the only substance. In other words, God is all—the universal essence of everything that exists. As in Monism, ultimate reality consists of a single substance. To retain the notion of God as the one true cause, but without sacrificing the idea of cause and effect in the mental and physical domains, Spinoza abandoned Descartes’s view of two components in favor of the double aspect theory, which sees the mental and physical as simply different aspects of one substance.

  The quest to merge the soul with the mind, thereby establishing the soul as the informing agent, appears impossible. Association between the mind and matter, as far as philosophy is concerned, reaches a dead end. From now, physical reality is a component of mind. The role of the soul as an informant of the mind is rejected. Without verification of non-material phenomena interacting with a material body and causing it to respond through command, more knowledge of the nature of the soul-mind and body is needed. Without empirical knowledge, the discussion leads nowhere.