Latest / Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture / What does it actually mean to be human? (Marc Cortez)

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What does it actually mean to be human? (Marc Cortez) · Thinking Christian: Bible, Theology, and Culture

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Speaker 1: The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that
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Speaker 1: deny God. As such, we need Thinking Christian to become
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Speaker 1: as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast.
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Speaker 1: I'm doctor James Spencer, and through calm, thoughtful theological discussions,
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Speaker 1: Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the
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Speaker 1: world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions
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Speaker 1: that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now onto
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Speaker 1: today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, welcome to this
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Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian. I'm doctor James Spencer my co host,
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Speaker 1: doctor Ashish Varma, are joined today by doctor Mark Cartez.
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Speaker 1: He is the dean of the Litfenn School of Divinity
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Speaker 1: at Wheaton College, and so we're excited to have Mark
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Speaker 1: here to talk through some really interesting topics and I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna let Ashish introduce.
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Speaker 2: So Ashish, the floor is yours.
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Speaker 3: Thanks James. First, it's great to have you here, Mark,
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Speaker 3: looking forward to Its just by way by way of
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Speaker 3: introducing the kind of guy Mark is. I think our
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Speaker 3: first real meeting was when I was defending my dissertation
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Speaker 3: and you were the chair, and I was a little
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Speaker 3: bit terrified because I was a foots out of the program,
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Speaker 3: and you were fairly new to the college, and I
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Speaker 3: didn't know what to expect, and my brief reading on it,
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Speaker 3: I had my expectations, Okay, Mark's gonna ask him about this,
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Speaker 3: and he asked me nothing I expected and everything I
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Speaker 3: didn't expect, and I was humbled. But it went all right.
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Speaker 3: And what I gained in the process was the graciousness
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Speaker 3: the way that you interacted in that setting with someone
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Speaker 3: you didn't know, with issues that I couldn't actually honestly
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Speaker 3: tell if you agree or disagreed with me. I was
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Speaker 3: just I was blown away by Okay, we eat and
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Speaker 3: got a good one here. So it was a really
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Speaker 3: easy decision to say, hey, let's get Mark on this podcast,
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Speaker 3: at least for me, and I take that as a sign.
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Speaker 4: It was kind of a jerk during that whole process.
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Speaker 3: So I guess my expectations were where Dan Tryer level
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Speaker 3: of intensity, and you know, the late Dan Tryer, who
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Speaker 3: we love, brilliant man, very pastoral, but man, he could
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Speaker 3: dig into a wound, right, He could stick his thumb
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Speaker 3: in and just press. And you weren't doing that. So
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Speaker 3: to me, you were the you were the nice one.
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Speaker 4: There all right.
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Speaker 3: But to me that sets up this because I think
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Speaker 3: that that same sort of tone comes out in me.
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Speaker 3: Mark sent us a piece from one of his books
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Speaker 3: he's written on theological anthropology quite a bit, which is
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Speaker 3: just basically talking about what are what are we? Who
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Speaker 3: are we as human beings? With a specific care to
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Speaker 3: think about before God? Right, And in reading the piece
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Speaker 3: that you wanted us to most hint owne in on,
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Speaker 3: I got that same sense from you that this is
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Speaker 3: someone who wants to get the nuances of the positions
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Speaker 3: and not caricature them, and it is generous, right even
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Speaker 3: as you took a position, by the end there was
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Speaker 3: no sense of, well, the people who discrew with me
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Speaker 3: or dumb And to me, that's that's important theological steps forward.
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Speaker 3: And so with that said, we're looking forward to diving
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Speaker 3: into this.
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Speaker 4: Topic with you.
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Speaker 3: And maybe maybe the first way to begin this is
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Speaker 3: you've spent a lot of time writing on theological anthropology.
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Speaker 3: Why that's a.
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Speaker 4: Great question, you think you're much a generous introduction, and
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Speaker 4: it's great to do with both of you. I mean,
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Speaker 4: it's kind of probably two different ways I can come
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Speaker 4: at that question. One would be like why, as in
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Speaker 4: how did I get into this, what kind of got
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Speaker 4: me interested in this in this topic in the first place,
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Speaker 4: And then maybe kind of why in the sense of
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Speaker 4: why have I kept going and continued to press into
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Speaker 4: these issues. The first one I actually have to guess
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Speaker 4: at a little bit. I've been asked that a number
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Speaker 4: of times over the years, and I can't quite figure
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Speaker 4: out exactly how I stumbled on theological anthropology as an
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Speaker 4: area of interest. I'm not sure about your experience in
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Speaker 4: theological education, but most of the schools that I'm familiar
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Speaker 4: with it kind of touched lightly on the doctrine of humanity.
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Speaker 4: In your like theology survey class, you'll do some image
4:18
Speaker 4: of God stuff, some sin stuff. Depending on your school,
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Speaker 4: you may get into like women in ministry questions, and
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Speaker 4: that's about it, and then you kind of move on
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Speaker 4: from there. And that's really all I got in my
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Speaker 4: survey things. Somewhere along the way, I was exposed to
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Speaker 4: the fact that theological anthropology is an actual area of
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Speaker 4: Christian doctrine that people have been thinking about for a
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Speaker 4: long time, and what immediately grabbed my attention. My first
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Speaker 4: career was actually a youth ministry. I did middle school
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Speaker 4: in high school ministry for about ten years before I
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Speaker 4: went in an academic direction, and I guarantee it was
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Speaker 4: the connection between what I was doing with teenagers and
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Speaker 4: the issues that you're dealing with in anthropology that got
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Speaker 4: my attention. Is the doctrine's all about things like identity
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Speaker 4: and race and your body and sex. And I'm like, okay,
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Speaker 4: so you're telling me there's a doctrine that really is
5:05
Speaker 4: just about youth ministry and the kinds of things I
5:07
Speaker 4: wrestle with, Like, Okay, sure, I can do this all
5:10
Speaker 4: day long. This sounds outstanding. That's the thing that kind
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Speaker 4: of grabbed my attention and pulled me in this direction initially.
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Speaker 4: From there, I think it's just a simple matter of
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Speaker 4: the fact that humans are fascinating and you can I'm
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Speaker 4: really not a specialist by nature. I actually do tend
5:28
Speaker 4: to move around in topics a fair bit, so I
5:30
Speaker 4: think it's funny that most of my writing has been
5:32
Speaker 4: on one particular doctrine. But I do think it's because
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Speaker 4: of how fascinatingly complex humans are, and you can stay
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Speaker 4: in the area of kind of thinking about what it
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Speaker 4: means to be human and constantly be bumping into new
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Speaker 4: issues and new questions, and a number of the discipline
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Speaker 4: kind of subtopics with an anthropology are constantly moving, particularly
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Speaker 4: in this cultural moment we find ourselves in. So just
5:56
Speaker 4: trying to keep up with everything that's happening keeps you
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Speaker 4: from getting board. So it was that it was the
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Speaker 4: youth ministry connection early on, and then it's the fascinating
6:05
Speaker 4: and constantly shifting nature of the conversation that I think
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Speaker 4: has kept me engaged.
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Speaker 1: It's interesting like when I think about, well, I've not
6:15
Speaker 1: done a ton in theological anthropology necessarily, but my experience
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Speaker 1: was the same as yours.
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Speaker 2: Whenever it was addressed, it was a light touch.
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Speaker 1: It was sort of like, here's theological anthropology and angelology
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Speaker 1: all in one lesson, and we're done now, right. So,
6:31
Speaker 1: but I think where I've kind of come back around
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Speaker 1: to it is through the work on faith and the
6:37
Speaker 1: intersection with technology and especially today, how does theological anthropology
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Speaker 1: inform the way that we should also think about technology?
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Speaker 1: How is it that we're losing humanity? And how we
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Speaker 1: ever know that if we don't really understand who we
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Speaker 1: were in the first place. That kind of idea, and
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Speaker 1: so I'm wondering how much of your work is sort
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Speaker 1: of being informed by that discussioner influenced by that discussion nowadays,
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Speaker 1: or is that at all an emphasis that you're exploring
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Speaker 1: It is.
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Speaker 4: Some of the writing I've done in technology was before
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Speaker 4: generative AI really took off and began to dominate conversations
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Speaker 4: about anthropology and technology. So my work earlier on was
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Speaker 4: more around the posthumanism transhumanism conversation, where some of the
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Speaker 4: theological resources are similar, but as in the case in
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Speaker 4: these different subtopics in anthropology, they have their own subtopics
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Speaker 4: that all require discrete answers in there. But I like
7:35
Speaker 4: the way you framed it in that with a lot
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Speaker 4: of these conversations, I find myself that my role often
7:42
Speaker 4: is to get people to slow down a little bit
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Speaker 4: and to realize that there are deeper and prior theological
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Speaker 4: questions that we haven't actually answered yet, at least not explicitly,
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Speaker 4: and in a way that requires kind of careful nuance
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Speaker 4: and thought that we actually need in order to rest
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Speaker 4: these things. So, like, I just hear people routinely making
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Speaker 4: really confident claims in the technology space about like we
8:07
Speaker 4: can't do X because X will make us less human,
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Speaker 4: and then I'm wrestling with you, well, how do you
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Speaker 4: know that, like, what is your kind of theological way
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Speaker 4: of answering the question of what does it mean to
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Speaker 4: be human? That is actually informing this claim that you
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Speaker 4: have that this thing is going to make us somehow
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Speaker 4: less than the human thing that you have after and
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Speaker 4: so I'm wanting to pull us back to that prior question.
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Speaker 4: So I used to kind of summarize the doctrine of
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Speaker 4: humanity around what does it mean to be human? And
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Speaker 4: how do we flourish as human persons? Is those kind
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Speaker 4: of the two framing questions that I don't think you
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Speaker 4: can have, at least not as a Christian, really deep,
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Speaker 4: meaningful conversations about these issues unless you have a theologically
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Speaker 4: a biblically theologically informed to answer to those two questions.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'd say it's interesting just your comment about
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Speaker 1: getting people to slow down and ask the prior question.
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Speaker 4: I find it's almost.
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Speaker 2: Like you have to do that in two stages.
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Speaker 1: You have to get them to slow down recognize that
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Speaker 1: there's a necessity of slow going down. On the first place,
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Speaker 1: that this notion of progress reference transhumanism, which has like
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Speaker 1: that big progress myth sort of evolutionary push towards the
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Speaker 1: posthuman that I think is informally sort of saturating a
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Speaker 1: lot of our discourse. Anyway, I don't think we're all
9:17
Speaker 1: transhumanists necessarily, Like if everything is transhumanist, nothing is kind
9:21
Speaker 1: of feel but there is this notion that the more
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Speaker 1: we progress, we view that as real advancement. And it's
9:29
Speaker 1: interesting to think about, No, maybe we should just slow
9:32
Speaker 1: down and just like take a check here for a moment,
9:35
Speaker 1: really explore back into some of these theological resources that
9:39
Speaker 1: might inform what we're doing right now, and then make
9:42
Speaker 1: a decision on what progress really is and what progress
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Speaker 1: really isn't. So, yeah, those two steps seem to me
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Speaker 1: to be really intuitive within the technology space, but also
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Speaker 1: I would assume that theological anthropology space absolutely.
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Speaker 4: So, Like one of the things that I will sometimes
9:57
Speaker 4: do in getting people to slow down is I'll point out, so,
10:00
Speaker 4: let's think in technology and kind of transhumanist terms, that
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Speaker 4: they're actually Christian theological resources that would push against the
10:07
Speaker 4: instincts that many of us have, at least in the
10:10
Speaker 4: starting point in this conversation. So I hear people routinely
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Speaker 4: referring to the goodness of human embodiment and therefore we
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Speaker 4: shouldn't and then fill in the blank here transformed or
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Speaker 4: change bodies in various kinds of ways. And yet you
10:21
Speaker 4: think about the kind of the history of Christian reflection
10:24
Speaker 4: on the nature of the resurrection and the transformation of
10:27
Speaker 4: human existence scatologically, where a lot of it has to
10:30
Speaker 4: do with the fact that, sure, we're resurrected into embodied forms,
10:34
Speaker 4: but we anticipate having transformed bodies in some significant way
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Speaker 4: that transcend our current experience of the limitations of these
10:43
Speaker 4: bodies that we inhabit and experience now. And then I
10:47
Speaker 4: just kind of ask like, why wouldn't that actually lend
10:49
Speaker 4: support to a transforminist agenda where we're just seeking to
10:53
Speaker 4: transform bodies, not in a way of trying to like
10:56
Speaker 4: bring about the resurrection, but with imaginations that are shaped
10:59
Speaker 4: by the fact that we have eschatological bodies that are
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Speaker 4: going to transcend current limitations. So let's seek to live
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Speaker 4: in ways that are informed by that. Now I'm not
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Speaker 4: saying that's a good way to think, but it's a
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Speaker 4: Christian theological resource that actually pushes against an intuition that
11:16
Speaker 4: we too quickly put on the table. And I find
11:19
Speaker 4: that if we can do that, then people can go, oh,
11:20
Speaker 4: hold on, now I actually have two different sets of intuitions,
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Speaker 4: and I'm relying on one of them and not the
11:26
Speaker 4: other one, And is that the right way to do that.
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Speaker 4: That's the kind of move that I find gets people
11:30
Speaker 4: to kind of pull back and realize that these questions
11:32
Speaker 4: are more complicated than they realize they are. I'll admit
11:36
Speaker 4: I often think they actually I want them to land
11:39
Speaker 4: where they started, Yeah, but with a much deeper and
11:43
Speaker 4: firmer theological foundation that gives them a more nuanced way
11:47
Speaker 4: of engaging the conversation.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting.
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Speaker 1: I just wrote a piece for Doug Estus is doing
11:54
Speaker 1: a project on forty Bible passages related to AI, and
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Speaker 1: so I just did a piece on David's RW for
12:01
Speaker 1: Samuel seventeen and kind of talked about this notion of
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Speaker 1: David's setting aside Saul's armor, which was the technology of
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Speaker 1: the moment, but saying that that passage is not intended
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Speaker 1: to say Israelite should never ever wear armor, and so
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Speaker 1: we've got to have a more nuanced understanding of what's
12:18
Speaker 1: going on here. Why is it that setting the armor
12:21
Speaker 1: aside in this moment is important. What does it say theologically?
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Speaker 1: How is the narrative trying to frame it up and
12:28
Speaker 1: then thinking through how that idea might then extend beyond
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Speaker 1: that narrative and help us discern when to pick up
12:36
Speaker 1: technology and when to set it aside. But it's a
12:39
Speaker 1: more nuanced It is difficult to think that way, right,
12:43
Speaker 1: because your criteria get real fuzzy and your boundaries are
12:48
Speaker 1: not set anywhere right, and so it's sort of like,
12:51
Speaker 1: how do you know, how do you really explain that
12:53
Speaker 1: to people in a way that they are going to
12:57
Speaker 1: be helped as opposed to as going So I can
12:58
Speaker 1: pretty much just set my own boundary and do whatever
13:00
Speaker 1: the heck I want.
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Speaker 2: That'd be fantastic.
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Speaker 4: Anyway, in one sense, chaotic and confusing in another sense.
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Speaker 3: You're right, right, Yeah, I find it fascinating to listen
13:11
Speaker 3: to the way you guys are talking about the technological
13:14
Speaker 3: piece as it relates to humanity, because I think what
13:17
Speaker 3: subtly comes through is why it's actually really important to
13:22
Speaker 3: think about theological anthropology. It can be an easy thing
13:27
Speaker 3: to just say, well, what matters is the conclusion? Do
13:29
Speaker 3: you have the right doctrinal claim? Do you have the
13:32
Speaker 3: right sort of conclusion about what it is that we're
13:35
Speaker 3: supposed to say about image bearers and so on and
13:37
Speaker 3: so forth. But what you both are sort of teasing
13:41
Speaker 3: out here is that the process is important, but that
13:44
Speaker 3: actually says something about who we are, right, that we're
13:48
Speaker 3: not ultimately just defined by the conclusion, but how do
13:52
Speaker 3: we get where we're going? And sometimes having the same
13:56
Speaker 3: conclusion that maybe we should take a step back and
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Speaker 3: slow down with regard to how optimistic we are about
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Speaker 3: AI doesn't mean that there isn't an important work of
14:06
Speaker 3: evaluation to do there about our assumptions of what it
14:09
Speaker 3: means to even be a person in the first place. Right,
14:13
Speaker 3: I mean I think here of the great the legendary
14:16
Speaker 3: coach of the Chicago Bulls, Phil Jackson, used to always
14:18
Speaker 3: tell his players that were our goal is obviously to
14:23
Speaker 3: win the championship, but every moment of the regular season
14:27
Speaker 3: matters because it's a thousand step journey, and every one
14:30
Speaker 3: of those steps is going to get you somewhere that
14:33
Speaker 3: actually makes it more likely that you're going to win
14:35
Speaker 3: the championship. At the endor at least put yourself in
14:37
Speaker 3: a better position. Well, in this case, this slowing down
14:40
Speaker 3: the thinking through the questioning of our assumptions, the interrogating
14:45
Speaker 3: of why maybe thinking about it in a different way
14:48
Speaker 3: might ultimately lead us to a similar conclusion, but that
14:51
Speaker 3: conclusion is different just from the process, right, Yeah.
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Speaker 4: I mean, I'll admit I'm a Blazer's fan that analogy
14:59
Speaker 4: hurts just a little bit back in the day.
15:01
Speaker 3: I'm sorry about that, But.
15:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I try to be a little bit care
15:08
Speaker 4: like there's a way of doing the process versus the
15:10
Speaker 4: product move where if we're not carefully make it all
15:13
Speaker 4: about the process, then you almost the impression that, like,
15:16
Speaker 4: where you end up doesn't matter as long as you're
15:19
Speaker 4: kind of going about it in certain kinds of ways.
15:22
Speaker 4: And I know that's not where you're going. Like, I
15:25
Speaker 4: will admit I tend to think more in terms of
15:26
Speaker 4: process and direction than I do product. I don't like
15:32
Speaker 4: because it makes sound like there's a point at which
15:34
Speaker 4: you're done And I'm just not sure that in theology,
15:37
Speaker 4: in any doctrine, but particularly not when we're just saying
15:39
Speaker 4: something as complicated as the human person, that you ever
15:42
Speaker 4: actually end up at a product in the sense of
15:45
Speaker 4: like and arrived at conclusion that you're just done with.
15:50
Speaker 4: But I absolutely think You're right that the way we
15:52
Speaker 4: go about answering these questions is something that we are
15:56
Speaker 4: sometimes insufficiently attentive to, and so we have a confidence
16:02
Speaker 4: in our direction or our answer that I actually think
16:07
Speaker 4: is misplaced because we haven't gotten through the process in
16:12
Speaker 4: the way that isn't needed for this kind of an issue.
16:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm thinking as for a theological analogy, one of
16:21
Speaker 3: my professors in grad school, Steve Spencer, he used to
16:25
Speaker 3: to throw out that often criticism of academic theology that
16:31
Speaker 3: all we do is we sit around and we debate
16:32
Speaker 3: how many angels stand on the head of a needle?
16:35
Speaker 3: And he'd say, you know, as far as I know,
16:40
Speaker 3: no one has ever actually asked that in the scholastic setting,
16:44
Speaker 3: but I think we actually should ask it, and then
16:46
Speaker 3: he would go into this large discussion of think about
16:48
Speaker 3: what's entailed by that question. The question here is if
16:51
Speaker 3: we tend to think in these material and material terms,
16:55
Speaker 3: we tend to think that humans embody the material realm
16:58
Speaker 3: and angels or some sort of immaterial spirit beings. Theoretically,
17:04
Speaker 3: that means that they're not limited by the reality of
17:08
Speaker 3: two objects occupying one space at the same time. Right, So,
17:11
Speaker 3: how many of them could dance on the head of
17:12
Speaker 3: a needle. And I think what that's getting at here
17:16
Speaker 3: is that what might have sounded like a silly question
17:19
Speaker 3: that's often caricatures for academic theologies actually saying yeah, in
17:25
Speaker 3: the moment, certain questions might seem very academic, right did
17:29
Speaker 3: Jesus take on follow human flesh or did he not?
17:32
Speaker 3: But there is something going on in terms of implications,
17:35
Speaker 3: something going on in terms of questioning our assumptions that
17:39
Speaker 3: guides us to begin to think about that process as oh,
17:42
Speaker 3: maybe I'm bringing more to this conversation than I realized.
17:45
Speaker 3: And I think that's precisely where we begin to think, hopefully,
17:50
Speaker 3: maybe this isn't too fine of a question, maybe this
17:52
Speaker 3: isn't too academic of a question.
17:55
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I often encourage my students to think through
17:57
Speaker 4: what they mean when they say that theology ought to
17:59
Speaker 4: be practiced, which there's an important times in which I
18:02
Speaker 4: want to agree with that, But that's another one that
18:04
Speaker 4: I want to think through a little bit longer before
18:06
Speaker 4: we affirm that too confidently. And usually there are two
18:10
Speaker 4: things that I want them to reflect on. One of
18:11
Speaker 4: them I use the angels dancing on the head of
18:14
Speaker 4: pen analogy precisely, so I didn't realize this that Steve
18:17
Speaker 4: had done that before me. That's great, And I do
18:20
Speaker 4: kind of think like, if we actually thought that we
18:22
Speaker 4: shared this universe with really powerful supernatural beings, we should
18:26
Speaker 4: probably spend some time thinking about, like what are they
18:29
Speaker 4: like and how do they inhabit the world and interact
18:32
Speaker 4: with the material world that I interact with. I find
18:35
Speaker 4: it interesting that doctrines of creation in like the medieval
18:38
Speaker 4: period were often about half on angels and demons and
18:43
Speaker 4: the heavens. And I laughed at myself be such a modernist,
18:48
Speaker 4: as I'm working on a book in the Doctrine of Creation,
18:50
Speaker 4: and I had been the book for months before I
18:53
Speaker 4: even thought to ask the question of whether angels should
18:56
Speaker 4: be in my book on the doctrine grade. So yeah,
19:02
Speaker 4: our understanding of what's practical and what's worth thinking about
19:05
Speaker 4: is shaped by a very modernist agenda that we're often
19:08
Speaker 4: not even aware of. And of course I also want
19:11
Speaker 4: them to think about the fact that some things are
19:12
Speaker 4: worth knowing just because they're valuable and worth knowing. And
19:16
Speaker 4: I don't have to have a practical end for wanting
19:18
Speaker 4: to get to know my wife better, just because my
19:20
Speaker 4: wife is amazing, and I ought to want to know
19:22
Speaker 4: her better because I love her, and knowing her better
19:25
Speaker 4: will lead me to love her more, which will lead
19:27
Speaker 4: me to knowing her better. And there's a lot of
19:30
Speaker 4: theology that ought to work that way. But I really
19:32
Speaker 4: do want to shortcut kind of the hubris of thinking
19:35
Speaker 4: that we know in advance of asking a question whether
19:38
Speaker 4: the answer is going to be practical or not, because
19:41
Speaker 4: I think you often don't know that until you've had
19:43
Speaker 4: an opportunity to wrestle through the question. And I do
19:46
Speaker 4: think there's a lot in feelos kntopology that works that way.
19:49
Speaker 4: Some of the body soul debate issues can sound really speculative,
19:53
Speaker 4: particularly if you're wired toward analytic philosophy and the resources
19:57
Speaker 4: that get used there. You end up reading about thought
20:00
Speaker 4: experiments on Star Trek teleportation things, and I'll admit I
20:07
Speaker 4: find some of that kind of fun. But Hey, what
20:09
Speaker 4: you're trying to do is you're trying to understand what
20:11
Speaker 4: it means to have a body, and why God bodies
20:14
Speaker 4: and raised us to have bodies, and how does it
20:17
Speaker 4: relate to identity and why does any of that matter?
20:21
Speaker 4: And I think those are eminently practical, even though on
20:24
Speaker 4: the front end some of the questions can seem overly speculative.
20:29
Speaker 1: That sort of leans me into a question that I
20:31
Speaker 1: wanted to get to before we kind of dig into
20:33
Speaker 1: the chapters you sent us. But one of the things
20:36
Speaker 1: I've always been interested in is sort of the intersection
20:38
Speaker 1: of these doctrines. And so even when we when we
20:41
Speaker 1: learn them in like systematic theology courses or something like that,
20:44
Speaker 1: you know, theological anthropology, seteriology, hamartiology, those are all sort
20:48
Speaker 1: of separated out. The one I'm I've become most interested
20:51
Speaker 1: in is sort of the bridging between theological anthropology and ecclesiology.
20:56
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering how you've sort of balanced some of
20:58
Speaker 1: those intersections. So you're obviously doing work on theological anthropology
21:03
Speaker 1: and it's not the same as ecclesiology, but surely that
21:06
Speaker 1: has to inform right.
21:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, I mean you're picking up one of my
21:10
Speaker 4: favorite things is the intersection of doctrines. So actually most
21:13
Speaker 4: of my published work has been on the intersection between
21:15
Speaker 4: theological anthropology and Christology. And one of the kind of
21:19
Speaker 4: questions that threw me into this originally going back to
21:22
Speaker 4: the why theologic anthropology issue is as I started to
21:25
Speaker 4: explore theological anthropology, I felt like I would routinely run
21:29
Speaker 4: into in the introduction to an anthropology book some claim
21:33
Speaker 4: along the lines of Jesus reveals what it means to
21:36
Speaker 4: be human, not just what it means to be God,
21:38
Speaker 4: and that would feel like I would read the rest
21:40
Speaker 4: of the book and Jesus wouldn't show up very much,
21:42
Speaker 4: and it kind of left me wondering, like I thought
21:45
Speaker 4: Jesus was going to matter somehow for our understanding of
21:47
Speaker 4: what it means to be human. So a lot of
21:49
Speaker 4: it with me trying to tease out how that works.
21:51
Speaker 4: I think ecclesiology absolutely can work that way, and it
21:54
Speaker 4: can work that way in two different directions. I think
21:56
Speaker 4: there's a sense in which our understanding of what it
21:58
Speaker 4: means to be human and how he flourish as human
22:00
Speaker 4: persons informs are ecclesiology. So there are things that I
22:04
Speaker 4: think we do in church, or ways in which we
22:06
Speaker 4: construct our ecclesial lives together that are shaped by a
22:10
Speaker 4: vision of human flourishing. But it absolutely works the other
22:13
Speaker 4: way around. Our ecclesiologies and the ways in which we
22:17
Speaker 4: do church together shape are understandable it means to flourish
22:20
Speaker 4: as humans, because even if we're not kind of aware
22:24
Speaker 4: of it, we have an intuition that church is a
22:28
Speaker 4: place in which we are seeking to become more human
22:31
Speaker 4: and to flourish as humans together. And so church life
22:35
Speaker 4: shapes visions of human flourishing. Visions of human flourishing shape
22:38
Speaker 4: church life. I absolutely think ecclesiology and anthropology are intertwined.
22:43
Speaker 4: Daniel Hill, who's student who did his PhD here at Wheaton,
22:50
Speaker 4: did his dissertation on the ecclesiology anthropology relationship that went
22:54
Speaker 4: on to be published by a book with a title
22:57
Speaker 4: that was along those lines that I'm desperately trying to
23:00
Speaker 4: think of. But he did. He did a great job
23:02
Speaker 4: and kind of articulating that doctrinal intersection.
23:07
Speaker 2: Very cool.
23:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, how do you think, I mean, this will
23:12
Speaker 1: be the loaded question, I suppose, But when we think
23:14
Speaker 1: about theological anthropology, we think about being human. There's obviously
23:19
Speaker 1: a lot entailed in that. I mean, you know, there
23:21
Speaker 1: have been tons of essays written on the image of God.
23:23
Speaker 1: We've talked about that on the program. You know, all
23:26
Speaker 1: these different areas. But if you had to sort of
23:29
Speaker 1: synthesize it, what would you say, are some of the
23:33
Speaker 1: constellation of factors that really are essential for thinking about
23:37
Speaker 1: what it means to be human?
23:39
Speaker 4: Well, I mean the two go tos historically are just
23:40
Speaker 4: the image of God and sin. Yeah, the dominant categories.
23:45
Speaker 4: A lot of books on theological anthropology just use those
23:48
Speaker 4: two as they're framing motifs to the extent that I
23:53
Speaker 4: often when I'm teaching less on theological anthropology, I do
23:55
Speaker 4: kind of a whiteboard exercise or I ask people what
23:58
Speaker 4: the doctrine of humanity or theogs client is about, and
24:01
Speaker 4: that's unquestionably the starting point, giving the war first and
24:05
Speaker 4: then set. There's usually kind of a pause after that,
24:08
Speaker 4: as if we think that just is the doctrine of
24:10
Speaker 4: humanity is image? Understand we're kind of a little bit
24:13
Speaker 4: stuck as to what goes on beyond that. I will say,
24:17
Speaker 4: by the time we're done, the whiteboard is full. We
24:21
Speaker 4: have traced connections to all kinds of different things, and
24:25
Speaker 4: I use that as a way of trying to expand
24:26
Speaker 4: people's horizons about what it means to think about what
24:29
Speaker 4: it means to be human. So image of God's sand,
24:33
Speaker 4: for me, I think the body, I mean, historically a
24:36
Speaker 4: body soul has been a dominant way of framing things
24:41
Speaker 4: with those two in there. Given the sets of issues
24:44
Speaker 4: that we're dealing with today, I tend to I don't
24:46
Speaker 4: want to neglect what the tradition has wanted to do
24:49
Speaker 4: with soul language and spirit language. I do think we
24:52
Speaker 4: need to think really deeply and carefully about what it
24:55
Speaker 4: means to have a body, What is embodiment about, why
24:58
Speaker 4: was it good? What happened to bodies in the fall,
25:00
Speaker 4: what's going on with the resurrection? And how should that
25:03
Speaker 4: and shouldn't that shape the way that we think about
25:05
Speaker 4: the bodies that we inhabit now. So I think that's
25:08
Speaker 4: a primary consideration. Free will as it released to scheiology,
25:15
Speaker 4: do we have it, don't we have it? All those
25:17
Speaker 4: kind of moral agency and responsibility, There's a whole set
25:20
Speaker 4: of issues that has been significant historically. I'm not sure
25:25
Speaker 4: that I would say that it's a dominating kind of
25:27
Speaker 4: a driving set of factors as much today, at least
25:30
Speaker 4: not in the material sense of it. I think largely
25:38
Speaker 4: those are just kind of settled conversations, and I don't
25:40
Speaker 4: know that there are new avenues, at least if there are,
25:44
Speaker 4: I'm not aware of them. Where I see a lot
25:47
Speaker 4: of the free will agency conversation coming to play now
25:50
Speaker 4: is around technology and kind of to what extent are
25:55
Speaker 4: we determined by various technological cultural artifacts? What does it
26:00
Speaker 4: mean to be to have free agency? Like this does
26:03
Speaker 4: an ai? Uh? Does it now? Or will it ever
26:07
Speaker 4: have what we call agency and free will and moral
26:10
Speaker 4: responsibility and those kinds of issues. Yeah, I mean, obviously
26:16
Speaker 4: you've got all of the stuff around sex, sexuality, gender,
26:20
Speaker 4: and race, ethnicity, cultural identity. I see those as importantly
26:26
Speaker 4: connected to the body and why I talk a lot
26:29
Speaker 4: about the body of my theolosical entropology today. Those seem
26:33
Speaker 4: to me like kind of the constellations that would be
26:37
Speaker 4: difficult to avoid, Like if I were going to sit
26:39
Speaker 4: down and write a one volume survey of theological anthropology,
26:43
Speaker 4: it be hard to do that without getting into those
26:44
Speaker 4: kinds of issues.
26:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's helpful.
26:47
Speaker 1: And do you do you see so when you connect
26:49
Speaker 1: like race, gender, all those different ones, they would be
26:53
Speaker 1: sort of part of that body embodiment sort of, they'd
26:56
Speaker 1: almost be subcategories within it, So you could subdivide that
27:00
Speaker 1: number of different pieces, is what I'm hearing you say?
27:02
Speaker 4: Is that right? Yeah, I'm not quite sure that I'd
27:04
Speaker 4: be willing to say that they're all like subcategories of
27:06
Speaker 4: a theology of the body. But there are things that
27:09
Speaker 4: you need to think well about with respect to the
27:11
Speaker 4: body that provide the theological resources that are necessary thinking
27:16
Speaker 4: about those things. Right, So, to have a body is
27:19
Speaker 4: to be finite, it's to be shaped a particular way.
27:22
Speaker 4: It's to be identified through relationships to other material realities.
27:29
Speaker 4: It's to be both good but affected by the fall.
27:32
Speaker 4: So in all of those theological issues that I need
27:35
Speaker 4: to think through really carefully, because you need all of
27:38
Speaker 4: those resources. When I go to think about these other things,
27:41
Speaker 4: I fail to mention theology of disability would be a
27:43
Speaker 4: major category that's important pologies today. It would also be
27:48
Speaker 4: just directly tied to all of these things and thinking
27:51
Speaker 4: well about what it means to have a body.
27:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Yeah, that's really helpful because I know a
27:56
Speaker 1: lot of that. You know, when I read things on
27:58
Speaker 1: the Image of God, they'll fall into some of those
28:00
Speaker 1: things and it tends to get I don't want to
28:03
Speaker 1: say muddled in there, but they do tend to sort
28:06
Speaker 1: of creep in at different areas, and so certain categorizations
28:10
Speaker 1: of the image of God, for instance, that focus on
28:13
Speaker 1: human capabilities ultimately then have to deal with human disabilities
28:18
Speaker 1: on some level.
28:19
Speaker 2: If they're going to defend that kind of a position.
28:22
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean, I think any view of the image
28:24
Speaker 4: of God ought to be able to think well about
28:27
Speaker 4: all of these kinds of issues. Yeah. So, going back
28:30
Speaker 4: to what she said earlier that when I rune in
28:31
Speaker 4: the image of God, I try not to spend a
28:34
Speaker 4: lot of time arguing against other views of the image.
28:38
Speaker 4: And I have written at times on all, Right, if
28:40
Speaker 4: you're going to have this view of the image that
28:41
Speaker 4: I actually don't think is the best way to think
28:43
Speaker 4: about the image. But if you're going to go there,
28:46
Speaker 4: then let's think together about how are you going to
28:48
Speaker 4: handle issues around disability and whatnot. If you're going to
28:53
Speaker 4: do that, at least do that as theologically aware as possible.
28:57
Speaker 4: And I think anybody who's thinking here about the image
29:01
Speaker 4: ought to challenge themselves to make sure that they're understanding
29:05
Speaker 4: of the image can handle some of these difficult issues
29:08
Speaker 4: in theology.
29:12
Speaker 3: If I'm understanding you correctly. The way that you're sort
29:18
Speaker 3: of parsing out the importance of thinking about embodiment is
29:22
Speaker 3: trying to move beyond just simply speaking of image of God?
29:27
Speaker 3: Is that right?
29:27
Speaker 4: Correct? Right?
29:29
Speaker 3: So, when you're thinking about these dynamics where I think,
29:32
Speaker 3: I think that your intuition is a good one, because
29:35
Speaker 3: we do often tend to try to force things like
29:38
Speaker 3: the image of God to do more service than maybe
29:40
Speaker 3: it can. And that's where you run into some of
29:42
Speaker 3: the problems that James was just mentioning. I'm wondering how
29:47
Speaker 3: you have that same conversation though, with some of these
29:50
Speaker 3: historical figures. So you mentioned the way that this body
29:53
Speaker 3: soul or body soul spirit dichotomy or trichotomy historically has
29:58
Speaker 3: such great weight, even in the ways that we tend
30:00
Speaker 3: to talk about the significance of Jesus taking on flesh,
30:07
Speaker 3: arguably to the degree that we've historically had the situation
30:11
Speaker 3: where embodiment has been diminished. So, now as you think
30:16
Speaker 3: about it today and you're trying to recover the significance
30:19
Speaker 3: of embodiment, how do you deal with some of those
30:21
Speaker 3: elements historically that just get placed within the soulishness of
30:26
Speaker 3: humanity to the degree that we might say that that's
30:29
Speaker 3: still a thing or the spirit of a human person
30:32
Speaker 3: without falling back into the same trap of kind of
30:35
Speaker 3: essentializing humanity in these non material ways.
30:38
Speaker 4: That makes sense, it does. Let me see, I have
30:40
Speaker 4: any have to pull on about three different threads at
30:43
Speaker 4: the same time. I think to answer that right, So
30:44
Speaker 4: I'll try not to do that and too complicated along
30:47
Speaker 4: of fashion, I mean one, I do want to pick
30:50
Speaker 4: up one thing you said toward the beginning that I
30:52
Speaker 4: do worry that with the image of God we make
30:54
Speaker 4: it do too much work. There's a move, it's a
30:57
Speaker 4: pretty common move in theology to go from the image
31:01
Speaker 4: of God is central for a Biblical Christian understanding what
31:04
Speaker 4: it means to be human, which try I would agree with,
31:06
Speaker 4: to the image of God is basically coextensive with what
31:10
Speaker 4: it means to be human. So anything that I want
31:13
Speaker 4: to say about the human person I have to somehow
31:15
Speaker 4: say through the image. And I think at that point
31:20
Speaker 4: you've expanded the image beyond not just its usefulness but
31:24
Speaker 4: its biblical location. The image was the Amago Day was
31:27
Speaker 4: never trying to tell us everything we need to know
31:29
Speaker 4: about what it means to be human. It was trying
31:31
Speaker 4: to tell us something that's centrally important for what it
31:34
Speaker 4: means to be human. So the other things I say
31:37
Speaker 4: about what it means to be human ought to be
31:39
Speaker 4: connected to what I think about the image. But that's
31:42
Speaker 4: different than saying that the image ought to be the
31:45
Speaker 4: whole of what it means to be human. I think
31:48
Speaker 4: when we make that ladder move, we just expand the
31:50
Speaker 4: image in two ways. They make it just unwieldy, very
31:53
Speaker 4: difficult to address, and I actually think we end up
31:56
Speaker 4: missing what I think we ought to say about the image,
31:59
Speaker 4: but into kind of my own view on the image
32:02
Speaker 4: that might get to hear in a moment. So that's
32:03
Speaker 4: kind of the first thing that I want to go to.
32:05
Speaker 4: Second one. I mean, I was trying to be a
32:07
Speaker 4: little bit careful with earlier thinkers on body soul image
32:12
Speaker 4: dynamics is I think if we understand them at their
32:16
Speaker 4: best and the kind of most nuanced for them, there
32:18
Speaker 4: are very few of them that would disconnect the body
32:20
Speaker 4: from the imago day entirely. The dominant within the tradition
32:25
Speaker 4: that I'm familiar with, at least the dominant approach is
32:28
Speaker 4: to associate the image primarily with the soul, so the
32:31
Speaker 4: soul is the image of God. There is a minority
32:36
Speaker 4: report that helps the body be a part of the
32:37
Speaker 4: image of God as well, But the majority of you
32:39
Speaker 4: has been that the soul is the image of God.
32:42
Speaker 4: The body for many theologians, is the image of the image.
32:46
Speaker 4: It's the material means by which the soul does its
32:50
Speaker 4: imaging work in the world. So it has a secondary
32:55
Speaker 4: relationship to the image, but that's still an important relationship
32:58
Speaker 4: to the image, Like the soul can do the imaging
33:01
Speaker 4: thing that it ought to do apart from the body.
33:04
Speaker 4: That is the image of the image, and therefore the
33:06
Speaker 4: way in which the soul manifests God in whatever way
33:11
Speaker 4: that view understands the image to function, that's a fairly
33:15
Speaker 4: significant role for the body in the image. The body
33:19
Speaker 4: is instrumental in that sense. It's some of the soul
33:22
Speaker 4: uses to accomplish its imaging purposes, but it's a really
33:27
Speaker 4: important instrument. And so I wouldn't want to say that
33:31
Speaker 4: view devalues the body. It just locates the value of
33:36
Speaker 4: the body in relationship to the value of the soul.
33:40
Speaker 4: So there is a hierarchy at work there in that
33:42
Speaker 4: particular kind of dualism, not the only kind of dualism
33:45
Speaker 4: at work in the Western world. But maybe I want
33:50
Speaker 4: to say this way, not all hierarchies necessarily devalue the
33:53
Speaker 4: thing that's lower in the hierarchy. My analogy is typically
33:57
Speaker 4: I really like coffee. I drink a lot of coffee.
33:59
Speaker 4: I probably drink coffee than I should. So there's no
34:02
Speaker 4: question that I place a high value on coffee. But
34:05
Speaker 4: there's also no question that I value my wife more
34:07
Speaker 4: than I value coffee. Right, there's a definite hierarchy at
34:10
Speaker 4: work there, and it's a hierarchy that's not even close.
34:13
Speaker 4: But that doesn't mean that I'm devaluing coffee, right, I
34:16
Speaker 4: have a high value for coffee, it's just value that's
34:19
Speaker 4: located in relation to something that has a significantly higher value.
34:22
Speaker 4: So that's kind of the way that I would want
34:23
Speaker 4: to think about at least certain ways of how the
34:25
Speaker 4: body is related to the soul in that. The challenge,
34:29
Speaker 4: of course, is that that's a difficult Historically, that has
34:33
Speaker 4: been a difficult position to maintain without slipping toward a
34:38
Speaker 4: devaluing of the body in the process. So like, there's
34:41
Speaker 4: nothing necessary to that in the theoltical system. I get
34:45
Speaker 4: what they're after in there, but at the very least,
34:48
Speaker 4: like if you're going to go there, just be aware
34:49
Speaker 4: that your position has a historical I don't want to
34:53
Speaker 4: go so far as to say inevitable, but really strong
34:55
Speaker 4: tendency to slide towards some unfortunate ways of thinking about
34:58
Speaker 4: the body and embodiment. I'm inclined to think that. Well,
35:03
Speaker 4: I think I have good biblical reasons for this, but
35:06
Speaker 4: also for kind of practical let's avoid that slippage move.
35:10
Speaker 4: It's just better to think that the body is fundamentally
35:12
Speaker 4: a part of the image itself. I think image language
35:16
Speaker 4: in the Bible is inherently embodied language. I don't think
35:19
Speaker 4: the ancient world envisions the possibility that you can have
35:22
Speaker 4: some of that is an image, a selim or demut
35:25
Speaker 4: or an icon or whatever language we want to use.
35:28
Speaker 4: All of those were fundamentally embodied things in the ancient world.
35:34
Speaker 4: And so I think by calling us images of God,
35:36
Speaker 4: they're actually talking about us as embodied material images and
35:40
Speaker 4: an embodied material world. So I actually don't think the
35:43
Speaker 4: body is merely an instrument of the soul in the
35:46
Speaker 4: image of God process. I think the body is fundamental
35:49
Speaker 4: to what it means to be made in the image
35:50
Speaker 4: of God.
35:51
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting, you know, if you read cog
35:54
Speaker 1: psych literature nowadays. A lot of times we used to
35:57
Speaker 1: make this similar distinction in more unless theological spaces, where
36:01
Speaker 1: it'd be like, the mind is different than the body,
36:05
Speaker 1: and now it's moving back to something that's a little
36:07
Speaker 1: bit more like, No, we can distinguish the mind from
36:10
Speaker 1: the body, but they're basically the same entity and organism.
36:13
Speaker 1: And that's almost what I hear you saying, is this
36:16
Speaker 1: hierarchy between soul and body can create some slippage, and
36:20
Speaker 1: no matter how essential you view the body being right,
36:24
Speaker 1: when it's underneath on that hierarchy, it's always going to
36:27
Speaker 1: tend toward or lend itself to sort of a gnostic
36:31
Speaker 1: sort of movement, right where the soul becomes that much
36:34
Speaker 1: more important, versus the way you're phrasing it, which is, no,
36:37
Speaker 1: it's just all the embodiment, all the stuff that we are,
36:41
Speaker 1: whether that stuff is soul, spirit, body, whatever we divide
36:44
Speaker 1: that into, that whole complex is image.
36:49
Speaker 2: Is that? Am I hearing that?
36:50
Speaker 4: Right? That's largely And I pause when you said the
36:54
Speaker 4: is because I still wouldn't want to say that the
36:56
Speaker 4: image is like everything that needs to be about what
36:59
Speaker 4: it means be human understood. Yeah, Yeah, it's the human
37:02
Speaker 4: person as the complex body soul creature that it is,
37:05
Speaker 4: that is image of God, that is yea. And I mean,
37:10
Speaker 4: at the end of the day, if you if you
37:11
Speaker 4: push me hard enough, I'm still a dualist of a kind.
37:14
Speaker 4: I still think we are body soul creatures. I'm just
37:18
Speaker 4: significantly less hierarchical in my understanding of how Yeah.
37:23
Speaker 1: So, how do you think about the image of God?
37:25
Speaker 1: Because oh sorry, I'll ask ahead, what do you think
37:28
Speaker 1: about the image of God? Because I mean I've addressed
37:31
Speaker 1: it more from I'm an Old Testament guy, so I've
37:34
Speaker 1: addressed it more from that sort of Old Testament exegesus
37:37
Speaker 1: sort of standpoint, and haven't thought quite as much systematically
37:40
Speaker 1: theologically about theological anthropology. So I'm kind of interested in
37:44
Speaker 1: the take image of God?
37:46
Speaker 2: What is it? How does it function? You know, what's
37:48
Speaker 2: your take on it?
37:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, so my shorthand, and we probably could do I
37:53
Speaker 4: don't know, if you'd be interested, we could do a
37:55
Speaker 4: whole different interview that's just on image of God. I
37:59
Speaker 4: think be great, I really do think. And I think
38:03
Speaker 4: it's particularly clear in the Old Testament that the image
38:07
Speaker 4: terms and conceptual framework in the Old Testament are using
38:12
Speaker 4: idle language to describe a human person gelemen to your
38:16
Speaker 4: image and likeness. Terms from Genesis one are either just
38:21
Speaker 4: straightforwardly idle terms or at least in close constellation with
38:25
Speaker 4: the sets of terms that the Biblical world used to
38:28
Speaker 4: refer to idols. And so we to understand Genesis one, well,
38:32
Speaker 4: you have to read it against the backdrop of what
38:34
Speaker 4: does it mean to be an idol in the ancient world?
38:37
Speaker 4: I actually think that's why theologians will often talk about
38:40
Speaker 4: the fact that those two terms are dropped into Genesis
38:43
Speaker 4: one without explanation or definition, and I sometimes get the
38:46
Speaker 4: impression that they think that means that we can do
38:48
Speaker 4: kind of almost whatever we want with them in that context.
38:54
Speaker 4: And my response is, well, no, that happened because those
38:57
Speaker 4: were well understood terms. Typically when used to describe a
39:01
Speaker 4: creature in relation to a divine being, there's virtually nothing
39:05
Speaker 4: else that language could be doing other than describing us
39:08
Speaker 4: as idol, like at the very least. And then if
39:13
Speaker 4: you dig into kind of what does it mean to
39:14
Speaker 4: be an idol in the ancient world, as you are
39:17
Speaker 4: the material means by which a divine being is quite
39:19
Speaker 4: literally manifesting divine presence in the world. And that is
39:24
Speaker 4: my shorthand. Now for what does it mean to say
39:27
Speaker 4: the humans are our images of God? Is where the
39:29
Speaker 4: material means by which God is seeking to manifest his
39:32
Speaker 4: divine presence in a unique way in the world.
39:35
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because that already steps you towards you know,
39:38
Speaker 1: you think about the blind deaf idols that are intended
39:41
Speaker 1: to represent you know, certain ancient or Eastern gods and
39:45
Speaker 1: machine that you would get off the metal that's sort
39:47
Speaker 1: of been hammered into that and the glow and all
39:49
Speaker 1: that symbology. But for humans there is automatically the next
39:53
Speaker 1: entailment is well, we have choices, you know, and so
39:58
Speaker 1: you can see how it already bleeds into some of
40:00
Speaker 1: these other areas you've talked about, I guess is my point,
40:02
Speaker 1: which is really fascinating.
40:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, very cool, And also I think why I emphasize
40:08
Speaker 4: the body so much in this Yeah, in that context sense, Yeah,
40:11
Speaker 4: you have to have materiality to be an idol. That's
40:14
Speaker 4: the concept wouldn't make any sense apart from being the
40:18
Speaker 4: material means by which I mean it's they tend to
40:20
Speaker 4: the definition that you've got the materiality of the human body.
40:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing to shine the glory, then there really
40:26
Speaker 1: isn't an image. Yep, yeah see, I'm sorry I cut
40:31
Speaker 1: you off earlier.
40:31
Speaker 4: Go for it, man, No, all good.
40:34
Speaker 3: Actually, the way that you you drowed drew that back
40:36
Speaker 3: to the idol and the embodiment kind of leans into
40:40
Speaker 3: what my question is. So on one side we can
40:42
Speaker 3: see I think, within that way of framing it one
40:46
Speaker 3: of the fears that earlier versions of Christian theology might
40:50
Speaker 3: have had in creating a stronger hierarchy. As you put
40:53
Speaker 3: it right, there's there's a concern that we overly lean
40:56
Speaker 3: into then the embodied, and we create idols. I think
41:02
Speaker 3: often maybe the one that comes to my mind most
41:05
Speaker 3: immediately is Augustine. The way that he talks. On one
41:07
Speaker 3: side of his mouth, he's responding to the Manicheans, and
41:09
Speaker 3: so he wants to make it very clear creation as
41:12
Speaker 3: a physical reality is good and to take away from
41:15
Speaker 3: that as an awful thing. And yet when he starts
41:17
Speaker 3: to get constructive, at least in my reading of him,
41:21
Speaker 3: you start to get the sense that he's slipping back
41:23
Speaker 3: toward what he was criticizing. Right, He's very intent to
41:27
Speaker 3: say things like that the soul needs to bridle the horse,
41:33
Speaker 3: that is the body, and like a jockey, control it.
41:36
Speaker 3: Otherwise you get into a lot of troubles right that
41:38
Speaker 3: the body takes you as if the body is more
41:41
Speaker 3: prone to sinfulness. But I kind of wonder in the
41:46
Speaker 3: opposite direction, what do we lose when we start to
41:50
Speaker 3: slip into, let's say, stronger versions of that hierarchy, and
41:54
Speaker 3: what do we gain when we start to close that
41:56
Speaker 3: gap and give a greater on Are I supposed to
42:00
Speaker 3: the embodiment without necessarily having an without losing the fear
42:05
Speaker 3: of idolatry, but without having an oversized fear of idolatry.
42:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a great way framing it, because I think
42:12
Speaker 4: to some extent what Augustine is doing and what a
42:14
Speaker 4: lot of the Patristic theologians were doing, is they were
42:18
Speaker 4: operating out of, as you pointed out, actually a very
42:21
Speaker 4: high doctrine of creation and the goodness of the created order,
42:25
Speaker 4: and you know, pushing back on any sense that this
42:28
Speaker 4: could be anything other than what the good God of
42:30
Speaker 4: the universe created and wanted us to have. But then
42:34
Speaker 4: you have to make sense out of these kind of
42:37
Speaker 4: strongly worded cautionary and kind of consistently worrisome approaches to
42:42
Speaker 4: material realities, which I actually take to be their sense
42:46
Speaker 4: that it's almost that like kind of creation created things,
42:50
Speaker 4: including bodies, are so amazingly good that fallen creatures like
42:56
Speaker 4: us will always be tempted to use them badly. It's
43:01
Speaker 4: almost the very goodness and beauty of creation that makes
43:03
Speaker 4: them fundamentally problematic for fallen creatures, because we're going to
43:08
Speaker 4: be enticed by their beauty, not because there's anything wrong
43:11
Speaker 4: with them, but because there's something fundamentally wrong with us,
43:15
Speaker 4: and we're constantly going to use this thing badly. The challenge,
43:19
Speaker 4: of course, is that your rhetoric can get complicated here.
43:22
Speaker 4: So the parallel that have often drawn if you've grown
43:25
Speaker 4: up in certain kinds of churches like I did, that
43:28
Speaker 4: have theologies of sexuality that were always around, Like the
43:31
Speaker 4: explicit theology was sex is good. It's a gift of God.
43:35
Speaker 4: God gave it to us. Experiencing marriage is amazing. It's
43:40
Speaker 4: the kind of the highest possible view of the goodness
43:42
Speaker 4: of sexuality. And that would get said like once or
43:45
Speaker 4: twice a year, and then like the other three hundred
43:48
Speaker 4: and sixty three days out of the year were especially
43:50
Speaker 4: if you're a teenager, right, it's dangerous as tempting, stay
43:53
Speaker 4: away from it, don't touch it, don't think about it.
43:55
Speaker 4: Like it was all of these that were actually being
43:57
Speaker 4: driven to a fairly signif degree by this high theology
44:01
Speaker 4: of sexuality, but the operationalizing of it was this kind
44:06
Speaker 4: of constant warning it's tempting that allowed us on the
44:11
Speaker 4: receiving end to actually walk away with a relatively low
44:15
Speaker 4: view of sexuality, even though that was the exact opposite, Right,
44:18
Speaker 4: So we walked away with it's dangerous, it's maybe bad,
44:23
Speaker 4: it's it's at least kind of conflicted. And I think
44:27
Speaker 4: that some of what you see with Augustine on the
44:30
Speaker 4: with the body here is I think, actually a very
44:32
Speaker 4: high view of the body, but it gets operationalized in
44:35
Speaker 4: complicated ways when all of your language around the body
44:39
Speaker 4: is warning in danger and temptation oriented kinds of language.
44:45
Speaker 4: I spent so long answering the first part of that
44:47
Speaker 4: that I forgot we went in the second half of that.
44:50
Speaker 3: No, So how do we not dismiss someone like Augustin,
44:54
Speaker 3: I guess is the way to put it and the
44:56
Speaker 3: warning that he wants to put there, that is a
44:58
Speaker 3: legitimate warning without being sucked into a kind of theology
45:03
Speaker 3: that ends up strengthening the hierarchy, minimizing the embodiment, lose
45:08
Speaker 3: a sight of who we are as embodied creatures, right, Yeah,
45:12
Speaker 3: that's right, because.
45:13
Speaker 4: You also asked about, like, what do we lose if
45:16
Speaker 4: we're not paying enough theological attention to the body, and
45:19
Speaker 4: what do we gain in this? Well, I think a
45:22
Speaker 4: good chunk of what we lose is most of human life,
45:26
Speaker 4: at least human life as it has actually lived and
45:28
Speaker 4: experienced in I don't know most of the Bible and
45:33
Speaker 4: history like it. Just we are embodied beings and there
45:36
Speaker 4: is nothing that we experience in the world that we
45:38
Speaker 4: don't experience in a way that is at least related
45:41
Speaker 4: to our bodies. I would say, tectually experience through our bodies.
45:44
Speaker 4: And I don't know how you think well and theologically
45:47
Speaker 4: about any aspect of human existence apart from thinking well
45:50
Speaker 4: and theologically about what it means to be embodied. So
45:52
Speaker 4: I just think we have fundamentally impoverished theilos anthropologies apart
45:58
Speaker 4: from a robust theology of embody meant and if theological
46:04
Speaker 4: anthropology also involves really important issues like gender and sexuality,
46:08
Speaker 4: and race and racism and identity, and I would say
46:13
Speaker 4: just things like parenting and teaching and any way time
46:16
Speaker 4: that we're trying to shape another person, we're doing so
46:18
Speaker 4: according to some concept of what it means to be
46:20
Speaker 4: human and how to flourish human persons. If those are
46:23
Speaker 4: all part of the doctrine of humanity, and if they're
46:25
Speaker 4: all really important, and if you can't think it well
46:27
Speaker 4: about any of them, apart from thinking well about what
46:30
Speaker 4: it means to have a body, then we've got problems.
46:32
Speaker 4: And we've just impoverished ourselves in relation to just a
46:36
Speaker 4: wealth of issues that we ought to be thinking about.
46:40
Speaker 4: What do we gain First, we're going to gain a
46:45
Speaker 4: what's the obvious impoferment wealth of theological resources for engaging
46:50
Speaker 4: those kinds of things. I think we reconnect some stuff.
46:55
Speaker 4: So something that I have I've done in class before
46:58
Speaker 4: is I'll students to brainstorm for me a list of
47:02
Speaker 4: things that you have to do in order to be
47:04
Speaker 4: spiritually healthy. And you know, you'll get your usual list
47:10
Speaker 4: of suspects, right, Pray, read your Bible, go to church,
47:12
Speaker 4: those sorts of things, and then no, it's not spiritually healthy.
47:17
Speaker 4: In order for spiritual maturity, and they'll list those kinds
47:20
Speaker 4: of things, and then I'll ask them to brainstorm for
47:23
Speaker 4: me a list of things that you have to do
47:25
Speaker 4: in order to be healthy as a human person, and
47:28
Speaker 4: they'll list all of the health related things, right, exercise
47:31
Speaker 4: and sleep and nutrition and whatnot. And then I'll step
47:34
Speaker 4: back and we'll have what is often a really good
47:36
Speaker 4: conversation about two things. I mean, why is it that
47:41
Speaker 4: the first list, the spiritual maturity list, is inevitably shorter
47:46
Speaker 4: than the health list, that they have a much easier
47:50
Speaker 4: time coming up with things that contribute to being healthy
47:53
Speaker 4: than they can kind of to be spiritually mature. And
47:55
Speaker 4: then I also want to know why did the two
47:57
Speaker 4: lists not overlap at all? No one thinks about those
48:01
Speaker 4: two as the same sort of thing. They are in
48:03
Speaker 4: fundamentally different categories. And we can reflect on that. Now.
48:07
Speaker 4: I will freely admit that I cheat a bit by
48:10
Speaker 4: using the language of spiritual maturity and the question, because
48:12
Speaker 4: I know it's going to skew their attention in a
48:15
Speaker 4: certain direction. But then we can have a conversation out
48:17
Speaker 4: why is that the case? Why does the language of
48:19
Speaker 4: spiritual maturity take you to one set of issues and
48:22
Speaker 4: not the other set of issues. I like to focus
48:24
Speaker 4: most of it on the language of health and why
48:28
Speaker 4: do we not think that spiritual maturity and health are
48:30
Speaker 4: related to each other in any significant way? And I
48:35
Speaker 4: think kind of thinking more robustly about embodiment will help
48:39
Speaker 4: us reconnect those things. And it may be that there
48:42
Speaker 4: are still distinctions that ought to be drawn in there,
48:44
Speaker 4: but they should not be as bifurcated as they are
48:46
Speaker 4: in the theological imaginations of most Christians.
48:49
Speaker 1: It's pretty fascinating because I came out of a health background,
48:53
Speaker 1: fitness background, So my bachelor's degree is an exercise fiz
48:56
Speaker 1: and I was a personal trainer for a while. And
48:59
Speaker 1: you know, as I've gone through life and done theology
49:02
Speaker 1: and looked at discipleship and spiritual maturity and all these
49:04
Speaker 1: different things, what you find is that that bifurcation is
49:07
Speaker 1: available almost everywhere. You know, if you if you were
49:11
Speaker 1: to ask a student, you know, what do you really
49:13
Speaker 1: need to do to study? They're not going to tell
49:15
Speaker 1: you I need to get a good night's sleep, Like
49:17
Speaker 1: those are almost always ancillary too.
49:20
Speaker 2: What's going on?
49:20
Speaker 1: But the reality is, I think people are starting to
49:23
Speaker 1: come around to this idea that the body affects the mind,
49:26
Speaker 1: The body affects the spirit. Like if you're not getting
49:30
Speaker 1: enough sleep, if you're spending all your time in front
49:32
Speaker 1: of your screen, if you're you know, all these different
49:34
Speaker 1: sort of things that have a diminishing effect on you
49:39
Speaker 1: and aren't good for you in high doses, right, sleep deprivation,
49:43
Speaker 1: food deprivation, you know, eating twinkies all day, whatever, it
49:46
Speaker 1: is like, these things are going to have that detrimental impact.
49:49
Speaker 1: I think we're starting to get our heads around maybe
49:52
Speaker 1: these things are more integrated than we've thought.
49:55
Speaker 4: Yes, And what I would like students to lean into
49:57
Speaker 4: a little bit more as well, is that I think
50:00
Speaker 4: think there's a goodness to caring for I hate to
50:05
Speaker 4: say my body here because it makes sound like it's
50:06
Speaker 4: not me caring for myself in embodied sorts of ways.
50:12
Speaker 4: I'm not sure why we can't think of that as
50:13
Speaker 4: a good in itself. Oftentimes, when we have this conversation,
50:17
Speaker 4: the first place that my students want to go in
50:20
Speaker 4: is Okay, well, it makes sense that I need to
50:22
Speaker 4: attend to these embodied realities because otherwise I won't be
50:26
Speaker 4: able to do the spiritual maturity stuff. Right, they don't
50:29
Speaker 4: get enough sleep, I won't be able to pray, or
50:31
Speaker 4: I'll fall asleep and I try to read my Bible,
50:33
Speaker 4: or if I'm not healthy enough, i won't be able to.
50:35
Speaker 2: Go to church.
50:36
Speaker 4: It's all instrumentalized on the body side of things, because
50:39
Speaker 4: the only goods at stake are the spiritual goods. It's
50:44
Speaker 4: the only thing the body stuff can be doing is
50:46
Speaker 4: help me achieve the only goods that are in view.
50:49
Speaker 4: And I want to say, no, there are goods on
50:51
Speaker 4: both sides of this equation. I don't want to downplay
50:54
Speaker 4: the reality of taking care of my body for the
50:56
Speaker 4: sake of doing the many things that God has called
50:59
Speaker 4: me to do in the world, but I have to
51:01
Speaker 4: instrumentalize all of them. And why it's not possible to
51:04
Speaker 4: think that God gave me a body and He probably
51:08
Speaker 4: thinks that it's a good thing that I take care
51:10
Speaker 4: of the I guess I don't want to say take
51:12
Speaker 4: care of the bodies, take care of myself in embodied
51:15
Speaker 4: sorts of ways. That sounds to me like something just
51:19
Speaker 4: ought to be good. And it's kind of funny that
51:21
Speaker 4: as Christians will often use that reasoning when thinking about
51:24
Speaker 4: creation itself. It's I don't have to think that I
51:28
Speaker 4: don't know, taking care of the forest preserved next to
51:30
Speaker 4: me is only good if it lends itself toward I
51:35
Speaker 4: don't know, the humans being healthier, and like we kind
51:39
Speaker 4: of think God made trees. He seems to like them,
51:41
Speaker 4: and so it's okay to want to take care of
51:43
Speaker 4: them and then rejoice in their beauty. For some reason,
51:47
Speaker 4: it's weird if we think that we ought to think
51:49
Speaker 4: about ourselves in the same sorts of ways.
51:52
Speaker 2: Oh, it's great.
51:54
Speaker 3: Well, I think James is laughing right there because the
51:57
Speaker 3: tree dynamic, right that that's gonna pulled me into something more.
52:01
Speaker 3: But I have to ask this in light of that.
52:03
Speaker 3: I know we're running out of time here. So there
52:08
Speaker 3: are actual studies done that have indicated that a significant
52:13
Speaker 3: component of mental health is related to our connection to trees,
52:18
Speaker 3: of all things. So the studies have shown that if
52:23
Speaker 3: you send someone through an old growth forest and they're
52:27
Speaker 3: struggling the way that the tree chatter, that's very real
52:31
Speaker 3: that we don't pick up with our ears, but we
52:33
Speaker 3: pick up sort of chemically with what they're doing interacts
52:36
Speaker 3: with us. Actually reduces anxiety and stress and increases development
52:42
Speaker 3: of hormones in our own body that calm us down,
52:47
Speaker 3: and it seems like a small thing related to health.
52:51
Speaker 3: But then you know, knowing those sorts of things, then
52:53
Speaker 3: you go to scripture and you realize the frequency within
52:58
Speaker 3: which Jesus is appealing to these sorts of dynamics just
53:01
Speaker 3: to talk about the Kingdom of God or even the
53:04
Speaker 3: ways in which he himself is going to interact with
53:07
Speaker 3: the Father. Before he's arrested. He goes to Guessemone, which
53:13
Speaker 3: seems to be, if I'm reading it correctly, a tree
53:16
Speaker 3: grove right, olive tree grove, and something that becomes less
53:21
Speaker 3: of a throwaway line, and it's more of an intuition
53:24
Speaker 3: of the work. The work that Jesus was doing wasn't
53:27
Speaker 3: disconnected from him actually walking and being in places right
53:33
Speaker 3: and ministering accordingly, and that's God and therefore means something right.
53:38
Speaker 3: The work is still to be done in terms of
53:40
Speaker 3: how closely and intimately we interweave the two, But there's
53:44
Speaker 3: got to be something related at that point to now
53:46
Speaker 3: thinking about the place of jesus work and the words
53:50
Speaker 3: that Jesus said, and the fact that they so deeply intertwine,
53:54
Speaker 3: and then his actions being so deeply moving in and
53:58
Speaker 3: out of these places to now think him on our
54:00
Speaker 3: own identity as human beings and that maturity health interwoven
54:05
Speaker 3: reality as well. Right, do you have any kind of
54:09
Speaker 3: a convoluted question but kind of drawful what you're saying.
54:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it relates to what I was saying
54:14
Speaker 4: earlier about the importance of thinking about our bodies and
54:17
Speaker 4: what it means to be embodied creatures living in a
54:21
Speaker 4: material world. That I think it causes us to think
54:24
Speaker 4: about our finitude and our particularity with our particular identities.
54:29
Speaker 4: But one of the key things is it that is
54:31
Speaker 4: is I mean, no material thing exists in this universe
54:34
Speaker 4: apart from being related to the other material things that
54:36
Speaker 4: exist in this universe. It's just how material things work.
54:39
Speaker 4: They are unavoidably connected to the other aspects of the
54:43
Speaker 4: material world. So it actually shouldn't surprise us that we
54:46
Speaker 4: are shaped and affected by other material things in creation
54:50
Speaker 4: in ways that we probably haven't even begun to comprehend
54:53
Speaker 4: and appreciate. And so I'm sure there is a logic
54:57
Speaker 4: for taking care of the rest of creation because it's
55:00
Speaker 4: going to contribute to our own flourishing. I wouldn't want
55:03
Speaker 4: that to be the only logic in view, I think
55:06
Speaker 4: it's okay to attend to the flourishing of other creatures
55:09
Speaker 4: just because God created them and seems to like them.
55:13
Speaker 4: But absolutely I think that in doing so we are
55:15
Speaker 4: probably attending to our own flourishing in ways we don't
55:19
Speaker 4: yet understand. Now. I also always want to acknowledge we
55:22
Speaker 4: live in a broken material world, and so none of
55:25
Speaker 4: this always lends itself the easy answers to questions about
55:28
Speaker 4: when it isn't it okay to chop down that tree
55:31
Speaker 4: that is actually helping with my mental health? But I
55:35
Speaker 4: also don't know that we can rustle with that question
55:37
Speaker 4: well without thinking and attending carefully to what is that
55:40
Speaker 4: tree is a part of the creative order that God
55:42
Speaker 4: has given us and has called us to inhabit faithfully well.
55:48
Speaker 3: Arguably, wrestling with that is an element of maturity, right
55:52
Speaker 3: even beyond the health benefits that might have to my
55:55
Speaker 3: mental state. It is an element of maturity to begin
55:57
Speaker 3: to think about ourselves as creatures, given in places, embodied,
56:03
Speaker 3: but also interwoven in these deep and meaningful ways, so
56:07
Speaker 3: that what's good for them, them being the trees and
56:09
Speaker 3: the other creatures, is also good for me, but not
56:11
Speaker 3: just good for me, right that there's that give and take.
56:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, well, guys, it seems clear that we probably
56:20
Speaker 1: need to have another conversation. This was great, but we
56:23
Speaker 1: are absolutely out of time. And Mark really appreciate you
56:27
Speaker 1: being here. This was fabulous. I really enjoyed the conversation
56:31
Speaker 1: and would love to have you back if your willing.
56:34
Speaker 1: I think a more robust understanding or discussion of the
56:37
Speaker 1: image of God would certainly help. And so if you're willing,
56:41
Speaker 1: we'd love to have you back. And I really appreciate
56:44
Speaker 1: you being here for the hour.
56:45
Speaker 4: This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate the
56:47
Speaker 4: invitation and the opportunity. Thank you.
56:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, everybody, Well, thanks for being here. Thanks Ashijh,
56:53
Speaker 1: Thanks Mark, and we will catch you on the next
56:56
Speaker 1: episode of Thinking Christian Take care of Everybody. I just
56:58
Speaker 1: want to take a second to thank that team at
57:00
Speaker 1: Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking
57:03
Speaker 1: Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll
57:06
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