Abstract
Distinguishing a person's soul or mind from a person's body describes dualism, the philosophical premise that fails to integrate the person as one, but instead leaves the person as two, usually as souland body or as mindand body. In dualism, one tends to think of the soul or the mind as the person and the body as an appendage. I argue that 1) dualism is rampant in medicine; 2) that Christian theology has fundamentally opposed it, and 3) that cultural dualism today threatens the aging in particular. To deal with this threat, I argue that the moral task of being human is to become one in mind and body. That is, I argue that the unity of the person which is the unity of the mind and body is not really a metaphysical given, but rather the goal or end of being human.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Scott Heller, “Pecs, Traps and Athletes' Scars: Journal Taps Wave of New Scholarly Analysis of Men's Bodies”,The Chronicle of Higher Education 40 (1993), p. A10.
Susan Bordo,Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993.
Gary Ferngren and Darrel Amundsen, “Virtue and Health/Medicine in Pre-Christian Antiquity,” ed. E. Shelp,Virtue and Medicine, Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel, 1988, pp. 3–22.
See Gabriel Marcel,Metaphysical Journal. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1952, p. 315.
Barbara Stafford,Body Criticism: Imaging the Unseen in Englightenment Art and Medicine. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991.
S. K. Toombs, “Illness and the Paradigm of Lived Body”,Theoretical Medicine 9 (1988), p. 201.
Richard Zaner,The Context of Self: A Phenomenological Inquiry Using Medicine as a Clue. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1981.
Tom Beauchamp and James Childress,Principles of Biomedical Ethics, third edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 67–119.
Sally Gadow, “Recovering the Body in Aging,” ed. Nancy Jecker.Aging and Ethics,, Clifton, NJ: Humana Press, 1991, pp. 113–120.
Oliver Sacks, “The Leg”,London Review of Books, 17 (1982), pp. 3, 4.
Emily Martin,The Woman in the Body: A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction, Boston: Beacon Press, 1987, pp. 19–20.
Lori Andrews, “My Body, My Property,”Hastings Center Report 16, 5 (1986): 28–38. See also Courtney Campbell, “Body, Self, and the Property Paradigm,”,The Hastings Center Report 22 (1992), pp. 34–43.
I make a similar proposal in “Genetic Research and the Elusive Body,” in M. Farley and L. S. Cahill, eds.Embodiment, Medicine and Morality Kluwer Academics, 1995, pp. 59–73.
Arthur Frank argues against objectifying even illness or death itself and adds that these experiences ought to be understood, not clinically, but through narrative. See hisAt the Will of the Body. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1992.
See Meredith McGuire, “Religion and the Body,”The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 29 (1990), pp. 283–296, and especially pp. 287–289.
See Antoine Vergote, “The Body as Understood in Contemporary Thought and Biblical Categories,”Philosophy Today (1991); pp. 93–105; G. Haeffner,The Human Situation: A Philosophical Anthropology. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1989, pp. 97–116.
Rudolf Bultmann “Soma,”Theology of the New Testament vol. 1, London, SCM Press, 1952, pp. 192–203.
R. Jewett,Paul's Anthropological Terms. Leiden Brill, 1971, p. 1.
E. Earle Ellis, “Soma in First Corinthians,”,Interpretation 44 (1990); pp. 132–144; Normand Bonneau, “The Logic of Paul's Argument on the Resurrection of the Body in 1 Cor 15: 35–44a,”Science et Esprit 45 (1993), pp. 79–92.
Brian Daley, “The Ripening of Salvation: Hope for Resurrection in the Early Church,”Communio 17 (1990), p. 32. See also hisThe Hope of the Early Church. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Gedaliahu Stroumsa, “Caro salutis cardo: Shaping the Person in Early Christian Thought,”History of Religions 30 (1990), p. 35.
Ibid.,, pp. 39–40.
Peter Brown,The Body and Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988. See also his “Late Antiquity,” in P. Veyne,A History of Private Life, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987, pp. 235–311.
Caroline Bynum,Holy Feast and Holy Fast. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987 andFragmentation and Redemption. New York: Zone Books, 1991.
Bynum,Holy Feast and Holy Fast, p. 6.
Stroumsa, p. 44.
Scott Heller, “Philosopher Links Classical Texts and ‘Vogue’ Models in Study of Cultural Pressures on Women and Their Bodies,”,The Chronicle of Higher Education 40 (1993), p. A10.
Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, “The Problem of the Body for the People of the Book,” inPeople of the Body: Jews and Judaism from an Embodied Perspective: Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992, pp. 17–46.
Michael Barnes, “The Body in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola,”Religion 19 (1989); p. 263.
Hugo Rahner, “Application of the Senses,” inIgnatius the Theologian. New York: Herder and Herder, 1968, pp. 181–213.
Besides Barnes see James Nelson, “For Most of the Christian Era We Have Mistrusted, Feared, and Discounted Our Bodies” inBody Theology. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1992, p. 9. See the polemic in Uta Ranke-Heinemann,Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven: Women, Sexuality and the Catholic Church. New York: Doubleday, 1990.
See Pierre PayerSex and the Penitentials: The Development of a Sexual Code, 550–1150. Toronto: Toronto University, 1984 andThe Bridling of Desire: Views of Sex in the Later Middle Ages. Toronto, Toronto University Press, 1993.
James F. Keenan, “Christian Perspectives on the Human Body,”Theological Studies 55 (1994) pp. 331–332.
Thomas Tentler,Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation. Princeton: Princeton University, 1977, p. 165.
In an analogous way two important religious ethicists address the respect due to dead human bodies: see, William F. May, “Attitudes toward the Newly Dead,”The Hastings Center Studies, 1 (1973); pp. 3–13, and “Religious Justifications for Donating Body Parts,”The Hastings Center Studies, 15; (1985), pp. 38–42; Leon Kass, “Thinking About the Body,”The Hastings Center Studies, 15 (1985), pp. 20–30. For a contemporary secularist view of the human body, see Joel Feinberg, “The Mistreatment of Dead Bodies,“The Hastings Center Studies, 15 (1985), pp. 31–37.
Walter Kasper,Jesus the Christ. New York: Paulist Press, 1976, p. 150.
William F. May, “Who Cares for the Elderly,”The Hastings Center Report 11 (1982); pp. 31–37.
See Sallie McFague,The Body of God. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993 and Elizabeth Johnson,She Who Is. New York: Crossroads, 1992. For disturbing exclusive writing, see Michael Novak, “Women, Ordination and Angels,”First Things 32 (1993), pp. 25–32; and Mary and Leon Podles, “The Emasculation of God,”America 161 (1989), pp. 372–374.
Kathryn Spink,Jean Vanier and l'Arche: A Communion of Love. New York: Crossroads, 1991; Jean Vanier,The Broken Body. New York: Paulist Press, 1988, andFrom Brokenness to Communion. New York: Paulist Press, 1991.
David Morris,The Culture of Pain. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991; Elaine Scarry,The Body in Pain. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
See Barbara Bozak, “Suffering and the Psalms of Lament,”Eglise et Theologie 23 (1992), pp. 325–338.
Mario Moussa and Thomas Shannon, “The Search for the New Pineal Gland,”Hastings Center Report 22 (1992), pp. 30–37; see also, Tullo Goffi, “Morte cerebrale e morte personale,”Rivista di teologia morale 24 (1992), pp. 359–363.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Keenan, J.F. Dualism in medicine, Christian theology, and the aging. J Relig Health 35, 33–45 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02354943
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02354943