Re: George Coyne and Richard Dawkins

On Thu, 23 May 2024 08:00:03 -0700, John Harshman
<john.harshman@gmail.com> wrote:

On 5/23/24 1:38 AM, Martin Harran wrote:

On Wed, 22 May 2024 16:51:07 +0100, "Kerr-Mudd, John"
<admin@127.0.0.1> wrote:
 

On Wed, 22 May 2024 07:44:39 -0700
John Harshman <john.harshman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
[time for a snip]

He got himself into that pickle by saying God is not an intervening
engineer. The alternative is that every living thing has a soul.

>
There are other alternatives. For example, the soul could be an emergent
property of the body, particularly of the brain. If he gave us brains
(mentioned above), souls could have come along with that, and perhaps
even gradually. Maybe chimps have near-but-not-quite-souls.
>

>
How about: God emerges from sapient (or could I say superstitious?) beings?

 
"Though sensitive soul in man and brute agree generically, yet they
differ specifically. As the animal, man, differs specifically from
other animals by being rational, so the sentient soul of a man differs
specifically from the sentient soul of a brute by being also
intelligent. The soul therefore of a brute has sentient attributes
only, and consequently neither its being nor its activity rises above
the order of the body: hence it must be generated with the generation
of the body, and perish with its destruction. But the sentient soul in
man, over and above its sentient nature, has intellectual power: hence
the very substance of this soul must be raised above the bodily order
both in being and in activity; and therefore it is neither generated
by the generation of the body, nor perishes by its destruction."
 
Thomas Aquinas, Of God and His Creatures, chapter LXXXVIII, LXXXIX

>
To the extent that Aquinas can be understood here, he seems to be going
back to the first option, that God is an intervening engineer, creating
and installing a soul into each human.

I can't claim any particular insight into Aquinas, I was just aware
from discussion elsewhere that he considered all animals to have a
soul of some type. What struck me in the above was where he said "As
the animal, man, differs specifically from other animals by being
rational …" He doesn't sound like somebody who would have been
perturbed at the idea of humans evolving from other species.