I have heard of many philosophical arguments for the existence of God which do not rely on Scripture. Are there similar arguments for the existence of angels and spirits/souls?

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"Belief" itself and historical revisionism's fascination with the power of "ideas" proves a spiritual realm.

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Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

Pascal tried to do this. He was going to prove the existance of God by the existance of the devil. So he drew a pentagram on the ground, but the experience made him afraid. His fear showed him that the spiritual realm was real.

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Richard Kairelis
Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church, RPCNA (Prarie View, IL)
Chicago, IL

Here's a good argument, I think, for the existence of the soul.

(P1) For any two things x and y, if they are identical, then everything that is true of x is true of y, and everything that is true of y is true of x.
(P2) There are some things true of me that are not true of my body, or any part of my body, or any physical thing in the universe at all.
(C1) Therefore, I am not identical to my body or any part of my body or any physical thing in the universe at all.

If that's true, then it seems the only thing I could be is a nonphysical thing, namely, a soul.

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Steven Nemes
Phoenix, AZ

Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy must be answered - C.S. Lewis

Only if you assume fear is rational.

I'm afraid of dragons, does that mean dragons are real?

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Andrew DeShazo
Husband of Kathryn
Father of Phillip-Giles B. DeShazo
Deacon
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Memphis, TN
"From out of the depth of unbroken Infinfity arose the Question, "Who am I?" And to that Question there is the answer, "I am God!" -Meher Baba, died 1969.

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Christ, died 33 AD, ressurected three days later.

Help me with P2. What are some things about me that are not true of my body? Emotions? Thoughts? Self-awareness?

I know about three philosophical arguments that are used to prove the existence of the soul.

1. The Argument from Intentionality
All of us have thoughts and those thoughts are about something. For example, if you are thinking of baseball, then you are having thoughts about baseball. The idea that your thoughts are about something is called “intentionality.” In other words, your thoughts have the quality of “aboutness” and “aboutness” is called “intentionality.” Your thoughts refer to things outside of themselves. Your thoughts transcend themselves and your mind as they refer to people, places, or things. This quality of aboutness or intentionality is something that physical objects do not have. Physical objects do not refer outside themselves in the same way that thoughts do.

2. Mental phenomena are not identical with physical entities
There are things that are true of mental phenomena, which are not true of physical entities like neurons. Physical entities like neurons are spatially located, but one’s beliefs, thoughts, and desires are not. Physical entities have physical properties such as electrical charge, mass, volume, and so on, but mental phenomena do not have those properties. It makes no sense to say that my thought of San Francisco is two millimeters long or that it is located one millimeter away from my right ear or that it has a certain weight and smell.

3. The Knowledge Argument developed by Frank Jackson
Suppose there is a scientist who spends her entire life in a black and white room and she never sees color. She learns everything there is to know about how people perceive color. She learns about all of the brain states that are related with perceiving color. If she were to step out of the room and observe colorful things such as a rainbow, a multi-colored jacket, and so on would she learn something new? The answer is “Yes.” Having firsthand experience of seeing color is not identical with knowing the physiology of seeing color. One’s subjective experience of what color looks like does not have the same properties as one’s knowledge of the physiology of seeing color. If they had the same properties, then the scientist would not learn anything new upon leaving the room and seeing different colors.

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Curt Hayashida
member, Community Bible Church (Non-denominational)
Vallejo, CA

Lust, pride, ambition, anger, love, joy, peace, patience..

Some of those are debatable--lust, for example.

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Jonathan
Audio Engineer
Reformed Anabaptist
Ohio

Moroni's magical glasses of proper interpretation:

Actions can result from lust, but the feeling remains immaterial. The same with hate, love, or a number of other emotions.

Could it not be said, though, that the source of lust is hormonal and thus material?

If this sort of lust is hormonal, then it is natural, thus not sinful. Lust in terms of sin is an action of the mind.

Would y'all agree with Berkhof?

Yes, unless your philosophy says that only material things exist, thus angels are disproven by default.

It is true of me at some times that I desire a good education and a wife. It hardly can be said that my body or any part of my body desires a good education and a wife.

It does not follow from the fact that my desires, beliefs, etc., are caused by physical processes (say hormones being released into my bloodstream) that therefore they just are physical things or processes. My moving my fingers in a certain way is caused by some processes in my brain and central nervous system; but it doesn't follow that moving my fingers just is a process in my brain and central nervous system. It could be true that I desire X only because of some physical events or processes; it still is true that I desire X and it can't be said of my body or any part of my body that it desires X.

Furthermore, I have the property of being such that I can possibly exist when my body doesn't. Suppose that I undergo a super-advanced medical procedure where they remove every macro-part of my body and quickly replace it with another similar part, soon after destroying the original. (If you have problems with the brain, suppose we remove particle by particle until the whole brain has been replaced and the original destroyed.) Furthermore suppose I remain conscious during the whole thing. This seems logically possible, and if it is, then I have the property of possibly existing when my body does not. So then I am not identical with my body.

Great stuff! Isn't it true that every macro-part of our bodies is replaced at the cellular level? Isn't our body, including the brain, destroyed and replaced over and over? And do not we remain conscious during the process? Could this support your argument?

I don't think this is true. It does not follow from the fact that some act A is natural that therefore some act A is not sinful.

All of my sinful behavior is natural; but clearly it is sinful.

Could you define what you mean by 'natural'?

-----Added 11/2/2009 at 05:42:02 EST-----

Yes, you're right. All of our cells in our body are eventually destroyed or replaced, including those in the brain.

This is a familiar fact relevant to the problem of personal identity. Do 'I' continue to exist? What sort of thing am 'I'? It seems that I continue to exist over time even though the various parts of my body are changed and destroyed--so I can't be those parts or my body.

Assuming that other 4-dimensional views of personal identity are false, then you have an argument for the existence of a soul on the basis of the phenomenon of personal identity. It seems I continue to exist a long long time, even while all the parts of my body are changed and exchanged and destroyed, so I can't be my body.

By nature, I mean biological. Hormones are natural, so that their effects cannot be sinful any more than being hungry is sinful, since it is natural.

Well, except for the fact that we live in a fallen world, so not everything that's "natural" is "right".

Why can't some biological feature of me be sinful? I obviously can be held responsible for my sin even if it is decreed that it happens; why not be held responsible for biological factors?

Sin is either expressed in action or thought, and not through the way any part of the body functions. Sin is a choice, but a bodily function happends independently of the will according to the laws of nature. We should not fault nature as being sinful, since God made nature very good. Yes, nature is corrupted, but people sin, not nature.