St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology (Jun 2024)
Mind and Consciousness
Abstract
Mind and consciousness are philosophically and theologically significant in many religious and secular traditions. This article focuses on the importance of the concepts of mind and consciousness in Christian theological views of human nature and God. Christian theological teachings that have implications for ideas of mind and consciousness are diverse; theological anthropology includes versions of soul-body dualism, hylomorphism, materialism, and a variety of alternatives. Because of the historical prominence of some form of soul-body dualism in Christian thought about human nature – and because critics of Christian theology in recent philosophy link the credibility of theism with the plausibility of dualism – this article investigates the cogency of dualism and its ostensible link with theism. Sections include an overview of Christian theological anthropology; a depiction of the hostility toward mind and consciousness in modern philosophy; the combined critique and the recent resurgence of dualism and Christian theism; theological objections to dualism; and mind and consciousness in Christian theology without dualism, including Christian forms of agnosticism, hylomorphism, materialism, idealism, and panpsychism.
