Zadok Paper S100 Winter 1999
The Nature of Humans-Mind and Brain; Body, Soul and Spirit
by Alan Gijspers

The Paper: Sugar and spice or slugs and snails? Even as children we speculated on what little boys and girls are made of, and already we divided it into the nice and the awful. But what are we really made of? Seventy per cent water, a few kilos of blood and bone-altogether not very much according to one children's illustration, which would go on to describe how precious we were in God's eyes because of Christ's love for us. That illustration of course is in error because we are not just the value of our component parts, but the way the components are arranged that give value. Thus carbon in the form of diamonds is much more precious that carbon in the form of graphite. But what determines our worth? The scriptures of the Old and New Testament give one perspective, and science gives another. These two sources of understanding are sometimes regarded as in conflict, at other times they seem to agree. This paper seeks to explore the interface between science and the Bible in relation to human beings. Of course, there are other sources of knowledge than these two, but this paper will look mainly at these two sources. (This paper is based on a paper delivered to the Institute for the Study of Christianity in an Age of Science and Technology [ISCAST] National Conference in June 1997.)

The Author: Alan J. Gijsbers MBBS FRACP DTM&H PGDip Epi, is Specialist Physician at Turning Point Drug and Alcohol Centre and at the Department of Drug and Alcohol Studies St Vincent's Hospital. He is a Visiting Physician at the Epworth Hospital, a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Medicine at the Department of Psychological Medicine Monash University and Senior Fellow at St Vincent's Hospital Clinical School, University of Melbourne. He also contributes to a Dual Diagnosis Clinic at the St John of God and St Vincent's Collaborating Centre consulting on people with both Drug and Alcohol and Psychiatric Disorders. He is a fellow ISCAST and editor of their national bulletin. He also somehow manages to be a husband to his wife, Lois, and a father to three children.

Introduction

How does the Bible and science help us understand people, their nature and their value? In examining this question we will start to understand the strengths and limitations of the scientific method and also the Bible's answers to these questions. Of course, the Bible expresses who we are in psychological terms far removed from our current understanding and this challenges our interpretation of the Bible. But in spite of this, when we use our imagination to enter the world of the Bible, we find ourselves nourished by what we find.

In looking at who we are, we are exploring the interface between the material and the spiritual. In our search about how we understand ourselves, we will encounter a number of different perspectives. Sometimes it is hard to put some of these perspectives together. We need to recognise that our knowledge is incomplete and that the debate will continue.

Who are we? And what is our value? We are Homo Sapiens (from the Latin homo, humans, and sapiens, intelligent, wise). We are beings who think. How do we think? Where does thinking come from? What do we think with? Where does the mind reside and how does it function? What about other aspects of our inner life and in particular what about our soul and what about our spirituality? Can science give us answers here or are these questions beyond science?

Before we start on the mind-brain issue from a scientific perspective, we need to look at how we have come to understand these topics.

To: The methods of knowing and the limits of a science