Useful thoughts on the theme this blog pursues, that of the essence of what it is to be human, arose at an international conference on "Exploring the Mind, Body & Soul - How Innovation and Novel Delivery Systems Improve Human Health" involving experts in many fields.
The meeting, hosted by the Vatican and the Cura Foundation of the U.S., delved into how a deeper understanding of ecology, economics, technologies used in health care, and philanthropy, each and together, could have a more positive impact on health.
Participants included physicians, scientists, ethicists, religious leaders, patient rights advocates, policymakers, and philanthropists. Dr. Anthony Fauci and Chelsea Clinton were part of the wide-ranging group of commentators. The goal was to discuss the latest breakthroughs in medicine, healthcare delivery and prevention, as well as the human implications and cultural impact of technological advances.
The Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, in a message concluding the event, stated that “humanity is called to look at itself without presuming absolute superiority”, since we are not the only living beings on this planet, and our lives depend on many other living organisms that are part of a delicately balanced ecosystem.
He observed that, while we have shared characteristics with the animal world, human beings are unique given our rationality, moral conscience, aesthetic sense and openness to the transcendent.
Pope Francis also offered his perspective on this complex topic, and we will look at his insights later in this post.
Concerning rationality, Parolin noted that humans’ high degree of self-understanding means we can “reflect not only on ourselves, but also on others and on the universe around us”.
Accordingly, technology has to be directed to improving our living conditions and health, as well as systems and structures affecting how we live, think and act.
In these areas. our moral conscience helps us distinguish between good and evil, making us think about ethical questions relating to ourselves individually and communally.
“A strong moral sense pushes us to denounce and take actions that put an end to injustice” through humanitarian outreach and solidarity, Parolin said.
The aesthetic sense, he added, also marks a unique characteristic of human beings, since we are able “to contemplate beauty” and “express it in the many forms of art”, such as painting, sculpture, music and dance.
Finally, the most sublime dimension of human existence is our “openness to the transcendent horizon that in the lives of many of us results in religious experience”, which drive us to question ourselves “on the ultimate questions and the horizon that goes beyond the mere earthly dimension”.
He recalled that ancient thinkers in the Greek and Roman eras summed up this specificity and uniqueness of the human being as “humanitas”.
In conclusion, he encouraged the meeting participants, philosophers and people of culture to “continue to deepen the mystery of our existence with enthusiasm and determination, to discover and remain fascinated by what makes us truly human.”
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| Pope Francis. Source Vatican Media |
Pope Francis, in his separate message to the conference, highlighted how the conference centered on mind, body and soul – three fundamental areas that differ somewhat from the “classical” Christian vision which understands the person as “an inseparable unity of body and soul, the latter being endowed with intellect and will.”
Moreover, St. Paul speaks of spirit, soul and body (1 Thess 5:23), a tripartite model that was taken up by Church Fathers and various modern thinkers.
These divisions “rightly indicate that certain dimensions of our being, nowadays all too often disjoined, are in fact profoundly and inseparably interrelated.”
The biological stratum of our existence, expressed in our corporeity, meaning our body, represents the most immediate of these dimensions, even if it is not the easiest to understand.
“We are not pure spirits; for each of us, everything starts with our body, but not only - from conception to death, we do not simply have a body; we are a body,” Pope Francis said, adding that Christian faith tells us that this will also be true in the final resurrection. [There is a unity not as an "embodied soul" or and "ensouled body" but as an "embodied person".
In this regard, the Pope noted that through interdisciplinary studies we can come to appreciate “the dynamics involved in the relationship between our physical condition and the state of our habitat, between health and nourishment, our psycho-physical wellbeing and the care of the spiritual life – also through the practice of prayer and meditation – and finally between health and sensitivity to art, and especially music.”
It is, therefore, no accident “that medicine serves as a bridge between the natural and the human sciences, so much so that in the past it could be defined as philosophia corporis – medicine as philosophia corporis,” he said.
Furthermore, a broader vision and a commitment to interdisciplinary research makes greater knowledge possible, which translates to “more sophisticated research and increasingly suitable and exact strategies of care” when applied to the medical sciences.
On this issue, the Pope gave the example of progress in the vast field of genetics, aimed at curing a variety of diseases. However, this progress has come with “a number of anthropological and ethical issues” including the manipulation of the human genome aimed at controlling or overcoming the aging process or achieving human enhancement.
The mind and the brain
Also important is the second dimension of the “mind – body-mind which makes possible our self-understanding,” Pope Francis said.
Here, the essence of our humanity is often identified with the brain and its neurological processes. However, “despite the vital importance of the biological and functional aspects of the brain, these do not provide an overarching explanation of all those phenomena that define us as human, many of which are not 'measurable' and thus transcend the materiality of the body.”
“We cannot possess a mind without cerebral matter, yet the mind cannot be reduced to the mere materiality of the brain. This is an equation to follow,” he said.
The mind-body question
On the subject of the mind, Francis underlined that the interplay between the natural and human sciences has led to increased efforts to grasp the relationship between the material and non-material aspects of our being. The mind-body question, originally the domain of philosophers and theologians, is now of interest to people studying the mind-brain relationship.
He pointed out that in the scientific context, the term “mind” can present difficulties that need to be approached in an interdisciplinary way.
For example, he said, "mind” can “indicate a reality ontologically distinct from, yet capable of interacting with, our biological substratum.” At the same time, “mind” usually indicates “the entirety of the human faculties, particularly in relation to the formation of thought”, which raises the question of the origin of human faculties including “moral sensitivity, meekness, compassion, empathy and solidarity, which find expression in philanthropic gestures, disinterested concern for others, and the aesthetic sense, to say nothing of the search for the infinite and the transcendent.”
The soul
In the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Greek philosophical tradition, “these human traits are associated with the transcendent dimension of the human person, identified with the immaterial principle of our being, that of the soul – body, mind and soul,” the Pope stated.
He explained that the third dimension of the conference – the soul – is considered from the viewpoint of classical philosophy, as “the constituent principle organizing the body as a whole and the origin of our intellectual, affective and volitional qualities, including the moral conscience.”
More so, Scriptures, theological and philosophical reflection employ the concept of soul to “define our uniqueness as human beings and the specificity of the person, which is irreducible to any other living being and includes our openness to a supernatural dimension and thus to God.”
“We can say in simple terms that it is like a window, which opens up onto a view of the horizon.”
Concluding his message, Pope Francis encouraged the participants to pursue interdisciplinary research for the sake of a better understanding of our human nature.
In fact, the conference held a roundtable on exploring the relationship of religion and spirituality to health and wellbeing, including the relationship between mind, body and soul. That discussion dealt with the deeper meaning of human existence and and sought areas of convergence between the humanities and the natural sciences.
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