Logos 2012
Minds, Bodies, and the Divine
May 3-5, 2012 at the University of Notre Dame
Various ancient religious/philosophical systems (Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and Stoicism) maintained that the divine mind 'embodied' itself in the world in much the same way in which immaterial souls are supposedly embodied in human organisms. Christianity has likewise traditionally endorsed a duality of mind and body, and maintains that, in becoming incarnate, the Son of God somehow took on both a human soul and a human body.
In the 20th and 21st centuries mind-body dualism has come under heavy fire; philosophers in the Christian tradition have begun to explore what implications contemporary materialism might have for their doctrines of incarnation and afterlife; and other philosophers have begun to explore naturalistic and materialistic variations on panentheism.
In this workshop, we bring together philosophers and theologians with interests in contemporary philosophy of mind to explore questions about the nature of embodiment and about the relations between minds (human and divine) and the material world.
Thursday, May 3
11:10am - 12:30pm Christina Van Dyke - Calvin College
"Shiny Happy People: Aquinas on (Im)Perfect Happiness and the Limits of Human Nature"
- Commentator: Susan Brower-Toland - Saint Louis University
- Chair: Han-luen Kantzer Komline - University of Notre Dame
2:00pm - 3:20pm Jonathan Jacobs - Saint Louis University
"Apophatic Anthropology?"
- Commentator: Thomas McCall - Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
- Chair: Alicia Finch - Northern Illinois University
3:30pm - 4:50pm Andrea C. White - Emory University
"The Phenomenal Face of God: The God Question in Jean-Luc Marion's Erotic Reduction"
- Commentator: Cristian Mihut - Bethel College
- Chair: Elizabeth Antus - University of Notre Dame
7:30pm Hud Hudson - Western Washington University
"The Father of Lies?"
- Chair: Amy Seymour - University of Notre Dame
Friday, May 4
11:10am - 12:30pm L. A. Paul - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"Family Planning is Not Rational"
- Commentator: Frances Howard-Snyder - Western Washington University
- Chair: Meghan Sullivan - University of Notre Dame
2:00pm - 3:20pm Lea Schweitz - Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
"Imago dei, Incarnation, and the Stakes for Mind-Body Dualism"
- Commentator: Jeffrey Snapper - University of Notre Dame
- Chair: Erin Kidd - Marquette University
3:30pm - 4:50pm Peter Martens - Saint Louis University
"Embodiment in Origen and Plato: Pre-Existent Souls and their Fall"
- Commentator: Trenton Merricks - University of Virginia
- Chair: Peter Forrest - University of New England
7:30pm Dean Zimmerman - Rutgers University
"Live, In Concert: Cannibal Corpse! or, Who's Afraid of Resurrection by Reassembly?"
- Chair: Brian Leftow - Oriel College
Saturday, May 5
10:00am - 11:20am Marc Cortez - Western Seminary
"The Human Person as Communicative Event: Jonathan Edwards on the Mind/Body Relationship"
- Commentator: Ian McFarland - Emory University
- Chair: Jesse Couenhoven - Villanova University
11:30am - 12:50pm Lucian Turcescu - Concordia University
"On Personhood in the Cappadocians and John Zizioulas"
- Commentator: Tamsin Jones - University of Victoria
- Chair: Georg Gasser - University of Innsbruck
2:40pm - 4:00pm Timothy O’Connor - Indiana University, Bloomington
"Do Immaterial Souls Matter for Christian Theology?"
- Commentator: David Vander Laan - Westmont College
- Chair: Evan Fales - University of Iowa