Problem cielesności pamięci w perspektywie eschatologicznej

Abstract

The question of bodylines of the memory in the eschatological perspective

During last decades the cognitive sciences have progressed a lot in analysing the link between mind and body on the field of philosophy of mind. The results of the body-mind investigations influence largely also theology. The classical theological thought considers the will, the reason and the memory as faculties of the soul. However, contemporary neuroscience attempts, with some success, to discover physical (i.e. cerebral) substrates of these faculties, which impacts also philosophy of the mind.

In this perspective, mutability and fragility of human body that is, according to psychologists, the memory’s ground, as well as human identity taken in its theological understanding, determined by the memory but transcending the temporal life, require some re-analysis of the spiritual dimension of the memory (and of other spiritual faculties) and some connection between the spiritual and the bodily sphere in the perspective of relation of the man with God. Though, theology must respect the scientific solutions of the body-mind question.

In order to undertake it, the very object of theology and neuroscience has to be analysed to ascertain whether the memory examined by both sciences constitutes the same phenomenon. Then, one should analyse the philosophical assumptions of their discourses. Only these preliminary inquiries will allow to determine the philosophical area to build an integral reflexion. In turn, only this area may constitute the basis for such an anthropological-theological system that could retain its integrity vis-à-vis the discoveries of neuroscience.