On Self and Soul
"In our current culture, 'soul' has given way to 'self' as the term of choice to designate who and what we are. Self is the soul minus God. Self is what is left of soul with all the transcendence and intimacy squeezed out, the self with little or no reference to God (transcendence) or others (intimacy)."
—Eugene Peterson, "Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places"
There is a startling shift in the way we see ourselves in relation to the world at the end of the medieval age. It is a complex process which writers like Charles Taylor have tried to trace (his magisterial "Sources of the Self" is a sprawling work with fingers working into every corner of Western civilization). However it came about, "soul" gave way to "self." And there is much more in that shift than a simple secularization, a step away from God.
As medieval philosophy gave way to Enlightenment thought, the individual human agent became the center of all meaning. The self—an isolated subject, a single mind looking out through the tunnel of his senses—gathered perceptions, made sense of them, constructed in his mind an image of the world, etc. He assigned words to the images, gave them meaning by identifying them.
It did not take long for an ugly problem to raise its head: how could the self ever be sure that he was seeing what was really there? The fact that we can make mistakes, be deceived, haunts modern philosophy. If we are selves—radically individual, alone in our minds looking out on a world that is entirely other—how can we "check" what we are perceiving with what is really there?
This gives rise to a pile of hypothetical situations which the self can't handle. What if you are, in fact, a brain in a vat, being stimulated by electrodes? What if this is, actually, the Matrix? A question which makes sophomore philosophy students wild with excitement.
The problem with the self is solipsism—the chance that you might, in fact, be the only real person, or at least you can never actually connect with others. You are radically, entirely, alone. Because you can never step out of your "self" to check, to know, that any one is really there at all.
The fact that this problem comes up is not a fault of our human existence. It is a signpost that we have articulate our experience badly. "Self" does not do the job. Rule one in philosophy: when your abstract hypothesis forces you to make silly conclusions that contradict everything you knew before you started doing philosophy, ditch the hypothesis. Start over.
"Soul," as Eugene Peterson points out, neatly sidesteps the problem of solipsism. "Our core identity comes out as persons-in-relationship... 'Soul is a word reverberating with relationships: God-relationships, human-relationships, earth-relationships."
To reclaim the term "soul" is not just to inject God back into our discourse. It is a sensible move, philosophically speaking. One cannot speak of "soul" without overtones of relationship to something Other than the self—something outside, which cannot be reduced away. A soul cannot be alone; its very breath is given by God.
I want to point out that the shift between "soul" and "self" is not neutral; it is morally charged. To be a "self" is an assertion of radical independence and freedom. The self is defined in contradistinction to an Other who would try to limit it; the self is the locus of Rights, and must be defended. It is inevitable that the self with eventually claim the ability to define what is right and what is wrong.
To be a "soul" is to admit, from the start, dependence. A soul receives life from the outside, and with it a responsibility. Souls must come to understand what has been given them and their place in a greater whole. They must accept the bounds drawn for them, because relationship always includes limitation. To be in relationship in, inescapably, to yield and let go of control.
There is something attractive to us in "selfhood"—that radical freedom and Right and independence. But it comes with a cost. The self can never enter true relationships; it remains forever bounded from the Other, protecting its precious freedom.
To be a soul comes at the price of self-definition and independence; but one gains intimacy, knowing and being known, harmonious engagement with the Other.
