John Rittenhouse, Adjunct Professor of Christian Apologetics at Bila University in Los Angeles, spoke yesterday on the true nature of human beings at a Veritas forum lecture, a series sponsored by various campus ministries.
Rittenhouse focused his discussion of the broad questions of what it means to be human. Prominent questions featured included: Are human beings simply material objects; is there an immaterial part of being human; is science the best or only discipline by which to gain truth?
"I don't claim to be an incredible expert on the subject, but I have read and studied with experts," Rittenhouse said.
Rittenhouse launched into his investigation by saying that science and its related disciplines are not the only sources of knowledge in the world, dealing instead with cause and effects actions in the material universe.
Rittenhouse went on to question our senses and their role in understanding reality.
"How do you know that [the digital read-out] in the lab is real? How do you know your eyes are accurately seeing that? All of those things I've just mentioned are all philosophical paradigms," Rittenhouse said.
After laying this groundwork of skepticism, Rittenhouse described the two major views of human beings, physicalism and dualism. Physicalism was described as viewing the body as a physical substance, while dualism sees the body as both material and non-material substance, what is commonly called a soul.
Rittenhouse defended his adherence to the view of dualism, citing examples of non-physical objects such as reasons, propositions, thoughts, laws of logic, numbers and information.
"The idea that science captures everything, except the center of everyone's universe, his own consciousness, makes a laughingstock of its claims to present a plausible world view," Rittenhouse said.
After Rittenhouse's presentation Professor Thomas Coarson, physician and faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, led a portion of the Veritas Forum where undergraduates, graduates and members of the Charles Village community asked questions to Rittenhouse about his views on various philosophical, theological and scientific topics.
A question often raised by Hopkins students was science's role in Christianity. Many undergraduates in attendance were science majors and pre-meds who wondered how their faith coexists with the studies of chemistry, physics, biology and so forth. A student asked if science plays any role in understanding the interlinking connection between a person's thoughts and soul.
"Substantive dualism can register brain activity through MRI scans and other things. So yes, I do think there's a connection between the brain activity we see and our thoughts and our soul. Science can actually tell us a great deal about this connection," Rittenhouse said.
Members of the community asked for Rittenhouse's opinion on controversial subjects such as pulling life support on a brain-dead person and the moral ramifications of such an action in conjunction with the philosophy of substantive dualism. Rittenhouse had a difficult time deciding on a right course of action.
"The question is if the soul is still in the body when the person is brain-dead, such as people in vegetative states. It's not right to withhold basic needs such as food, water and oxygen. It's not right to starve or dehydrate someone to death. Is it morally obligatory to do everything you can to provide those basic needs, even if that person is in a vegetative state (brain-dead)? If a person is not hooked up in a machine and needs that support, it's a difficult question, and I particularly don't know how to answer it and I hope I never have to face such a situation," Rittenhouse said.
Though the Veritas forum attempted to provide a place for both theists and skeptics to explore and discuss life's hardest questions together, some students thought the forum was very biased and one-sided. It was originally planned that a Hopkins professor would come speak at the Veritas forum in support of physicalism in contrast to substantive dualism but the professor dropped out due to schedule conflicts.
"I was disappointed and I thought it was going to be a scholarly debate kind of thing but it just ended up being a lecture," sophomore Will Choi, a member of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, said.
Many students complained about the illogical reasoning of Rittenhouse's argument.
"I was really disappointed by his defense of substance dualism because there was a definite religion bias in his presentation. It was especially shown when the end of the presentation was called 'New Testament data' after admitting that the Bible is a literary work. It seems ridiculous and demeaning to call stories from the New Testament 'evidence' for his campaign that there is more to truth than science. If you want to appeal to sources of truth besides science, please at least appeal to reason and not fictional testimony," sophomore Shane SteinertThrelkeld said.
Nonetheless, students and community residents appreciate the increase of open dialogue on the Homewood campus.
"I consider myself a religious person, and I find I come to the same conclusions as Mr. Rittenhouse regarding non-material human existence. I was impressed with the beginning of his lecture where he asserted that a scientific look into human existence alone is inadequate," sophomore David Rezzo, treasurer of the Catholic Community at Hopkins, said.
