An Apophaticism of the Human

Many of the contributors to the »After Science and Religion« project suggest that the methodological naturalism of scientific practice inevitably entails metaphysical naturalism. Ironically, these authors agree with Christian physicalists, members of the science & religion field, who maintain that the successes of neuroscience render the soul obsolete. This paper offers a theological interpretation of the successes of neuroscience that draws on both the theory of the incomprehensibility of the human being developed by Gregory of Nyssa and recent work in the philosophy of scientific models. This reinterpretation of neuroscientific success allows theologians to value neuroscientific models that rely on the mind-brain identity thesis without dismissing traditional beliefs in a separable soul. This paper models a more local approach to 'Science and Religion' that focuses on particular concerns (physicalism) arising from particular sciences (the brain sciences) in the context of a particular theological tradition (Eastern Orthodoxy).