Session I: The Physical Mind CHALLENGES TO THEOLOGY LLUIS OVIEDO Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT) U.P. Antonianum, Rome (Italy) The scientifically attested assumption that the human mind has a physical substrate carries many consequences for the theological understanding of human beings and the fundamentals of religious experience. Even if the research program looking for a reduction of all mental functions to neurological processes is still far from completed, the steps already taken point to a need to reconsider several traditional views in Christian anthropology. A brief list of what needs to be reconsidered includes at least the following issues: • The sustainability of the traditional dualism held by Christian thought that assumes the existence of a spiritual dimension – the soul – in every human person. • The relationship between the immortal soul and the mind. • The theological validity of emergence theories as the best explanation for the origin and development of mind and consciousness. • The plausibility of a complete reduction of consciousness to sheer neurological processes and their functions and the theological relevance of the current discussion in this field. • The tenability of traditional theological and humanistic principles such as free will, love, will, reason, conscience, etc. • Concerns at the moral and spiritual level, since a materialistic reduction of the mind could bring a deep reshaping of most of our current moral format. • The heuristic value of methodological reductionism when trying to come to terms with more complex levels of reality, such as human subjectivity, behaviour, beliefs, and cultural phenomena. These issues need to be better understood and their consequences need to be thought through for Christian Anthropology in order to promote a better dialogue and understanding between science and theology; or at least to clarify what is at stake when we deal with the developments in the study of «the physical mind». The following analysis offers a first attempt in this necessary task. In this short presentation only some of the points, perhaps the most pressing, will receive attention. The main issues at stake are clearly the ones related to dualism and the consequences of its suggested overcoming. FACING DUALISM IN SCIENTIFIC AND THEOLOGICAL TERMS When the mind is taken as an essentially physical phenomenon, the first victim of such a move is traditional dualism, or the assumption that human © PENSAMIENTO, ISSN 0031-4749 PENSAMIENTO, vol. 67 (2011), núm. 254, pp. 595-604