A Surprising Closeness in Latin American Academia: Luther and Certain Neurosciences

The purpose of this paper is to show a surprising coincidence between Lutheran Protestantism and physicalist neurosciences regarding the negation of free will and how this issue can begin to be studied in Latin American academia. The current advance of Protestantism in Latin America, accompanied by...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Martínez-Barrera, Jorge (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: De Gruyter 2018
In: Open theology
Year: 2018, Volume: 4, Issue: 1, Pages: 677-684
Further subjects:B Free Will
B Lutheran Protestantism
B Physicalism
B Metaphysics
B Nominalism
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
Volltext (kostenfrei)
Description
Summary:The purpose of this paper is to show a surprising coincidence between Lutheran Protestantism and physicalist neurosciences regarding the negation of free will and how this issue can begin to be studied in Latin American academia. The current advance of Protestantism in Latin America, accompanied by a decline in Catholicism, is simultaneous with a growing presence of the physicalist neurosciences. It can be seen that the development of Protestantism and neurosciences coincide historically in Latin America, unlike what happened in other parts of the world, where Protestantism has a much more extensive history. This allows us to suppose that the discussion on free will will be installed as a matter of research and discussion in the Latin American academia, which had not happened until now. In this work we also seek to identify what could be the common element that unites the Lutheran conception and the arguments of the physicalist neurosciences about the negation of free will. We will show that this common element is the aversion to metaphysics as an explanatory dimension of free will. The strong opposition to metaphysics is probably the most important common element between Lutheran Protestantism and the physicalistic neurosciences. This will allow us to show that the proximity between the two is not such an extravagant idea.
ISSN:2300-6579
Contains:Enthalten in: Open theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1515/opth-2018-0051