The Task of Theological Humanism
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We now present an elementary model of a fundamental property of consciousness with all the epistemic humility that informs the true spirit of modeling. A fundamental property of consciousness is embodied freedomAn Elementary Model of Consciousness. Let us
examine the elements of the model.otherness in self. By “irreducible” we mean that consciousness, in its sub-jective and qualitative dimensions, remains an anomaly for the materialist The first element is the irreducible capacity for awareness and so presence of
view of the world, even with the advent of neuroscience. The immediacy of first-person experience is not a sensibly observable neuronal process, but an “inner life” that accompanies activities of consciousness. This “inner life” is constituted by an awareness of “what it is like to be” a conscious
organism.which recedes behind the effort to objectify it and thus systematically eludes objectification.This irreducible capacity for awareness manifests itself as a complex^19 Any attempt to objectify inner life misses the phenomenon,
potency or power-to-be in actualizing possibilities in life. In human beings, this capacity for awareness assumes the forms of feeling, acting, and thinking at the different levels of consciousness. Immediate consciousness, or aware-ness, is a capacity to make spontaneous selections in perceiving and respond-
ing to “mental look” toward selected contents, immediate consciousness makes choices among possible alternatives.capacity to deliberate and to choose among multiple possible goods within this rather than that in a complex perceptual field. In directing its (^20) Reflective consciousness has the
the natural and social worlds. The reflexive power of consciousness expresses itself as the embodied freedom in the thickest sense while contemplating different approaches to resolving conflicts among competing goods and to envision a path along which life’s goods may be integrated around the
integrity of life.in a material system. In the human case, consciousness is embodied in the complexity of the human organism with its highly developed nervous system The second element is the embodiment. Consciousness is always embodied
and brain. The human organism is embodied in the infinite set of worldly interdependencies on which it is dependent for its basic goods of nourish-ment, clothing, and shelter from the elements. The operative causality of the entire embodied sphere is natural causality – the inviolable laws of the
natural world.diment, freedom and nature. This relationship is The third element is the connection between consciousness and embo interconnectedness or -