HAND IN GLOVE: EVALUATING THE FIT BETWEEN METHOD AND THEOLOGY IN VAN HUYSSTEEN'S INTERPRETATION OF HUMAN UNIQUENESS

Wentzel van Huyssteen's Alone in the World? (2006) presents an interpretation of human uniqueness in the form of a dialogue between classical Christian theological affirmations and cutting‐edge scientific understandings of the human and animal worlds. The sheer amount of information from different thinkers and fields that van Huyssteen absorbs and integrates makes this book extraordinary and, indeed, very rich as a work of interdisciplinary theology. The book commands respect and deserves close attention. In this essay I evaluate van Huyssteen's proposal as well as the method he uses to produce it. Special attention is given to the concept of embodiment. Van Huyssteen's concept of embodiment is substantially correct in most respects and largely consistent with the scientific and theological pictures of human nature. In a few respects, however, his interpretation of the bodily character of human life appears to be insufficiently thoroughgoing relative to our best contemporary knowledge of human nature from the natural sciences.     

An empirical study of psychology and logic. Abduction and belief as normalizing habits of positive expectation

This research supports the value of psychology for the study of abduction, and the value of abduction for better understanding psychological meaning-making. More specifically, we argue that the logical structure of abduction is supported by psychological processes, namely, surprise, the psychological normalization of that surprise by a proposed explanatory hypothesis, and the projection of that hypothesis as a normalizing, interpretive lens onto related subsequent experiences. We examine how abduction can be better understood by taking into consideration what Peirce called belief, an understanding of belief that in effect reflects the psychological aspects of abduction. We also examine how abduction helps identify a line of reasoning that people follow with or without their explicit knowledge. The empirical study involves a series of semi-structured interviews focusing on the genesis of perceived loneliness and solitude as normalizing habits of positive expectation from the situation of being alone.