Using theologian Karl Rahner’s understanding of the human soul as the capacity for the infinite, the concept of particle-wave complementarity in quantum physics gives us an analogy for thinking about the soul.  The soul is our wave of potential which is collapsed in our embodiment, the particle equivalent of that complementarity.  As quantum physics has further taught us, however, entangled particles do not operate as individuals.  They operate as a system.  While a particle that is measured has definitive properties, we know that those particles do not have properties apart from the whole.  Thus analogically, we can talk of the infinite potential we call soul as being limited by the inherent relationality of our existence.  We are not individuals apart from a larger system to which we belong.  This paper will explore these aspects of a quantum anthropology of the human soul.

So much rhetoric around each human soul being created individually by God has to do with the concern of making humanity singular among creation.   First, if God is part of the ongoing creation, the choices of God creating each soul uniquely and individually, and the soul being an evolving or emergent property of that creation need not be mutually exclusive.  God can create in and through evolution and emergence.  Second, when we begin to see our embodied souls/ensouled bodies as part of an interconnected system, and perhaps as part of creation’s ability to observe and reflect on itself, the perceived threat of a “natural” explanation for the soul lessens.  In this model, God creates a universe that becomes conscious, and thus able to respond to God’s offer of self-communication, i.e., grace.  In such a model, some form of soul as creation’s capacity for God is part of the plan for creation as a whole.  If creation is for the sake of God’s self-communication, then we can think of creation as a whole system that is created for relationship with God.  The soul is a function within that system that enables the system in and through human persons to respond to God’s self-communication.  Are humans the only way the system becomes conscious and capable of response?  We do not know, but there could be other ways in the vastness of the cosmos through which the system responds to God that are not yet known or cannot be known by us, but those other potentialities need not threaten our unique, individual relationship with God.  Biblical narratives are full of stories of God choosing that which is insignificant and small.  We can be chosen by God and still be cosmically insignificant.  We are not chosen by God because we are significant; we are significant because we are chosen by God.

Heidi Russell, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Pastoral Studies of Loyola University Chicago.  She received her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Marquette University and her M.Div./M.A. from Washington Theological Union.  Her areas of research include Christian anthropology, Christology, Trinitarian theology, and a special interest in the relationship between science and theology, specifically in the fields of neuroscience and quantum physics.  She is the author of Source of All Love: Trinity and Catholicity, as well as Quantum Shift: Theological and Pastoral Implications of Contemporary Developments in Science and The Heart of Rahner. She has published articles in Theological Studies, Horizons, Science and Theology, Buddhist Christian Studies and Philosophy and Theology.