What are we? Collective neuroscience, metaphysics, and theology

Abstract Human beings are a highly social species, and there are neural systems that have a role in enabling human beings to function as the social animals they are. They connect people into smaller or larger social groups; and at least some of these groups have a unity that lets the united human beings function as one. That this is so has implications for an array of philosophical and theological issues, including the notion of a people, the concomitant notions of a people’s communal guilt and communal shame, the notion of the church as the body of Christ, the understanding of human perfection as a likeness to a triune God, and many other such issues. What is required to elucidate these issues is a metaphysics that can explain the nature of a united something-or-other that includes human persons as constituents. This article explores these issues and outlines the nature of the needed metaphysics.