Re-Animated Soul Dialogue, Part 1

My brother Marcus, who is also a novelist, helped me rewrite one of my previously posted Soul Dialogues to make it funnier and more interesting. Since this blog most often takes up themes in religion and science, the topic of the soul fits right in. What is the soul? Is it something science can study? Is it a specifically religious concept? And what am I doing talking to my imaginary friend Dan? 
Questions to ponder...
I submit to you the first part.

GSC:  Dan? You there?

Dan (Imaginary Friend): Yeah, Greg.  Right here.  Always here. What’s up?

GSC:  Walking and philosophizing.

Dan:  Can’t say no to that.  In fact, I can’t say no to anything you ask me.  What do you want to talk about?

GSC:  The soul. 

Dan:  Right on.

GSC:  And Aristotle.

Dan:  That was my next guess. Can we get lunch too?

GSC:  Sure. My treat.  You never eat very much.

Dan: That probably explains why I’m always hungry. And incorporeal. Let me just put on my imaginary kicks and we’re off. 

Greg and Dan hit the streets of downtown Chico. Only Greg is visible to other humans.

Dan: So, the soul, huh?  What’ve you got?

GSC: Let’s start with Webster’s definition.

Dan: Love Webster.  What’s it say?

GSC: That the soul, my imaginary friend –

Dan: Dan.

GSC: Dan. Is (according to Webster’s) “the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life.”

Dan: And you agree?

GSC: Yes, let’s at least start there. But I also have a thesis.

Dan: Okay, lay it on me.

GSC: What Webster says is fine, but in order to have our souls become fully alive, we need to reconcile the inputs of our hearts and minds. Or as Jesus phrased it, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” This is happiness. This is the essence of Christian spirituality.

Dan: I’m with you on that, of course, but why do you care?

GSC: Well, here’s the thing.I know I’m not always emotionally “up,” and that if I rely on my feelings it’s shaky ground. It’s what disappoints me with “spirituality” today in the U.S. Too much emphasis on feeling and excitement. It’s like we all have to be amped up and happy to be spiritually whole and integrated. 
Dan: This just a feeling you have?
GSC: Very funny. But no, not at all. It’s from research, my friend. I’ve just finished a book about the history of religion and science in our country. And I’ve found that as a people, we’ve done much better when we’ve put together our strong thread of rationality alongside our deep search for spirituality. 

Dan: Didn’t the Harvard scientist and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead say something like that in 1925? 

GSC: In fact he did! You are way inside my head. 

Dan: True. But I’m stealing your lines. You go. It is your blog.

GSC: Alright. Thanks. He thought that, to some degree, the future of our civilization depended on how effectively we were able to relate science and religion, particularly “the force of our religious intuitions, and the force of our impulse to accurate observation and logical deduction.” 

Dan: Almost a hundred years ago. What a thinker. And you?

GSC: I’m with him. In my own pastoral and professorial experience: people too often divide themselves between head and heart. So it’s also what makes sense in the church, as well.
[End of part one]