Philosophy, Faith and Phantom: Loyola Professors Explain Ghosts 

Ghosts are naturally elusive in their wispy forms and transcendent configurations. Some fear their vengeful interruptions, others call on them for advice while few can escape their cartoonish appearance in Halloween decorations littering front lawns. 

Loyola professors discussed the ideologies and traditions that have shaped interactions between the spiritual and earthly realms throughout history. 

Father James Murphy, an associate professor of philosophy, pointed to ancient Greek philosophies about the disembodied soul as a foundation for ghost concepts throughout history.

“There are things in us that are nourished by nonphysical things — ideas, culture, music, art, knowledge, science, that kind of stuff,” Murphy said. “If there’s something in us that’s nourished by those things, well then that thing, whatever it is in us, must also be immortal.” 

Associate Professor of history Theresa Gross-Diaz said contemporary understandings of ghosts are shaped by ancient Greco-Roman, Germanic and Celtic beliefs combined with medieval Christian theology.

When Pope Gregory I wrote tales of disembodied spirits at the turn of the seventh century, he broke early Christian tradition by not denying a bridge between the living and the dead, according to Gross-Diaz. These ghost stories introduced ideas about the afterlife, resurrection, sin, guilt and karmic debt to the masses.

“He starts using ghost stories, in a sense, in a way, to argue that the dead are still suffering for their sins,” Gross-Diaz said. “They’re communicating with the living so that the living can then support the dead and pray for them, so that everybody lives happily ever after in the afterlife.”

Tanya Stabler Miller, assistant professor of history, said the medieval teachings of religious elites became a powerful pastoral device. The ghost stories reflected church leaders’s motivations to guide people to a theologically-centered life where reverence could redeem souls in purgatory and lighten karmic debt.

“Medieval thinkers began to talk about ghosts as these spirits who come back to the living and ask for things, like restitution for sins they left unrepented, or things they left undone on Earth,” Stabler Miller said. “They’re promoting this belief in Purgatory, and this obligation of the living to do things for the dead to get them out of Purgatory and fix things beyond the grave.”

The terror associated with the supernatural is rooted in early Christianity’s tendency to “rebrand” pagan deities as demonic forces, according to Stabler Miller. She said this fear of demons, coupled with the notion of purgatory, led to widespread belief in paranormal forces that could interrupt life on Earth.

Associate Professor of philosophy Joseph Vukov said Catholics like himself have more diverse ideas about the supernatural today.

“I have an idea of the human person as being much more embodied,” Vukov said. “If you don’t have your body, it’s not fully you anymore. There might be sort of some immaterial part of you that survives your bodily death, and that could be a ghost, but then it’s not going to be completely you because your body is such an important part of who you are.”

Still, Vukov said the supernatural is a key facet of Catholic belief. Marian apparitions, Satan and guardian angels appear in Christian theology but evade scientific radars, according to Vukov. 

“I’m actually kind of skeptical that the sciences would ever give us definitive proof of ghosts or the spiritual or angels or demons,” Vukov said. “It’s not because they’re not out there, but because it’s built into the sciences that they’re looking at natural things and not supernatural things.”

While religion aims to explain the mysteries of the afterlife, metaphysics — the study of being and the ultimate nature of reality — does the same in a secular way.

Philosophy Professor Andrew Cutrofello said Immanuel Kant’s speculations on disembodied souls informed his view of metaphysics.

The rational tradition Kant trained under attempted to prove spiritual substances of the immaterial. Kant’s suspicions these substances could communicate with living beings scared him, so he decided metaphysics must be set up as a critique of the limits of reason, Cutrofello said.

“One place where questions about things like ghosts might come into play is where there’s maybe a gap between what science can tell us about the world and what metaphysics tries to think,” Cutrofello said.

Logical positivist philosophers in the 20th century considered these metaphysical musings ridiculous, according to Cutrofello. 

“A number of analytic philosophers would often talk about how when they tried to explain the world, they tried to explain it in a naturalistic way without any appeals to spooky stuff,” Cutrofello said. “‘Spooky stuff’ became a phrase. It became like a badge of honor not to believe in ‘spooky stuff.’”

Gross-Diaz and Stabler Miller argue science and the supernatural had more overlap than separation during the medieval period. The term science was obscured by the intersection of medicine, academic study and religion.

While analytic philosophical tradition grew more receptive to metaphysics, Cutrofello said its lasting skepticism appears in current rhetoric surrounding ghosts. 

Medieval ghost stories aren’t as horrific as the gloomy perceptions of the so-called Dark Ages suggest, Gross-Diaz said. Many tales, like those written by the monk of Byland Abbey, describe souls in Purgatory who returned to the realm of the living to ask for prayers and right past wrongs. In these stories, even the most wretched sinners can achieve absolution.

“I’m just impressed with how optimistic it all is,” Gross-Diaz said. “The reason they’re coming back to ask for help is because they can get help, and they know they can get help, and that means that there’s not going to be a lot of people in hell at the end of time, according to this.”

Ghosts represent remembrance of the past — an honorable practice encouraged by various religions and spiritual traditions, according to Murphy.

“Keep them in mind, bring them to mind,” Murphy said. “For all we know, they are alive, and it might matter a great deal to them that we remember them and haven’t forgotten them.”

Cutrofello said he suggests a similarly reverent approach to ghost interaction. He pointed to William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” for insight. 

“And therefore, as a stranger, give it welcome,” Prince Hamlet says to a frightened Horatio. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

This article was edited Oct. 30.